When knowledge flows backward: enhancing older employee creativity through cognitive flexibility

With the trend of aging workforce, management practitioners and scholars share a strong interest in understanding how to harness creative potential of older employees. In this study, we seek to address this issue by exploring the factors that enhance older employee creativity. We argue that knowledge counterflow, i.e., transfer of knowledge from younger employees to their older counterparts, helps facilitate older employee creativity. We propose that knowledge counterflow may increase older employees' cognitive flexibility and facilitate their creativity. This research further examines the moderating role of knowledge stickiness, suggesting that the positive effect of knowledge counterflow can be weaker when knowledge is less absorbable, i.e., knowledge stickiness is at higher level. A time-lagged survey study was conducted and data collected from a sample of 323 older employees. The findings provided support for our research model, contributing to the literature on human resource development for the aging workforce.