Personalia
Hannes Zacher, born in 1979, Göttingen, Germany. Ph.D. from the University of Giessen. Associate Professor of Organizational Psychology at the University of Groningen.
Theme Group Fellow (June 2016)
Motivation to continue working after retirement: The role of I-deals
Research Question
What can older workers do to improve their fit with their work environment, and does an increased person-environment fit positively impact on older workers’ motivation to continue working after retirement?
Project Description
To what extent is productive behavior the result of active planning and agency by older adults? Previous research has focused on relatively stable and “passive” person characteristics as well as context factors as predictors of older workers’ motivation to continue working. I aim to extend this line of research by examining lagged effects of older workers’ use of idiosyncratic deals (I-deals) at work on motivation to continue working. I-deals involve unique arrangements between an employee and his or her supervisor to ensure the employee’s growth and development at work. I expect that I-deals positively impact on older workers’ motivation to continue working, and that this positive effect is further enhanced by certain individual (e.g., work centrality) and contextual characteristics (e.g., job autonomy).
Selected Publications
1) Zacher, H. (2015). Successful aging at work. Work, Aging and Retirement, 1(1), 4-25.
2) Zacher, H., Jimmieson, N. L., & Bordia, P. (2014). Time pressure and coworker support mediate the curvilinear relationship between age and occupational well-being. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19(4), 462-475.
3) Zacher, H. & Gielnik, M. M. (2014). Organizational age cultures: The interplay of chief executive officers’ age and attitudes toward younger and older employees. International Small Business Journal, 32(3), 327-349.