Talk about generations is everywhere and particularly so in organizational science and practice. Recognizing and exploring the ubiquity of generations is important, especially because evidence for their existence is, at best, scant. In this article, we aim to achieve two goals that are targeted at answering the broad question: “What accounts for the ubiquity of generations despite a lack of evidence for their existence and impact?” First, we explore and “bust” ten common myths about the science and practice of generations and generational differences. Second, with these debunked myths as a backdrop, we focus on two alternative and complementary frameworks—the social constructionist perspective and the lifespan development perspective—with promise for changing the way we think about age, aging, and generations at work. We argue that the social constructionist perspective offers important opportunities for understanding the persistence and pervasiveness of generations and that, as an alternative to studying generations, the lifespan perspective represents a better model for understanding how age operates and development unfolds at work. Overall, we urge stakeholders in organizational science and practice (e.g., students, researchers, consultants, managers) to adopt more nuanced perspectives grounded in these models, rather than a generational perspective, to understand the influence of age and aging at work.

关于世代的讨论随处可见，在组织科学和实践中尤其如此。认识和探索世代的普遍性很重要，特别是因为证明它们存在的证据充其量也很少。在本文中，我们旨在实现两个目标，旨在回答一个广泛的问题：“尽管缺乏证据证明世代的存在和影响，但是什么解释了世代的普遍存在？”首先，我们探索并“打破”有关代际科学和实践以及代际差异的十个常见神话。其次，以这些被揭穿的神话为背景，我们关注两个替代性和互补性的框架——社会建构主义视角和寿命发展视角——有望改变我们对年龄、老龄化和工作中的代际的看法。我们认为，社会建构主义视角为理解世代的持久性和普遍性提供了重要的机会，并且作为研究世代的替代方案，寿命视角代表了理解年龄如何运作和发展如何在工作中展开的更好模型。总体而言，我们敦促组织科学和实践中的利益相关者（例如学生、研究人员、顾问、管理者）采用基于这些模型的更细致的观点，而不是代际观点，以了解年龄和工作中老龄化的影响。