The Current Issue

In our first article, Costanza and Finkelstein review research suggesting that the concept of “generations,” which is widely cited in the business press, is not well supported by empirical research and that what we often accept as generation differences are sometimes either exaggerated or caused by factors other than the generations from which actors in organizations are drawn. Fifteen comment articles take a range of positions on the central arguments of this focal article, ranging from suggestions that we study and define generations differently or that we take some generational differences into account when designing organizations to observations regarding the potential harm associated with generational stereotypes.

In our second article, Ree, Carretta, and Teachout argue that dominant general factors, which are widely reported in analyses of cognitive tests, are in fact more common than we thought and that the failure to recognize the importance of general factors in a number of the domains we study can have negative effects on the development of theory and the advancement of our understanding. Nine comment articles propose different methods of estimating and using general factors and articulate alternative interpretations of the effects of general factors in understanding the relationships between the variables we study in organizations.

It would not be possible to publish this journal without the hard work of talented reviewers. I appreciate the help and input of Winfred Arthur, Mike Burke, Jeff Johnson, Jerry Kehoe, and Hannah Rothstein.