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Presentation in the symposium “European perspective on HRD”. ECER, Lisboa,
11.-15. September 2002.
Competence and learning in late career. European
perspectives on the management of motivation
Leif Chr. Lahn
Department of educational research.
University of Oslo1
Introduction
Over the next decades the predicted ageing of the labour force will be a major challenge
for policy makers and companies. Between 1995 and 2030 the average proportion of
workers aged from 45 to 59 years may rise from 27 to 33 per cent in the 15 EU-countries
(OECD Employment Outlook, 1998, pp. 123-126; Tikkanen, Lahn, Lyng, Ward &
Whitnall, 2001, pp. 4). In addition the level of education among older workers will rise
rapidly, and their skills should take on increasing relevance in a knowledge-intensive
economy.
The debate on late career has raged backwards and forwards during the last twenty-five
years. First, from labour market initiatives that encouraged early retirement to a policy of
“detainment” in the 1990s, when their burdening effects on pension schemes came to the
fore. Measures were taken in several European countries to “combat age barriers” in
working life (Walker, 2000) and to keep older people on the job and out of the social
security budgets. The last five years a shortage of expertise in many sectors have forced
actors in the labour market to promote a vision of late career as a productive phase. I have
called this focus a “policy of competence development”. Tikkanen, Valkevaara &
Lunde (1996) suggest that the field of HRM has been moving towards a more positive
view of older workers during the last 25 years. In general however these issues have not
attracted much attention in recent reviews of HRD and HRM (Brunstein, 1995; Brewster
& Holt Larsen, 2000).
This mismatch between a growing political interest in the field and low prestige among
researchers served as a motivating background for the 4th Framework project “Working
life changes and the training of older workers” (WORKTOW) with partners in the UK,
Finland and Norway – and associated activities in the Netherlands, Germany,
Switzerland, Sweden and Italy (Lahn, Thijssen, Tikkanen & van der Heijden, 1998).
Totally 27 small-and-medium sized companies participated in the empirical part of the
Draft. Please do not quote without author’s permission. Comments welcomed to e-mail-address:
[email protected],no
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study that included in-depth interviews, documentary analysis, questionnaire data (378
employees and 37 employers) and work shop observations. The major themes were
related to the participation of older workers in training and informal learning activities,
and to social and institutional factors that may influence this ”community of learners”
(Tikkanen, Lahn, Lyng, Ward & Whitnall, 2001). An important deliverable from the
project was a multidisciplinary literature review combined with theoretical explorations
that has helped me frame the following presentation. Needless to say I cannot do full
justice to the rich empirical material from the project, and my arguments here will have to
be substantiated by somewhat scattered evidence from the field. These data have been
processed and analysed by combining systematic interpretations of casuistic data and
theoretical elaborations of key relationships (Alvesson & Skiöldberg, 1994).
In my presentation I will first review research on age differences in job performance and
learning abilities. There is growing evidence against a unidimensional understanding of
late career – or the period from 55 years to 70 – as a declining one. Instead professional
expertise may undergo qualitative transformations in the course of time, and different
skills interact with the historical requirements of the “new work order” (Gee, Hull &
Lankshear, 1996). One of the paradoxes in modern working life is the rising problem of
early exit in many European countries on one hand and the potential attractiveness of
senior competence on the other. The still prevailing negative attitudes towards older
workers represent a mediating factor. Findings from the WORKTOW-project and other
studies suggest however that those perceptions vary along several dimensions and within
different contexts. Stereotypes about aging and learning abilities are deep-seated and
may have a detrimental influence on the readiness of senior employees to participate in
training or to commit themselves to work life transformations. Thus issues of selfperception, motivation for change and career development are raised. My approach will
be to question the literature on “boundaryless career” in professional life as it relates to
senior employees. Whereas models of cognitive ageing are highlighting the limits of
growth in late career, the prescriptive message in newer career theory is a rather
optimistic one. It tends to replace biological universalism with socio-genetic
generalisations. In concluding this article I will propose some guidelines for a mediating
framework.
Research on cognitive ageing and job performance.
Reviews of ageing and work usually start with a discussion on differences in job
performance and mental abilities (Davies, Matthews & Wong, 1991; Forteza & Prieto,
1994; Cremer & Snel, 1994). I will not break radically with this tradition, but more space
is devoted to questions of learning competence and less to levels of operative
effectiveness. Furthermore my intention is not to go deeply into the vast literature on
cognitive ageing, and for well-founded overviews I will refer to Salthouse (1991), Schaie
(1996), Park (1994).
One of the general characteristics of this field of research is the discrepancy between
laboratory studies finding evidence of decrements in mental functioning from the 60ties
and a vast number of studies showing no age-related downwards trend in work abilities
and performance (Warr, 1994). In addition multidimensional perspectives are gaining
ground, for example Warr (ibid.) divides work performance into physical ability,
adaptability and general work effectiveness, and a finer classification could easily be
