Work Ethic: analysis of differences between four generational cohorts

Abstract

Las organizaciones enfrentan el reto de gestionar una fuerza laboral multigeneracional con características propias que difieren en el valor que le otorgan al trabajo. La incorporación al mercado laboral de las generaciones más jóvenes hace imprescindible el estudio de sus diferentes actitudes hacia el trabajo en comparación con las generaciones antecesoras. El propósito de la investigación fue analizar a través del constructo de la ética protestante las diferencias existentes en las actitudes hacia el trabajo de cuatro generaciones (Baby Boomers, Generación X, Generación Y, y Generación Z).
 La muestra de 624 participantes ecuatorianos (BB 11.2%; GX 11.2%, GY 58.5% y GZ 19.1%) se agrupó por cohortes. Se aplicó el Cuestionario Multidimensional Ética del Trabajo (MWEP). Los resultados mostraron que los BB y la GX tiene una mayor creencia en la importancia del trabajo y más tolerancia a la utilización improductiva del tiempo de trabajo que las generaciones Y y Z. En el aplazamiento de las recompensas la GZ muestra puntuaciones superiores a las obtenidas por los BB, GX y GY. No se encuentran diferencias significativas en las dimensiones de autoconfianza, ocio y moralidad-ética. Enterprises face the challenge of managing a multigenerational workforce which has its characteristics that differ in the value they grant to work. Incorporation of younger generations into the labour market requires to study all their attitudes towards work, contrasting them with previous generations. The purpose of this research was to analyse, through the Protestant Ethic construct, the differences of four age groups in attitudes towards work (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z).
 Cohorts grouped the sample of 624 Ecuadorians (BB 11.2%; Gen X 11.2%, Gen Y 58.5% and Gen Z 19.1%). The Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile (MWEP) was applied. The results showed that BB and Gen X believe more in the importance of work than generations Y and Z. At the same time, BB and Gen X are more tolerant to the unproductive use of time than generations Y and Z. Gen Z has higher scores than BB, Gen X and Gen Y in the postponement of rewards dimension. Besides, there are no meaningful differences in self-reliance, leisure and morality/ethics dimensions.

The Relationship of Intergenerational Perceptions of Work Ethics and Workplace Deviation Behaviors in Academic Staff

“…When AEV is considered as the main variable, this situation coincides with the results of Despite the finding that AEV do not differ between generations, as stated in the conceptual framework, the fact that the case is mostly handled under the name of scientific ethics in the literature and the intergenerational differences in AEVR, which is the sub-dimension, made it possible to examine the finding under the name of scientific ethics. The intergenerational variation of AEVR was found in the study of Smola and Sutton (2002) [84] and Meriac et al's (2010) study [60] in terms of intergenerational differences in business ethics, in Ortega et al's (2019) study [65], between baby boomers GenX, GenY and GenZ, and Stevanin et al's (2020) finding a difference in the sub-dimensions of work ethics between the baby boomers, GenX and GenY are examples of how the difference can be detected in its sub-dimensions [90]. The difference in this study is that the silent generation has less ethical values than the baby boomers GenX and GenY in terms of the relevant sub-dimension is consistent with [21] stating that the silent generation gives less importance to work ethics than other generations.…”

Values That Work: Exploring the Moderator Role of Protestant Work Ethics in the Relationship between Human Resources Practices and Work Engagement and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

“…PWE. PWE measurement was carried out through a reduced version of the Ecuadorian adaptation of the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile (MWEP; Meriac et al 2013) developed by Zúñiga et al (2019). The scale has 28 items distributed equally in the seven dimensions.…”

“…An example of an item on the scale is "A hard day's work gives me a feeling of accomplishment." The reliability of the dimensions (Zúñiga et al 2019) is adequate, receiving the following: delay of gratification (α = 0.777; ω = 0.786), hard work (α = 0.813; ω = 0.820), self-reliance (α = 0.676; ω = 0.679), moralityethics (α = 0.578; ω = 0.585), leisure (α = 0.712; ω = 0.715), centrality of work (α = 0.621; ω = 0.647) and wasted time (α = 0.596; ω = 0.642).…”

Examining Work Ethic Across Latam Populations: Differences Between Ecuadorian and Chilean Workers

“…Diverse studies expose differences among generational cohorts regarding the work ethic dimensions (Zúñiga et al, 2019). Millennials or Generation "Y" are different from Generation "X" and Baby Boomers regarding Leisure, Hard Work, and Delay of Gratification; on the contrary, evidence has found that there are no intergenerational differences between members of the same family regarding PWE (James et al, 2020).…”

“…In terms of the instrument in Spanish (Woehr et al, 2007), before its application, a semantic-idiomatic review was carried out, with only minor modifications made in Ecuador (Zúñiga et al, 2019), while in Chile it was verified that all the words used were known and used daily by the sample because there were no changes. For data collection, all participants signed the respective informed consent form.…”