African versus portuguese managers’ attitudes toward older workers: an empirical study

The study explores the attitudes toward older workers of African managers, and how these managers make HRM decisions in scenarios involving younger versus older students. We compare African (n= 154) with Portuguese (n= 134) managers. African (n= 63) and Portuguese (n= 138) university students are also included to make cultural, social and institutional explanations more robust. The findings suggest that, although African individuals have more positive attitudes toward older workers than Portuguese do, they make more discriminatory decisions in the HRM scenarios. We suggest that this contradiction may emerge from dualities characterizing Africa.