made (Lahn, 1999). Whereas an age-related decrement in sensory-motoric speed is seen
in many occupations, expertise may counteract such processes (deZwart, Frings-Dresen,
& van Dijk, 1998; Salthouse, 1996). The same goes for cognitive abilities, but
contemporary developmental studies are careful to define key characteristics of tasks
like simple/complex, low/high time pressure and concrete/abstract (Salthouse, 1996;
Schaie, 1996; Warr, 1998).
According to a vast collection of studies on cognitive ageing older people are less
effective than younger ones in performing tasks involving complex informationprocessing – especially under time pressure (Salthouse, 1996). In general there seem to
be only a modest decline until early 60s, but adults in late career may experience specific
problems with situations that activate their ”working memory” (Craik & Jacoby, 1996) or
with so-called ”dual task”-activities where two sets of mental operations are performed at
the same time (Kramer & Larish, 1996). Several explanations are given for these
differences - ranging from deficits in processing capacity, lowering of speed in
information-processing (Salthouse et al., 1996; Schaie, 1996), weakened inhibition of
irrelevant information (Hasher et al., 1991). Those taking a knowledge-based perspective
would predict age-related ”cognitive slowing” when the amount of stored experience is
large and implicitly learned in contrast to the acquisition of a well-defined and structured
material (Cherry & Stadler, 1995). Some researchers argue that we are mainly speaking
of cognitive style – reflecting a more careful way of performing in new environments
(Warr, 1994). Also the compensating or transformative role of work experiences is
receiving more attention in contemporary research, for example studies of professional
contexts where complex decision making under time pressure is expected, like air-traffic
controllers (Heier et al, 1997), show no evidence of age-related decline in jobperformance.
Biological explanations of age-differences in problem solving have been challenged on
methodological grounds. For example it is shown that birth cohort is a far better
predictor of basic mental functioning than age (Schaie, 1996), that environmental cueing
and interventional programs are boosting not only skilled performance, but also
underlying cognitive capacities among older adults (Baltes, 1993), and that the cultural
context influences the configuration of deep biological structures (Lyng, 1996). Highly
correlated scores on task-performance in school-like settings are not generalized to real
life domains (Park, 1994). Domain-specific models of human expertise should be
extended to include studies of different individual occupational trajectories. Several
studies have found higher intra- and interindividual variability on mental abilities in late
adulthood (up to around 80, Morse, 1993) compared to younger subjects. In other words
people develop different skills at different points in life, and at the same time people
become more and more different. These conclusions suggest that a life-course perspective
on HRD should be differential across domains of expertise, individual biographies and
age groups.
Learning abilities in late career
Research on learning abilities in a life span perspective draws heavily on the conceptual
and methodological tradition of information processing theory and cognitive psychology,
and my previous comments on this framework also apply to this section. Often a
distinction is made between learning new skills within the expert domain of experienced
professionals and learning in a radically different field. The content of learning is also
relevant to this discussion. Most studies have focused on learning of technicalinstrumental (cognitive) skills, whereas the acquisition of social competence is less well
understood.
Laboratory studies that compare learning outcomes for younger and older subjects
conclude that the former are the most productive (same outcome in less time), see
Kausler (1994), Warr (1994). The differences are largest in the initial learning of new
material (Warr, 1998), which is consistent with research pointing to a decline in
intentional learning and metacognitive processing (awareness of problem solving
strategies) with age. In analysing the underlying mechanisms attention is directed towards
differences in relevant practice, processing speed and weakened inhibition. Also in
learning to perform real life tasks, for example to use computers (Baldi, 1997; Birdi et al.,
1997), the oldest group was less successful - especially when they are put under time
pressure. Like many observations about learning and old age these could be interpreted
in a more contextualistic direction. For example the problem of ageing learners to acquire
“abstract” or school-like skills may be a function of low formal training and a cohorteffect. As pointed out by Warr (1998) younger and older workers are often given the
same amount of training in the use of ICT which place the later in a disadvantageous
position, since they lack basic skills. In professional contexts where continuous learning
is essential to productive career, for example among scientists (Streufert, Pogash &
Piaseck, 1990) and clinical psychologists (Smith, Staudinger & Baltes, 1994), there is
evidence of deepened expertise in late career
Instructional guidelines for adult teaching very often find support in experimental
research on age-differences in learning abilities. For example new material should be
presented at a slow rate and in small chunks with frequent pauses for note taking and
discussion since the information processing capacity is said to be reduced with
increasing age (Fry, 1992; Fisk & Rogers, 1997). The assumption that older adults may
experience retrieval deficiencies when relating new information to their existing
“knowledge base”, is said to account for the improvements obtained when they are
exposed to an environmentally rich learning situation (Bäckman, 1989; Craik & Jennings,
1992). ). Let me briefly quote a couple of instructional guidelines for effective training of
older people taken from different texts.

