Cross-generational collaboration in the workplace : a study of millennial generation collaboration preferences in a government agency

Abstract

The collaboration style of the Millennial generation is shaped by their interactions and experiences, which influences the way they prefer to collaborate in professional interactions. This interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) study identified, through a focus on individual interviews, the collaboration preferences of the Millennial generation in their professional relationships. To better understand the experiences that shape the Millennial generation's interactions with coworkers, this research study focuses specifically on answering the research question: How do Millennials prefer to collaborate in the workplace? Two key tenets of Karl Mannheim's (1927) Theory of Generations is the theoretical framework for this research study. Mannheim's theory focuses on how external factors and experiences can shape the collective consciousness of a generation. The first and third tenets of Mannheim's theory are pillars of this study and provide a strong structure to develop how to conduct a research study with Millennials to gain an understanding of how their experiences shape their collaboration preferences. The first tenet outlines the specific characteristics of generations in society and argues that generations are not concrete groups formed solely through demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, or class. The third tenet suggests that fresh contacts, or individual and personally meaningful interactions with individuals, shape generational consciousness. The core of this study is on understanding how external factors shape the experiences of generations and subsequently impact their collaboration. The data gathered identified themes of this research study that resulted in three major findings related to how the Millennial generation prefers to collaborate in the workplace. The first finding is that the Millennial generation has an innate ability to adjust to the workplace to address conflict and create successful collaborative results with their colleagues. The second finding is that the Millennial generation values innovation in collaborative work with colleagues. The third finding is that the most important aspect of any collaborative experience is setting clear roles and expectations at the outset of a project. These findings may influence how organizations shape processes to ensure effective cross-generational collaboration.--Author's abstract

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 1 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.