7. LimitationsAs with any study, th

7. Limitations
As with any study, this study had limitations. In the literature, operationalization and classification of generations and older workers in particular consists of multiple definitions that include: age, life span, work-tenure, and positional/organizational tenure. This study utilized a narrow definition of generational cohorts based on chronological age only, which may limit the generalizability of the results. Future studies should utilize a more general definition for the purposes of generalizability.
Another limitation of this study was that even though the two sets of variables (competency/slacking for younger managers and connectedness for older managers) were developed for the study, respondents were simply asked to evaluate their older and younger managers on those dimensions. This approach may be appropriate if the purpose is to see if younger managers are perceived differently from older managers, but it also has its shortcoming: how can you prove if younger managers are perceived differently from older managers if a third party is making the distinction instead of the respondents. Future studies should test all of these items for the entire group of managers and ask respondents to indicate if their manager was old or young (or better yet, to what generation he or she belonged?) or ask the respondents to make attributions if items were more applicable to younger or older managers.
Reliability studies of the scales and subscales indicated good reliability; however, validity issues could be problematic. The use of a survey instrument to gather data can have weaknesses. When covering complex topics, the ability to gain an in-depth understanding of the process at work can be superficial. The forced-choice format can limit responses of participants and miss important individual differences in people’s attitudes, experiences, and circumstances. Also, the generational perceptions examined and the instrument that was used to measure employees’ perceptions of older and younger managers were derived from a single hotel company. Finally, a weakness to this study was the unequal sample sizes for the gender, generational, and especially the job position groups.