Page 238 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

9. ACE DISCRIMINATION
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and development opportunities (Cleveland & Shore, 1992; Ferris, Judge,
Chachere, & Liden, 1991).
Whereas Lawrence's (1984,1987,1988) work focused on the work group
as a referent, Shore et al. (2003) argued that it is likely that the presence of a
young manager may contribute to the perception of an older employee as
being behind time. When employees are older than their managers, they
may perceive that their situation violates the career timetable associated
with managerial positions (Perry, Kulik, & Zhou, 1999). However, Perry
et al.'s study (1999) found little support for the impact of employee age
relative to the manager on self-rated citizenship, self-rated work change,
and absenteeism. In contrast, Shore et al. (2003) found some support: (a) the
fewest development opportunities were reported when the employee was
older and the manager was younger, and (b) older employees with younger
managers received the lowest potential and promotability ratings. Further­
more, Tsui, Porter, & Egan (2002) found that subordinates who were older
than their supervisors were rated lower on performance than employees
who were younger than or similar in age to the supervisor. These stud­
ies suggest that employees who are older than their managers may receive
lower performance ratings and fewer career-enhancing opportunities than
employees who are younger than their managers, because the former sit­
uation represents a violation of age norms.
Although there is support for the career timetable perspective, future re­
search should integrate more contextual information into these studies. In
particular, occupational and organizational norms should be examined. For
example, occupational norms may enhance opportunities for the young in
areas such as technology where rapid change favors those who are most re­
cently educated (usually younger people). Other occupations that require
knowledge and skill development that come primarily through experi­
ence may have norms that favor career opportunities for older workers.
Likewise, Lawrence's (1984, 1987, 1988) conceptualization argues for the
importance of organizational age norms, and subsequent research would
benefit from the incorporation of her ideas.

Prototype Matching

The prototype matching approach involves comparing an individual's age
relative to the age of the prototypical incumbent for a given job. Perry (1994,
1997) and Perry and Finkelstein (1999) suggested a cognitive matching pro­
cess in which greater matches between target age and job age prototype
result in more favorable selection outcomes and greater mismatches result
in less favorable selection outcomes. A number of studies suggest support
for the existence of job and occupational age prototypes. Perry and Bourhis