The moderating effects of age stereotypes on the relationship between age and innovative behavior

This article examined the effects of age stereotype about the “35-year-old phenomenon” on technical employee´s innovative behavior. To test the hypotheses, we collected data from 175 employees at IT enterprises. We found that there no direct correlation between Age and innovative behavior. The results indicated that age stereotypes is a moderator of the relationship between worker age and innovative behavior. We found that worker age was more negatively related to their innovation behavior when age stereotypes was higher rather than lower. However, the relationship was not significant when age stereotype is lower.