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Maintaining a focus on opportunities at work: The interplay between age, job complexity, and the use of selection, optimization, and compensation strategies
Author(s) -
Zacher Hannes,
Frese Michael
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/job.683
Subject(s) - compensation (psychology) , focus (optics) , selection (genetic algorithm) , work (physics) , psychology , computer science , social psychology , engineering , artificial intelligence , mechanical engineering , physics , optics
Abstract The concept of focus on opportunities describes how many new goals, options, and possibilities employees believe to have in their personal future at work. This study investigated the specific and shared effects of age, job complexity, and the use of successful aging strategies called selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) in predicting focus on opportunities. Results of data collected from 133 employees of one company (mean age = 38 years, SD = 13, range 16–65 years) showed that age was negatively, and job complexity and use of SOC strategies were positively related to focus on opportunities. In addition, older employees in high‐complexity jobs and older employees in low‐complexity jobs with high use of SOC strategies were better able to maintain a focus on opportunities than older employees in low‐complexity jobs with low use of SOC strategies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.