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Introduction
Enterprise survival and development depends on an enterprise's ability to develop and use internal resources, especially information and knowledge. However, the importance of relationship capital is often overlooked. Enterprise development depends on the joint and synergistic efforts of all organizational members. Unless organizational members form effective internal and external relationships in which they acquire, share and use knowledge, enterprises do not stand a chance for survival. However, few companies have workforce that belongs to the same generation. For the majority of them, the employee structure exhibits a significant degree of intergenerational diversity. Intergenerational diversity provides numerous benefits because organizational members can share and discuss different perspectives. However, members of different generations are known to differ relative to their value systems, attitudes and approaches, especially regarding communication and learning (Ebrahimi et al. , 2008). These differences can significantly affect the knowledge sharing process, which is of crucial importance for organizational survival. In addition, the large generation of baby boomers that dominated the workforce for decades and produced significant results is in the process of retiring, leaving younger generations in the pursuit of knowledge sources that can help them orient themselves in the present working conditions. Cooperation among generations seems to be more important now than ever and should be carefully managed to prevent the so-called "knowledge crash" (Ermine, 2010), especially regarding the tacit component of knowledge. In this paper, findings from the special section entitled "Shaping novel perspectives of learning in a multigenerational environment" are discussed with the purpose to identify challenges and opportunities that surround the process of intergenerational learning and knowledge transfer from the managerial and employee perspective.
The nature of intergenerational diversity in the light of information and communication technology
Workplace of today consists of a mixture of generations - baby boomers and members of the generations X, Y and soon Z. These generations differ significantly regarding their attitude, behavior and approach to work. Members of the generation X are more loyal to organizational goals and value system, and members of the generation Y are highly individualistic. They use organizational experience and information to build their own career trajectories. They could be a threat to organizational knowledge because they could leak information and knowledge both intentionally and unintentionally because of their continuous...