EMPLOYEE AGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF WORK IN SELF-MANAGING AND TRADITIONALWORK GROUPS

Self-managing work groups are a form of work design in which employees take responsibility for the group's tasks and have discretion over de cisions which impact group performance. To explore the impact of age a nd work teams on job attitudes, data from 477 employees suggested that self-managed work group members differed from traditional job holders regarding perceived general job satisfaction, perceived control by su pervisors, as well as a number of specific dimensions of the work envi ronment. Moreover, while there was evidence of an age effect on attitu des toward supervisory control, there was no joint effect of age by wo rk design on job attitudes, i.e., one's perceived general job satisfac tion. Older employees who were members of self-managed work groups wer e however, more impacted by this form of work design in reporting more positive perceptions of their access to information essential to the performance of their work. These findings suggest that an ''older'' wo rk force should not be considered a barrier to implementing a work tea ms approach to job design.