BUS603: Managing People

Sociologists and social psychologists have observed a major cultural and generational shift from Boomer to Millennial generations in the areas of communication styles, acquisition and dissemination of information, interpersonal relationships, the concept of physical and virtual space, and their attitude toward leadership authority, corporate loyalty, and commitment. Scholars who have tried to bridge the generational divide between Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials have observed major differences between them. Millennials, for instance, are team players, and having an organizational impact motivates them. They like open communication with their supervisors and are technologically savvy. Unlike Boomers, Millennials tend to have different perspectives on the world marketplace, supervisor-subordinate relationships, cultural diversity, task performance, communication styles, and information technologies. Millennials lack the loyalty and work ethics established by Boomers and Gen Xers, and they tend to establish their own ethics and functional work relationships. These and other empirical findings seem to suggest that there is a tension between pre-and post-digital generations. What will happen to current organizational structures when Boomers retire and Millennials take the lead?

Values and attitudes toward fellow human beings and the environment have also changed in the United States. The digital revolution and the advancement of digital technology have allowed environmental scientists to learn and process a vast amount of geospatial data about the planet Earth. This data has shown that the climate is changing as a result of industrial pollution. The Digital Earth (DE) initiative, started by Vice President Al Gore in 1998, and rapid digitization gave birth to a new generation of global citizens, often referred to as digital natives, who tend to think and act digitally in a different way than previous generations, referred to as digital immigrants. The Boomers and some Xers are considered digital immigrants because they were either born or grew up before the digital revolution of the 1990s and 2000s. Millennials and the Zers, who were either born during or grew up after the digital revolution, are considered digital natives. Digital natives seem to hold a very different vision and values about the world, the environment, the local and global economy, the concept of work, their personal and social well-being, and intercultural and international relations. An example of this is the March 2019 global march for climate change by Gen Zers. Ironically, more Gen Zers express concerns for the well-being of the Earth than Boomers or Xers. This value and cultural change seems to indicate that a new digital leadership (DL) and digital followership (DF) is in the making in today's digital age.