Are work values different across the school to work transition? The Greek Europeanised generation

The concept of generational differences at work is one that has taken off with practitioners as a basis on which to design human resource management (HRM) and career management practices. However, research to date in this area has been criticised broadly for both its lack of conceptual development and its methodological approach. One criticism of both academic and practical approaches to generational diversity is the common reliance on the Western (mostly North American) generational groupings and lack of consideration of the impact of other contextual variables, such as national culture and institutions, on generational work values. This symposium builds upon discussions at previous Academy of Management Annual Meetings by considering the nature of generational cohorts and the characteristics of these cohorts across different national contexts. This symposium will present four papers that move away from the idea of generational groups being universal and consider generations outside of the Western world. Our first paper by Parry, Eggenhofer-Rehart, Chudzikowski, Unite and Shen compares conceptualizations of career success in three age cohorts across countries, before using generational, life-span and life-stage approaches to discuss the different patterns found in the four countries of the USA, China, Nigeria and Germany. Second, Papavasileiou and Stergiou examine work values in what they call the Greek “Europeanised&x201D; generation, building on previous work to identify generational groupings specific to Greece. Our third paper, by Peretz, Parry and Fried uses the interesting approach of social media data mining to examine generational differences in work values in Israel, Argentina, Russia and the USA. Finally, Arslantas and Urick compare the conceptualization of generations in the USA and Turkey. At the conclusion of these papers, the Chair will lead a discussion between the presenters and audience."