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This study aims to examine the role that four distinct bundles (developmental, utilisation, maintenance and accommodative) of HRM practices play in enhancing work engagement among chronically ill employees, and to analyse whether perceptions of discrimination on the grounds of illness can affect these relationships.

The data were collected through a quantitative survey using a sample of 669 chronically ill employees of a major Italian company.

This study's findings confirm the importance of discerning between positive, insignificant and negative effects of distinct HR bundles on chronically ill employees' work engagement. Furthermore, this study's results suggest that the positive effect of utilisation practices (i.e. practices aimed at enabling employees to make full use of existing, but not yet necessarily utilised, individual resources) on engagement is greater when chronically ill employees perceive a discrimination-free work environment.

This study's findings confirm the importance of discerning between positive, no, and negative effects of distinct HR bundles on chronically ill employees' work engagement. Furthermore, this study's results suggest that the positive effect of utilisation practices (i.e. practices aimed at enabling employees to make full use of existing but not necessarily applied individual resources) on engagement is greater when chronically ill employees perceive a discrimination-free work environment.

The study highlights those HR bundles that have the capacity to positively affect the work engagement of chronically ill employees, a minority group rarely considered in HRM studies. Furthermore, the research identifies perceived discrimination on the grounds of illness as a contextual condition that may hinder the otherwise positive effect of HRM practices on the engagement of workers suffering from a chronic illness.

The age diversity climate construct is gaining greater attention in the organizational literature due to the demographic changes in the workplace. While the few existing studies on age diversity climate (ADC) are rather encouraging, this construct is still at an early stage of conceptual and operational development. This chapter helps to advance this field of research by analyzing the conceptual issues stemming from the theoretical definition and empirical measurement of the ADC construct. We first review and compare ADC with other age-focused climate concepts, highlighting overlapping and diverging factors regarding their conceptual framework and operationalization. Subsequently, we consider several open issues related to the operationalization of ADC, including the level of analysis, the choice of referent, and the dimensions of analysis. We conclude the chapter by outlining possibilities for future research on ADC.

Important demographic changes are causing organizations and teams to become increasingly age-diverse. Because knowledge sharing is critical to organizations’ long-term sustainability and success, both researchers and practitioners face a strategic dilemma: namely, finding ways to cultivate greater knowledge sharing among different age cohorts.

In this chapter, we claim that age diversity adds relevant opportunities and distinct challenges. On one hand, it increases demands for effective knowledge sharing: Employees of different ages are likely to hold diverse knowledge and capabilities that may be lost and/or poorly exploited if they are not effectively shared. On the other hand, age differences can activate age-related stereotypes and foster the formation of age subgroups, which can hamper social integration, communication, and ultimately, knowledge sharing.

Building on these insights, this chapter looks at the role of the human resource management (HRM) system as a key facilitator of effective knowledge sharing in age-diverse organizations. To this end, the chapter focuses on HR planning, training and development, performance appraisal, and reward systems, each of which can be used to develop the motivations, norms, and accountability structures that encourage employees of different ages to bridge their differences and integrate their unique perspectives and knowledge. This chapter suggests ways of tailoring HRM practices to unlock the benefits of age diversity, which may help organizations exploit and capitalize on the knowledge-based resources held by their younger and older employees.

Drawing on social exchange theory, prior research suggests that the adoption of human resources (HR) practices in the areas of training and development helps to maximize employees’ positive work attitudes. However, while research has generally assumed that HR practices influence all employees in the same way, there is much evidence that employees’ motives and needs change with age, suggesting that older workers may react differently to the same HR practices as compared to younger colleagues. This study seeks to shed light on this important and under-explored issue, analyzing whether the effect of HR development practices on job satisfaction (JS) and affective commitment is moderated by age in a sample of 37 companies located in Italy, involving a total of 6,182 employees. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Applying a multilevel approach, the results confirm a positive influence of HR development practices in increasing JS and affective commitment and show that this positive relationship weakens with age.

Indeed, HR development practices were associated with lower JS and affective commitment for the oldest employees. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed suggesting the need to attribute greater consideration to age diversity when tailoring HR practices to improve their effect on employees’ positive work attitudes.

At the theoretical level, the paper contributes to the HRM literature debate, as the role of intervening variables – such as age – in the relationship between HR practices and employees’ attitudes is still an open issue. At the methodological level, the paper tested the hypotheses using a multilevel regression model. The paper combined data at individual and the organizational levels and adopted a multilevel approach in order to provide a better understanding of the way age can moderate the HRM-employee attitudes relationship.