Broder, Hanna Rebecca and Foerster, Maximilian and Klier, Julia and Klier, Mathias and Sigler, Irina (2025) Too old to find employment? A novel approach to leverage the power of digital peer groups for older unemployed. INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND E-BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, 23 (4). pp. 999-1038. ISSN 1617-9846, 1617-9854
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Unemployment is a pressing societal problem world-wide. The consequences of unemployment are disproportionately more severe for older individuals. Building on literature on digital technologies in the context of unemployment and social support in digital peer groups, we design and evaluate a novel job counseling approach to leverage the power of digital peer groups to assist older unemployed individuals in regaining employment. Our approach supplements the traditional one-on-one offline counseling. It is specifically designed for older unemployed individuals, with small group sizes, moderation, and implementation through an easily accessible online messenger. We demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed approach by instantiating it in cooperation with the German Federal Employment Agency, and we demonstrate how the approach can be used in terms of mutual social support. We evaluate the efficacy of the approach in a controlled, randomized field experiment with 987 older unemployed individuals. The results demonstrate the approach's positive impact on reemployment chances of older unemployed individuals, by increasing their job search skills and job search intensity. Furthermore, our evaluation reveals that gender and job market situation are important contextual factors for the effectiveness of the digital peer group-based approach, warranting further recognition in research.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | DESIGN SCIENCE RESEARCH; SOCIAL SUPPORT ONLINE; JOB SEARCH; POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION; EMPOWERING PROCESSES; EMOTIONAL SUPPORT; THEMATIC ANALYSIS; BREAST-CANCER; COMMUNICATION; INTERNET; Unemployment; Digital peer groups; Reemployment; Social support; Older workforce |
| Subjects: | 000 Computer science, information & general works > 004 Computer science 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics |
| Divisions: | Business, Economics and Information Systems > Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik > Professur für Wirtschaftsinformatik insbesondere Internet Business und Digitale Soziale Medien – Prof. Dr. Julia Klier Informatics and Data Science > Department Information Systems > Professur für Wirtschaftsinformatik insbesondere Internet Business und Digitale Soziale Medien – Prof. Dr. Julia Klier |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Jun 2026 04:12 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jun 2026 04:12 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/66633 |
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