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The article's aim is to introduce the papers contained in this special issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology.

Specifically the present article starts by discussing the meaning of the factor age and by considering who is actually termed an older worker. Next, the consequences of cognitive, physical and mental changes during the aging process for work and organizations are being discussed. Before presenting a general introduction to the research contributions that are included in this special issue, a plea is made for a more positive approach to older employees. The article presents a literature review, a discussion of the main topics and suggestions for future pathways for research and HRM.

It is indisputable that some cognitive, physical and mental changes take place while people grow older. However, what is less certain is how these changes impede on employees' well‐being. Recently, scholars seem to agree that the picture is not as negative as one used to think.

The implications are: use different conceptualizations of age; focus on the process of aging instead of on age as a factor; shift the focus from managing threats to creating opportunities.

It is in both employers' and employees' interest to make the best use of employees of all ages and to manage employees in accordance with individual attributes and capacities rather than by making assumptions based on age.

The article frames the issues and sets the stage for a more positive approach towards older workers.

This study aims to investigate the crossover specificity of team‐level stressors to individual‐level work‐family conflict.

The paper takes the form of a multilevel analyses with data from 428 employees of a Dutch municipality working in 49 teams.

The results indicate the expected crossover specificity of different types of work‐family conflicts. After controlling for individual‐level demands there is little evidence that team‐level work demands influence work‐family conflict (WFC) or family‐work conflict (FWC), but team‐level WFC and FWC do influence individual‐level WFC and FWC, respectively.

The paper distinguishes two types of WFC, but it did not distinguish between strain‐ and time‐based conflicts. Further, it did not pay attention to individual differences (e.g., susceptibility to distress of team members), although such differences may be important moderators of the crossover process.

This study is one of the first that empirically linked team‐level stressors and WFC to individual‐level WFC and that tested crossover specificity. Findings indicated the associations of team‐level WFC and FWC and focal employees' WFC and FWC respectively, thereby underscoring the importance of crossover specificity.

The paper's aim is to introduce the interactive acculturation model (IAM) of Bourhis et al. to predict how disconcordance in acculturation orientations between host community and immigrant workers relates to the quality of intergroup work‐relations.

The sample consisted of 141 host community (Dutch) and 41 non‐western immigrant workers of a postal service company who filled out a questionnaire. Methods of analyses include analysis of variance and multiple regression.

In line with the IAM, results showed that a higher disconcordance in preferred acculturation orientations between host community and immigrant workers related to a poorer quality of intergroup work‐relations. However, intergroup contact moderated this relationship differently for host community and immigrant workers.

Data are cross‐sectional and collected in one organization. Future studies should replicate the findings to other organizational contexts, cultural groups, and collect longitudinal data to determine causal effects.

Organizations should monitor disconcordance in acculturation orientations amongst host community and immigrant workers. A multicultural culture in organizations may reduce disconcordance in acculturation orientations between host community and immigrant workers.

The paper helps to explain the mixed findings in cultural diversity research so far, by demonstrating that disconcordance in acculturation orientations relates negatively to intergroup work‐relations in a multicultural workplace.

Previous research has demonstrated strong relations between work characteristics (e.g. job demands and job resources) and work outcomes such as work performance and work engagement. So far, little attention has been given to the role of authenticity (i.e. employees’ ability to experience their true selves) in these relations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship of state authenticity at work with job demands and resources on the one hand and work engagement, job satisfaction, and subjective performance on the other hand.

In total, 680 Dutch bank employees participated to the study. Structural equation modelling was used to test the goodness-of-fit of the hypothesized model. Bootstrapping (Preacher and Hayes, 2008) was used to examine the meditative effect of state authenticity.

Results showed that job resources were positively associated with authenticity and, in turn, that authenticity was positively related to work engagement, job satisfaction, and performance. Moreover, state authenticity partially mediated the relationship between job resources and three occupational outcomes.

Main limitations to this study were the application of self-report questionnaires, utilization of cross-sectional design, and participation of a homogeneous sample. However, significant relationship between workplace characteristics, occupational outcomes, and state authenticity enhances our current understanding of the JD-R Model.

Managers might consider enhancing state authenticity of employees by investing in job resources, since high levels of authenticity was found to be strongly linked to positive occupational outcomes.

This study is among the first to examine the role of authenticity at workplace and highlights the importance of state authenticity for work-related outcomes.

Drawing from the job characteristics model and the job demands‐resources model, this study aims to examine the associations of resources (i.e. feedback, autonomy, and variety) with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and employability.

Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling on data from 611 employees of a Dutch municipality.

Consistent with the hypotheses, the authors' results indicated that resources are related to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and that the association between resources and employability was mediated by extrinsic motivation but not by intrinsic motivation.

The authors use a one‐dimensional measure of perceived employability and do not make a distinction between internal and external employability and other dimensions of employability. The authors feel that distinguishing between internal employability and external employability will contribute to understanding if internal and external opportunities relate differently to perceptions of employability with the same organization and with a different organization.

Job resources are important for improvement of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but the route from job resources to employability is via extrinsic job opportunities and not via intrinsic job opportunities. That is, the perception of performance outcome goals by employees is important for the association between job resources and employability. The paper shows that, without denying the value of intrinsic motivation, it is important for management to emphasize the instrumental value of resources embedded in the job itself that have implications for employability and career advancement.

The paper aims to introduce the papers in this special issue which highlight the importance of cooperation in organizations, and outline future research directions.

Conceptual approaches to cooperation in organizations are described and a brief outline is given to each paper in the special issue.

This special issue brings together studies that enhance our theoretical understanding of cooperation, addressing core issues related to the role of cultural differences, virtual communication, team processes, leader behavior, and the impact of norms on cooperation.

Factors that facilitate or hinder cooperation in organizations are highlighted, and suggestions on how to deal with those issues in practice are provided. The papers facilitate understanding of the role of cultural differences, communication, team processes, and leader behavior on cooperation in organizations.

The paper provides an introduction to the special issue.

Opinion leaders are increasingly important as a source of information, with consumers judging them to be more credible than other media and more influential than other consumers. Thus, companies have an interest in engaging opinion leaders to post about products and brands, and the authors analyse different incentives for encouraging them to spread the word on social media (via electronic word-of-mouth [e-WoM]).

A 2 × 3 between-subjects experimental design was developed in which 359 technological opinion leaders (bloggers) participated. The authors manipulated the monetary incentive (money vs no money) and non-monetary incentives (information only vs return product vs keep product) offered in exchange for a brand post.

Various techniques for approaching opinion leaders are effective, but to differing degrees. Providing a product free of charge increases the likelihood that opinion leaders will post about it, and the highest intention to post is observed when they are allowed to keep the product. In contrast, giving money to opinion leaders could have an indirect negative impact on their intention to post through the expected negative reaction of followers.

It remains unclear how opinion leaders can best be encouraged to spread e-WoM, as incentives used for consumers may work differently for opinion leaders, who have followers that they want to maintain. The main contribution of this paper lies in its explanation of why opinion leaders react differently to monetary versus non-monetary incentives.

Social network sites (SNSs) are an important part of consumers’ everyday lives, and have been recognized as a useful marketing channel. However, little is known about how brands should communicate in order to be more effective and maximize the diffusion of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in these platforms. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of directional posts on consumers depending on previous diffusion of the post and consumers’ connectivity.

A between-subjects experimental design was used. The sample consisted of 369 individuals.

The results show that directional posts only enhance the intention to spread eWOM and the attitude toward the product when the brand post was highly diffused. This effect is stronger among highly connected consumers (hubs) than among less well-connected individuals.

To the best of the authors̓ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to analyze the persuasiveness of marketers’ explicit encouragements to “like” brand posts, a tactic known as directional posts. The study investigates whether and how consumer responses to directional posts are influenced by responses from others and by the number of connections that consumers have within the SNSs.

This conceptual paper aims to contribute to the knowledge management (KM) literature by seeking to determine whether wisdom management (WM) will replace KM in future.

This exploratory paper follows the interpretivist research philosophy and the deductive approach. The data collection is based on selected literatures from three disciplines (KM, philosophy and psychology). The findings were qualitatively analysed.

The findings are threefold: (1) the discussion of wisdom has been either neglected or superficially discussed in the KM literature; (2) despite the fact that wisdom is widely discussed and researched in philosophy and psychology disciplines, there is no commonly agreed upon definition of wisdom, and a dichotomy exists between the implicit and explicit theories of wisdom; (3) wisdom research in philosophy and psychology disciplines provides valuable input to KM by identifying the dimensions, components and characteristics of wisdom and wise individuals.

Important sources may have been unintentionally overlooked in this paper. This paper identifies the need for empirical research and discussion about WM as the next potential phase of KM. It offers several implications for researchers, managers and management educators as this paper shows that WM is emerging as a new discipline.

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the fifth phase of KM by drawing attention to wisdom and WM as the next potential phase of KM.