If I Were Young Again: Phenomenology of Career Experiences of Retired Faculty Members of Isfahan Universities

One of the concerns of knowledge-based organizations after the retirement of their skilled employees is to ensure that their knowledge is retained by the organization. This issue is especially important for retired university faculty members who have extensive experience and a lot of explicit and implicit knowledge. In this regard, one of the key questions is how to take advantage of precious knowledge and literacy of these intellectuals, which has been created with great difficulty during their years of activity? The purpose of the current research is to qualitatively examine the lived experience of retired faculty members during their working years.

Using Husserl's descriptive phenomenology, 17 retired faculty members of Isfahan universities were chosen as participants using purposive sampling. The total number of participants was determined through theoretical saturation. In-depth interviews were used in order to collect information about the experiences of the participants. The interviews were analyzed using Colaizzi's method.

The results identified five main themes including adherence to university norms and red lines, personal, work and life balance, shifting focus from quantity to quality, preparing for life after retirement, and developing communication skills. Besides, the results identified 16 sub-themes.

From a theoretical point of view, the results of this study contribute to the development of concepts on knowledge management and especially knowledge sharing among retired faculty members. Practically, the results obtained can be used at the individual level (i.e., for younger faculty members), at the university level (i.e., for university administrators), and at the national level (i.e., for major policy making at Ministry of Science).