Overcome apprehension, use relevant tasks, give sufficient feedback, build on
existing knowledge, organise material to facilitate recall, accommodate to individual
needs (Sterns & Doverspike, 1989; Greller & Simpson, 1999).

Stimulate active processing, give systematic feedback, use recognisable concepts,
provide direct application, create friendly atmosphere and a well-structured sequence
in the material to be learned (van der Kamp, 1992)
These principles have an intuitive appeal and are rather non-controversial. However one
may ask whether they do not apply equally well to old as to young learners. From a
different perspective it would be relevant to question the general validity of such
guidelines since they seem closely associated with formal training programmes.
However, the observations from the WORKTOW-project suggest that “good” learning
environments for older workers share some characteristics with those listed above
(Tikkanen, Lahn, Withnall, Ward, & Lyng, 2001).

Management and colleagues should clearly stand behind a learning agenda (Arthur,
DeFillippi & Jones, 2001) for older “apprentices”. The later have to be convinced
that they are counted as learners, and such a message has to be followed up by
positive feedback to alleviate initial fear and defensiveness. Our data suggest that this
strategy is especially important for employees with low formal education. Instead of
motivating for participation, it seems necessary to think participation in order to
motivate (see also Warr, 1998).

Study circles at the work place enable experienced workers to bridge their practical
skills and scholastic teaching. As demonstrated in a couple of WORKTOW-cases
group-based instructional methods may also provide hesitant participants with rich
and supportive feedback.

For employees with long experience in routine work the design of a guided
curriculum (Billett, 2001) should be considered. Their roles as self-directed learners
have to be learned in small, but systematic steps.

Empowerment strategies, job-enrichment and cultivation of learning environments
should take into account dominant work values for senior employees, for example the
need to be independent in their work and loyalties to traditional power structures in
the companies.
In their model of “career capital” and its accumulation DeFillipi & Arthur (1996)
distinguish between three ways of knowing. These are “knowing-why” reflecting
individual values, motivations and identities, “knowing-how” understood as a repertoire
of skills and expertise, and “knowing-whom” referring to the position of workers in
internal and external networks. For employees in their late career the resources
associated with the first type have an ambivalent status since traditional identities and
values very often do not include visions of this group as learners. On the other hand
WORKTOW-observations and my discussion above indicate that the accumulation of
“knowing-why” is the most challenging task for an age-aware HRD. We may have to
overvalue the abilities of older workers to expand their technical (knowing-how) and
social skills (knowing-whom) when we want to change their motivation for learning. In
this argument age-related stereotypes play an important role as I will discuss in the next
section.
Attitudes towards the learning abilities of older workers and motivation to
learn.
If I compare my summary of research on age-differences in work and learning abilities
with every day perceptions, some tentative generalizations could be made on the base of
WORKTOW-data and other sources.

