This article investigates the relationship between employees’ chronological age and their knowledge sharing behavior in the manufacturing context and how this relationship is influenced by employees’ subjective age. Drawing from socioemotional selectivity theory, we expect older employees to be senders, and younger employees to be recipients, of general work knowledge. Regarding specific knowledge on digital technologies, however, we assume that younger employees engage in the sending and receiving of knowledge, while older employees disengage from knowledge transfer. We furthermore expect that decreasing engagement in knowledge exchange of aging employees is buffered if individuals have a low subjective age. Using data from 868 blue-collar employees in 85 distinct work units, we show that the older employees get, the less active they are in knowledge exchange both as knowledge senders and as knowledge recipients. For employees who subjectively feel younger, age differences in knowledge exchange entirely diminish. We discuss theoretical implications for the knowledge transfer and aging literatures, and emphasize practical implications for manufacturing companies that are confronted with demographic shifts and workplace digitalization.
