Intergenerational Talent Management in Industry 4.0: Toward Organisational Cybernetic Autopoiesis

The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, brings to the fore various opportunities for organisations to globalise with more efficient ways of implementing processes, from customer relations through artificial intelligence to the automation of production. This article presents a desktop review exploring the influence of generational factors on employee talent management, aiming to develop a cybernetic theory to account for autopoiesis. Framed through cybernetics and person–environment theory, this manuscript focuses on the tenets of systemic behavioural and communication patterns constituting generational cohorts subsumed by Generation Z, Generation X, Generation Y, and Baby Boomers, with specific reference to the global and South African context. Leadership should potentially account for generational feedback loops that influence organisational non-purposeful drift to sustain governance. A heightened awareness of generational cultures influencing communication and behavioural patterns may allow leaders to better manage key personnel and potentially optimise resource pooling and feedback loops within the system to retain organisational integrity and promote organisational autopoiesis during future world of work disruptions and uncertainty.