Age-Diverse Workplace Friendship: A Systematic Literature Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Abstract

Friendship may help to bridge differences between people, such as between age-diverse employees. Oftentimes, age diversity in employee interactions cultivates interpersonal tensions. Age-diverse workplace friendship - a relationship between coworkers of different ages, who like each other and who are engaged in a balanced social exchange - may help to overcome these interpersonal tensions because having something in common can de-escalate age-related difficulties and reduce negative feelings between diverse individuals. Despite the relevance of the topic, literature focusing on age-diverse workplace friendship is rare. To address this gap and direct future research, we aim to integrate research on related topics such as workplace friendship and (age) diversity at work into a systematic literature review. Concentrating primarily on the formation and maintenance of age-diverse workplace friendship, we identified similarity-attraction theory, social identity theory, and socioemotional selectivity theory as the three dominant theories referenced in the literature and utilize them to embed and connect our findings into existing theory. More specifically, we review and summarize the findings of our systematic literature review into an integrated framework depicting the antecedents, formation and maintenance processes, and outcomes of age-diverse workplace friendship. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and point out directions for future research.