General positive attitudes towards the competence of older workers are reported in
the WORKTOW-data (Tikkanen, Lahn, Withnall, Ward, & Lyng, 2001). In this
respect no differences were found between managers and employees. When we look
more closely at the qualitative assessments of long work experience, the following
benefits were mentioned: Social and communicational skills, broad understanding of
production process, cultural insight and effective decision-making (see also Lyng,
1999). These results are consistent with experimental studies done by the Baltesgroup on “wisdom” in professional work (Smith, Staudinger & Baltes, 1994).

Senior employees are more positive than their younger colleagues. The findings
from the WORKTOW-project suggest that there are age-norms among workers that
are asked to evaluate the competence of older and younger colleagues. There is a
familiarity-effect since employees that are working in mixed age-groups, held more
positive attitudes towards senior colleagues (Heier, Lyng & Lahn, 1997).

The ability to learn abstract skills goes down with increasing age. Whereas small
age-differences are expected when the output is work performance, older workers are
clearly perceived as slower learners (Maier, 1998, Löfström & Pitkänen, 1999).
Such attitudes are most often met in the case of ICT-training, but the findings
reported above suggest that the decisive factor is related to the instructional methods
and not age-differences in learning abilities.

Discrepancies between reported attitudes and practice are very common . It has been
demonstrated again and again that the classical discrepancy between reported
perceptions and behaviour does apply for stereotypes towards older workers, for
example positive views are not reflected in hiring practices (Settersten, 1997). One of
the mediating variables may be the ”implicit theories” of managers (Sternberg, 1985)
that often lean on underlying models of linear decline that are embedded in
management theory and economics (Greller & Simpson, 1999). Thus they influence
decision-making in companies and by policy makers, and tend to have a self-fulfilling
character since underlying assumptions are not examined.

