Mélia Djabi presented her paper “When organizational time shapes generational stereotypes. An in-depth qualitative case study of organizational generations”, co-authored with Laura Cottard and Sakura Shimada at EGOS.
Abstract: Based on an in-depth qualitative case study of a French railway company, the paper shows that the generational categories contrasting the ‘young’ and the ‘old’ reflect, above all, the recent transformations of the profession of train driver. Generational stereotypes highlight a struggle for the legitimate definition of the occupation and its value between different cohorts which have entered the organization at different periods (of the organizational time/life). By suggesting that the perceived generational differences in the workplace act as time markers of the organizational time, this paper contributes to the existing literature on generational studies and brings new managerial contributions in managing generational diversity in the workplace.