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Economic stressors such as job insecurity, job loss, unemployment, and underemployment cause severe difficulties for the workers affected, their families, organizations, and societies overall. Consequently, most past research has taken a thoroughly negative perspective on economic stress, addressing its diverse negative consequences and the ways that people try to cope with them. And even when following the advice provided by the scientific literature, people affected by economic stress will usually end up being off worse than they were before the onset of the stressor.

The current chapter pays credit to this perspective yet also tries to counterbalance it with an alternative one. While acknowledging the vast amount of literature outlining the negative consequences of economic stress on peoples’ well-being and careers, some literature also points at opportunities for a more positive perspective. More specifically, we argue that affected people can use a wide repertoire of behaviors for handling their current situation. Of particular promise in this regard is the concept of career adaptability, generally defined as the ability to change to fit into new career-related circumstances. Indeed, studies show that under certain conditions, career adaptability can facilitate people's search for not just any job but for a qualitatively better job, thus breaking through the spiral of losses usually associated with economic stress.

For the purpose of this argument, we link career adaptability to the concept of proactive coping, analyzing how and under which conditions career adaptability may present a contextualized form of proactive coping. We then address known personal and situational antecedents of career adaptability and show how career adaptability may be fostered and trained among different types of job seekers. We end this chapter with a discussion of open questions as well as directions for future research.

Drawing insights from Piaget's theory of cognitive development and exploring their applicability to working adults while assessing the role of tenure, as appreciated by multiple studies associated with adaptability and openness, the current study examines the influence of work experience in the relationship between an individual's adaptability and openness to people's ideas in the context of the Indian workplace. The study followed a cross-sectional survey-based design, and data were gathered from 202 junior, middle and senior executives from Indian manufacturing and service organizations. Using PROCESS macro in SPSS, the moderating effect of work experience on the linkage between adaptability to situations and openness to people's ideas was examined. The study results depicted that adaptability to situations is positively associated with a person's openness to people's ideas. Such a result indicates that promoting adaptability among employees could lead to openness in behaviour towards ideas of their colleagues and other people, which may promote team cohesiveness and learning in the long run. Also, the work experience of employees was found to be moderating the relation between adaptability and openness such that the increasing years of work experience tend to enhance the positive relationship between adaptability and openness. These results suggest that as the work experience increases, the positive association between adaptability and tendency to be open towards people's ideas strengthens. Further, the implications for the domains of research and practice, limitations of the study and directions for future studies have been discussed.

Education policies in the United States reinforce social stratification by prioritizing and normalizing middle-class whiteness in schools (Leonardo, 2007; Picower, 2009). The teacher labor market has also become more feminized, making white middle-class women paragons of exemplary educators (Rury, 1989; Tolley & Beadie, 2006). These sociopolitical and historical factors continue to play out in the current U.S. education workforce where 80% teachers are white and 76% of teachers are female (Hussar et al., 2020). Meanwhile, student demographics are shifting with students of color comprising over 50% of the public student population (de Brey et al., 2019). Diversifying the educator pipeline is a well-documented strategy to improve educational outcomes for all students, specifically students of color, and to achieve greater equity and inclusion in public education. However, the retention and promotion of educators of color remains a critical and complex issue.

Thus, looking at the intersection of race and gender in the education workplace, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight the experiences and expertise of women K-12 educators of color to identify best practices for career development. Applying Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) and utilizing modified meta-synthesis methodology, the chapter highlights the experiences of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous/Native American women K-12 principals and superintendents to (1) thematize and conceptualize how women of color define their work in education spaces through a PWT lens and (2) understand how PWT themes can illuminate ways to build more diverse and inclusive career pathways for women of color leaders.

This chapter presents the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the course of studies and life career skills development of undergraduate students at the University of Macedonia, a mid-sized public Greek University. It describes a multivariate methodology research that investigated how the students, first-hand experienced the unexpected changes from face-to-face on campus to synchronous online education during the lockdown and how they coped with these changes. Change is considered and described as a main component within current life and career trajectories addressing chaotic and unpredictable circumstances while Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) offers the theoretical background of the chapter. The research followed the mixed methods paradigm: a multilevel embedded sequential explanatory design including a participant selection model and multivariate data analysis methods. A survey (N = 621) was conducted; individual interviews and focus groups’ discussions further explained the quantitative findings. The emerging clusters of students revealed similarities in feelings, motivation, adaptation, and life career skills development. The first cluster comprised of older, digitally high-skilled students, with the required technological equipment, adaptable to change, self-regulated, strongly in favor of synchronous online education; in the second cluster were grouped the younger, digitally medium-skilled students, who regularly participated in both modalities, critically recognized the advantages of either one, feeling strongly in favor of a combination; finally, the third cluster included digitally medium-skilled students who found serious difficulty in using online platforms, dissatisfied with social isolation and distant interaction, strongly preferring face-to-face instruction, valuing direct physical contact, social connection, and networking.

Maximilian Buyken is a PhD candidate at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. He received his diploma (German equivalent of a Master's degree) from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. His particular research interests are career adaptability – especially in the face of economic stressors – occupational health psychology and the connection between the two research areas, for example, the function of career adaptive behaviors as coping mechanisms with regard to psychological strain.

This chapter provides an insight into the career paths of autistic professionals in large private practice law firms. Rather than being a result of efforts to recruit autistic people for the first time through targeted hiring programmes, it is suggested that corporate law firms recognized these strengths early in their formation and developed a type of employment both well suited to autistic strengths and able to make accommodations. Six career stages from Law Student to Retired Partner are described with their opportunities and challenges to illustrate the career paths of autistic professionals who work in law. A call is made for an approach to inclusiveness of the autism community by employers and professional associations to create a system of employment system that supports the employment of many while meeting the unique needs of individuals.

In this study, the concept of career, which is one of the most significant functions of human resources, is examined. Toward the end of the twentieth century, restricted models, in which individuals work in a workplace in a classical manner, have been replaced by more flexible models. Due to certain reasons such as changing environmental conditions, increasing education levels, and the impact of employee’s values on his/her work life, individuals’ work life have been dramatically changed. Therefore, some career approaches oriented for these changing conditions and current requirements have been proposed by both academicians and professionals. These approaches mostly include removing workplace limits, offering the opportunity to work from anywhere, using various skills at different departments without any limitations. Basing on the aforementioned changes in theory and practice, this study investigates up-to-date career approaches in a holistic manner. In this context, the background and practicability of these theoretically framed approaches are also discussed in the present study

The pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal is an ancient and widely discussed concept. Recent studies have noted that Gen Zers experience higher levels of stress than previous generations. At the same time, findings of the global study show that while Gen Zers are not overly optimistic, they are realistic, somewhat flexible and adaptable to situations, socially connected, and engaged and committed to making a difference in the world. While these qualities may at least partly mitigate stress levels and contribute to Gen Z's happiness, resilience should be cultivated in Gen Z.