Push back to move forward: How knowledge counterflow boosts creativity in older employees

Employee creativity is a key driver of organizational innovation and success. Given the growing participation of the aging population in the workplace, it is important to understand how to harness the creative potential of older employees. In this research, we drew on social self-preservation theory to argue that knowledge counterflow—the transfer of knowledge from younger to older employees—may pose a status threat to older employees and motivate them to engage more actively in creativity. We propose creative role identity as the key moderator of this effect. Two independent survey studies were conducted to test the model. The results consistently showed that knowledge counterflow is more likely to facilitate creativity among older employees through status threat when they have a strong creative role identity. Our findings contribute to the literature on human resource management and offer important implications for organizations to adapt to the trend of an aging workforce. Copyright © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.