Turnaround skills and flexible working life. In the WORKTOW-material there is
mixed support for a general proposition that senior employees are resisting work
place changes. A key factor seems to be the extent to which they are included in the
restructuring processes, since experienced workers often have strong preferences for
wholistic approaches as epistemic platforms for action (Lahn, 1999).
In conclusion the generic concepts of work and learning abilities should be broken down
into different dimensions or “subabilities”. Both experimental research and every day
perceptions suggest that a wide range of competences are expected to develop with
increasing age. In a historical perspective skills that have a declining profile, are
associated with traditional industrial work – like bodily exertion, manual dexterity and
endurance (Zuboff, 1988). The expansion of the service sector and knowledge work
seems to favour experience-based skills like wisdom, intuitive expertise, attentiveness,
symbolic analysis (Reich, 1991), relational competence, cultural sensitivity (Drucker,
1993) and learning to learn (Barnett, 1999). Irrespective of the predictive validity of
these scenarios for working life in European countries, senior employees represent an
often hidden source of “intellectual capital” that may take on added value in the future.
Since these tacit assets are not fully recognized, and since negative perceptions may
undermine the motivation of older workers and others to develop them, age-aware HRDpolicies should have an optimistic basal tone. The interactions between subtle
stereotypes and participation in learning episodes are complex and could be described at
different levels.
At the individual level the beliefs of significant others are mediated by their attribution of
own performance to internal personality traits. In turn we interiorise those interpretations
in our perceptions of our readiness to meet similar challenges in the future (selfefficiency, Bandura, 1986). For example for people over 60 a high frequency of errors on
new computer-based input devices may be a function of sensory-motoric slowing-down
with increasing age. However others may interpret this behaviour as symptomatic of
reduced mental ability, which in turn influence the performers self-perception and
readiness for learning new skills. Achievement goals are lowered, challenging situations
avoided and learning opportunities missed. In addition personal scenarios may become
increasingly ill-structured in late life – both contributing to inefficient self-regulation of
learning and perceived loss of control (Piper & Langer, 1986). Again contextual variables
need to be introduced, for example basic assumptions of age decline may justify a policy
of non-intervention towards senior employees and reinforce inactiveness, thus fostering a
low need for low need for self-directedness and strategic deliberations about own conduct
(Featherman et al., 1990).
In addition to these micro-genetic factors that could explain low motivation for learning
in late career, there are several cultural-institutional contingencies that have to be taken
into account, for example the level of formal training, lack of training opportunities, the
absence of a learning culture, employers’ perception of low return on investments in
training for older employees. Learning goals in an occupational context are often defined
in relation to trajectories from marginal positions to a highly valued centrality in
organisational life. For adults in late career educational ambitions are justified in relation
to advancement opportunities. When these are non-existent, older workers may find it
hard to be accepted by others and by one self as a learner (Barnett, 1999). In one of the
WORKTOW-interventions it was clearly documented that women above 50, in jobs with
few career options, were not aware of any needs for personal development in
occupational contexts.
Since the knowledge economy is believed to be less concerned with knowing-how and
more with knowing-why, the curriculum of work-based learning asks employees to
become different kinds of human beings (Barnett, 1999) and not only to be updated on
technical skills. A theory of late career should therefore reflect consequential transitions
within and between communities (Beach, 1999) where “consequential” refers to a process
of identity change. One of the candidates in framing the WORKTOW-project, was the
conceptual structure of “boundaryless careers”. Below I will confront its optimistic
predictions of learning careers in working life with the need for historical grounding and
for a finer discrimination of individual differences.
Boundaryless careers for older workers?
The traditional regulation of the life course in distinct trajectories like schooling,
productive life and retirement is radically challenged by emergent trends in the
institutional structure of modern societies. Systems like the welfare state have
reproduced a standardisation of life periods with sharp transitions between positions in
the educational system, the labour market, the health sector and households (Mayer &
Schoepflin, 1989). Widespread deregulation and individualisation of public services have
taken “flexibilisation” out of the sphere of industrial production to other sectors. As a
consequence the institutional ports of entry and exit to different life arenas are multiplied,
and age brackets may become more diffuse and negotiable. The increasing
“desynchronisation” (Ellingsæter, 1996) of life courses may force us to redefine the
retirement period in terms of learning opportunities.
Recent reformulations of career theory often presuppose life course transitions that are
multiple and iterative - with an emphasis on continuous learning instead of chronological
age as underlying mechanisms (Bailyn, 1992; Hall et al., 1996; Sullivan, 1999).
Catchwords like «boundaryless careers», «checkerboard careers», «network careers»
have been introduced to underline the breakdown of internal labour markets and upwards
mobility within firms (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996), the devaluation of company specific
skills and the upgrading of «social capital» associated with interorganisational
communication and learning.
Hall (1976) described twenty years ago a shift from organisational to ”protean careers”
that are managed by the person not the single work organisation. Another characteristic
is the succession of short-cycle learning stages - ”…mini-stages”…of exploration-trialmastery-exit, as employees move in and out of various product areas, technologies,
functions, organizations, and other work environments” (Hall & Mirvis, 1995, pp. 277).
The authors suggest that this model represents a break with the classical ones in that it
appreciates the potential of later career stages. In table 1 below I have listed some of the
main characteristics of new careers as presented in the literature. The middle column
refers to competences of older workers that accord with this theoretical framework,
whereas the right complements or contrasts the column in the middle. It is based on data
from the WORKTOW-project and other studies, and the relationships in the table could
be summarised as follows.
CHARACTERISTIC OF
NEW CAREERS
LATE CAREER AS PROTEAN
CONTRASTING OBSERVATIONS
OF OLDER WORKERS
Routine-busting
Exploring new possibilities
Learned defensiveness
Continuous learning
Implicit learning
Training in abstract skills
Relational skills
Possession of ”knowing whom”
Wisdom and social selectivity
Self-design
Individual proactiveness
Self-direction as a function of work
environment and culture
Occupational codification
Learning career
Lost professional anchoring
Moving to the margins
Flexpertise
Liquidation and resignation
Flexibility and loss of porosity
Reflexive production
Restless learning
Table 1.
Table 1 showing characteristics of new careers in the left column and the “protean”
dimensions of late career in the middle. To the right are listed some observations from the
WORKTOW-project and other empirical studies that seem to contradict the scenario of
late career described in the literature on “protean” resources.

Routine-busting. Hall et al. (1986) and others suggest that professional experts in their
mid-career are triggered to explore alternative ways of being and becoming. The
literature on skills’ obsolescence and our observations from high-technology
companies suggest that older workers may also be quite defensive about their areas of
expertise (Lahn, 1996). According to our WORKTOW-data senior employees that
were used to restricted working environments, did not perceive themselves as
learners, and were critical of new requirements.

