Does ageing limit employees' creativity? a brief review of research on ageing and creativity

The concept of creativity has emerged as an essential topic in management
research in recent decades owing to its importance to innovation, effectiveness, and sustainability. Although scholars have explored a variety of factors that influence an individual’s creativity, earlier studies have ignored the role of an individual’s age. Furthermore, age has been treated as a control variable in most studies of creativity, and less as an antecedent or moderator of creativity. Nonetheless, research on ageing has developed significantly in recent years, primarily in response to the global ageing population and workforce. This has led scholars to acknowledge the complex associations between age and creativity; a variety of relationships—even contrary findings— have been empirically documented. Organizations need to adopt a more comprehensive, accurate, and objective understanding of older workers’ creativity to guarantee
organizational performance, development, and survival. In this chapter, we aim to review the main theoretical perspectives and empirical findings on creativity and ageing, as well as studies at the intersection of both of these fields, before finally outlining promising directions for future research.