Continuous learning is contrasted to retraining and assumed to be a “tacit” format
that elderly people are familiar with, and that recognises their prior experience as
valid resources. However “textualised” professional skills may have to be acquired
through an abstract rather than an experiential process (Lahn, 1998), and we found
casuistic evidence for the importance of using training programs that could bridge
work experience and new formalised knowledge like computer-assisted design
(Tikkanen, Lahn, Withnall, Ward, & Lyng, 2001).

Relational contracts are not formally negotiated, but depend on the ability of a
floating partnership to take the ”perspective of the others” and make ad hoc
arrangements (Weick, 1996). The life experience of employees in their late career is
assumed to make them wise, tolerant (Hall & Mirvis, 1995) and in possession of
”knowing whom”-expertise (DeFilippi & Arthur, 1996). Another story comes from
studies showing older employees to be quite defensive when confronted with changes
in social environment (Lahn & Flagstad, 1994).

Self-design. The major challenge and metaskill for workers dealing with new learning
careers is to be good at redesigning their own professional identity – using social
networks as input to this process rather than formal organisations. For the older
worker new opportunities for successful ageing are opened: Self-design is consonant
with the need for autonomy in late career and with the shortening of time-horizon in
life planning. The later variable should ”free” the employee from putting too much
emphasis on collegial competition and promotional options (Lahn, 1999). The results
from the WORTOW-questionnaire demonstrate that differences in self-initated
learning interact with sectors rather than age (Tikkanen, Lahn, Withnall, Ward, &
Lyng, 2001). The lowest scores are found among older workers in industrial work,
and highest in the service sector. These findings are consonant with the main theses
of “protean” careers.

Occupational codification. Some scholars maintain that the «flexible» working life
will make occupations more important in defining career patterns (Tolbert & Stern,
1991) – and employees in their late career are advised to convert firm specific skills
and lojalities into professional commitments and expertise. However, many trades
have lost their attractiveness as “anchoring” bases (Schein, 1998) for new and older
generations of workers (Lahn, 1999), and in the printing industry adults in their 50ies
could not identify with the expert domains of younger colleagues (Tikkanen, Lahn,
Withnall, Ward, & Lyng, 2001). Consequently intergenerational communication was
made difficult.

Moving to the margins? Older workers that have a biography of occupational
mobility, are said to be in possession of flexpertise (van der Heijden, 1998). Thus
they should be generally attractive on the labour market, but most often we find that
this group is downgraded and finally excluded from productive life. In this situation it
is quite rational for employees in their late career to stick to their employment
contracts and expertise. There are also warning voices (Smallen, 1995) that point to
the new control regime created by external labour market, coupled with technologies
for crediting «tangible» results and visibility. Also the practice of «lean» employment
and increase in part-time jobs may create a larger «secondary labour market» to
which senior employees are recruited (Harrison, 1994; Alferoff, 1999; Tikkanen,
Lahn, Withnall, Ward, & Lyng, 2001).

Flexibility and loss of porosity. Workers that are facing multiple and short cycled
career patterns, should be able to redesign their personal identities (Mirvis & Hall,
1994). Such metaskills are likely to be “scaffolded” by a rich learning environment
like challenging tasks, feedback from others and opportunities for reflection and
conceptual development. However recent European and national surveys on working
conditions (Merllie & Paoli, 2000; Grimsmo & Hilsen, 2000) give substantial
evidence of a growing intensification of work (e.g. tighter dead lines, “lean”
production, re-engineering). One of the impacts of such a trend is the dissolution of
porosity in the sense that arenas for reflective learning are removed. Observations
from the WOKTOW-cases also suggest that slimmer production regimes reduce the
available options for rotation and replacement, for example in repair shops,
maintenance and service units (Tikkanen, Lahn, Withnall, Ward & Lyng, 2001). In
combination this logic of “just in time and just enough” does not promote higherorder learning dependent on slack resources (decision and action room, Ellström,
1996; collective deliberations, von Krogh, Nonaka & Nishiguchi, 2001). Instead
adaptability is made on ad hoc basis and amounts to what I have called “restless
learning”, which is hardly a sustainable strategy (Senge & Scharmer, 2001). We have
found no clear indication that these trends vary with age, but recent statistics of early
exit and occupational health suggest that older workers are negatively affected by
work place restructurings (Lahn, 1999).
The lesson from this summary is that we are confronted with contradictory images of late
career as trajectories of learning opportunities or risks. A closer look at cultural and
historical contingencies may help us structure these findings. Firstly, many of the
success stories of «boundaryless» paths stem from the US working life, and one may
seriously question whether this vocabulary could be used to describe industrial relations
and labour market transformations in a European context (Holt Larsen & Nellemann
Thisted, 1998). Secondly, my own studies of occupational values suggest a reorientation
among younger cohorts towards intrinsic preferences for challenging jobs at the expense
of company loyalty and promotional prospects. Thus “protean” ideals travel with ease
across the Atlantic as they lean on the strengthened hegemony of neo-liberalism and
individualism in Europe (Lahn, 2002).
Understanding and developing learning and motivation in late career
My review of literature on late career combined with data from the WORKTOW-study
could be rounded up in a few guidelines for European research on late career and HRD.

Theoretical pluralism has been advocated as a strategy that moves forward research
in unexplored and interdisciplinary areas like work place learning and career
development (Hager, 1999). On the other hand my argumentation supports the need
for an integrative frameworks that place the field of cognitive ageing in relation to
human capital models, career theory and work place learning. Within learning theory
different versions of socio-cultural theory (Cole, 1996; Valsiner & Lawrence, 1996;
Engeström, 2001) have received a larger audience across many disciplines. They
usually combine micro-genetic studies at interindividual level with analyses of
institutional and cultural contingencies, but like many wholistic or “grand” theoretical
frameworks there is a danger of them turning into monolithic world views. Thus
conceptual explorations into issues of late career should include also competing
perspectives.

Multidimensional and contextualistic orientations seem to have a growing popularity
in contemporary research on occupational careers. Also linear patterns are replaced
by more complex ones where important transitions are believed to be made more
frequent than in traditional models. What is often left out of the accounts, however, is
the interaction between trajectories in work organisations and a larger cultural and
institutional framework. Such a reminder should be appropriate when we want to
develop a conceptual structure that makes us sensitive to the diversity of European
countries. Given such a reorientation, one of the methodological implications is to
give preference to longitudinal research on specific abilities in real life contexts..

The WORKTOW-study provides data that contradict some of the optimistic
predictions of the literature on “boundaryless career”. Again more attention should
be paid to the institutional and cultural context of HRD-policies. For older workers
changing organizational ecologies represent both risks and opportunities – and those
nuances are crucial to understand when practical guidelines are formulated.

In this presentation work place learning and motivation have been at the centre of my
attention. Other themes often included in the literature on late career, like
occupational health and pensioning decisions, are left out. As pointed out above there
is a growing socio-political interest in redefining this period as a productive and an
expansive one. Thus issues of adult learning have taken on added relevance. In a
working life that become more “textualised” (Zuboff, 1988) purely experiential
frameworks may be rather restrictive. They may be blind to the need of conceptual
and higher order learning (Engeström, 2001) in knowledge work. Contemporary
literature on epistemic processes in companies put questions of justification at the
centre of attention (Krogh von, Nonaka, Nishiguchi, 1999). Complex and changing
environments generate a surplus of ideas, and only a few are selected and processed
as useful or valuable knowledge. These are essentially collective processes, and the
end product will be dependent on the mobilisation of different “voices” (Bakhtin,
1986) – also across generations.

The recent interest in cultural diversity as a mission for organisational development
(Weick & Quinn, 1999) should be related to strategies for “empowering” senior
employees in business restructurings (Lahn, 1999). In this respect “broad
participation” approaches to innovation could be central to the formulation of a HRD
for late career. One objection is that such a strategy often leans heavily on a culturalinstitutional context of tripartite cooperation that is more typical of North-European
industrial relations than of the Southern part or of the US (Ennals & Gustavsen,
1998). Still I share the belief of other commentators that these ideas may form the
basis for a variety of developmental methods that could be a distinct European
approach to “empowerment”, learning and motivation, when one of the guiding
values is inclusion of diverse competences in business development.
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