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The initial transition into work has become less predictable. Therefore, emerging adults should take charge and be proactively engaged in their careers during the preparation stage of the school-to-work transition (STWT). We explored which behaviors emerging adults display during the STWT to foster their happiness, health, and productivity, how various contextual factors enable or hinder these behaviors, and to what extent these behaviors can be considered proactive.

Taking a qualitative approach, we conducted 44 semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students at an Applied Sciences University in the Netherlands six months before graduation. Additionally, we held nine focus groups (n = 55) and four interviews (n = 6) with contextual stakeholders (i.e. parents, faculty/staff, employers, the board of the university, higher education policymakers, and the Ministry of Education).

The students mentioned three main behaviors to foster their health, happiness, and productivity, namely, eating healthy food, maintaining social contacts, and reflecting on their motivations. Our analysis shows that, conceptually, none of these behaviors can be considered truly proactive. Moreover, the findings revealed multiple systemic underlying contextual hindrances to portray these behaviors, such as educational system characteristics, which make proactive behaviors less likely.

As the STWT is affected by multiple contexts, adopting a multi-stakeholder perspective is imperative when studying the phenomenon. We adopted the sustainable careers framework as a lens to uncover how emerging adults may build early career sustainability—additionally, we nuance current research on proactivity by concretizing the conceptualization of proactive behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationships between protean career attitude, career resilience, proactive career behavior and external employability.

This study sampled 212 training apprentice employees who participated in training programs using a proportional stratified sampling in South Korea. The study tested the research model using structural equation modeling.

This study revealed that protean career attitude influenced external employability through career resilience and proactive career behavior. Career resilience fully mediated the relationship between protean career attitude and external employability and partially mediated protean career attitude and proactive career behavior. Proactive career behavior also mediated the relationship between protean career attitude and external employability.

This study has a limitation by relying on cross-sectional data. In terms of theoretical implications, this study can add new knowledge to the protean career research by demonstrating that the protean career attitude influences perceived external employability through career resilience and proactive career behavior for the sample of young training apprentice employees.

This study uncovers the dynamic processes between protean career attitude and perceived external employability. Moreover, this study’s sample is significant because training apprentice employees are mostly young in their 20s and 30s with less than three years of working experience and working in small and medium-sized enterprises in South Korea.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organisational support for career development (OSCD) and employees' career satisfaction. Based on an extended model of social cognitive career theory (SCCT) and an integrative model of proactive behaviours, the study proposed that career management behaviours would mediate the relationship between OSCD and career satisfaction, and between proactive personality and career satisfaction.

Public and private sector employees (N=90) participating in career development activities completed a survey regarding their proactivity, OSCD, career management behaviours and career satisfaction.

OSCD, proactive personality and career management behaviours were all positively related to career satisfaction and career management behaviours mediated the relationship between proactive personality and career satisfaction. There was no support for the career management behaviours mediating between OSCD and career satisfaction.

This study provided support for the extended SCCT model by testing a subset of its proposed relationships using a cross‐sectional approach. The sample surveyed (employees participating in career development activities) and the large proportion of full‐time employees, may limit the generalisability of the findings. Future longitudinal research could more fully test the relationships proposed by the extended SCCT model and include a greater representation of part‐time and casual employees.

The results suggest that there are benefits for organisations and individuals investing in career development.. First, from an organisational perspective, investing in OSCD may enhance employees' career satisfaction. Second, employees may enhance their own career satisfaction by participating in career management behaviours.

This study integrated the predictions of two models (an extension of SCCT and a model of proactive behaviours) to test the influence of environmental (OSCD) and individual difference (proactive personality) variables on career satisfaction. Exploring how organisational and individual variables together influence career satisfaction provides a more balanced approach to theoretical development.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between proactive personality and career self‐management behaviors (job mobility preparedness and developmental feedback‐seeking behaviors), providing evidence for one mediator (career resilience) and one moderator (public self‐consciousness) on this relationship.

Data from 127 employees in one work organization, analyzed using regression analysis.

Proactive personality is positively related to career self‐management behaviors. Career resilience mediates this relationship. In addition, proactive personality and public self‐consciousness have an interactive effect, with developmental feedback‐seeking behaviors as the outcome.

Despite the cross‐sectional nature of the study, the findings uncover mechanisms through which proactive personality is related to career self‐management behaviors. According to the findings, this relationship is subject to important intervening (career resilience) and boundary (public self‐consciousness) conditions.

The findings serve as a resource for practitioners interested in interventions. Specifically, practitioners in organizations where the results generalize can design interventions directed at enhancing the direct effect of proactive personality on career self‐management. These interventions can be directed to managing employees' career resilience and cognitively restructuring their public self‐consciousness perceptions.

This study adds to the literatures on career self‐management behaviors and proactive personality and explicates important intervening mechanisms in this relationship.

Though the recent conceptualization of career sustainability, defining its indicators and dimensions prompted an important field of careers research, empirical research is still in its infancy. The current study empirically investigates how proactive personality, career adaptability and proactive career behaviors promote career sustainability based on the career construction model of adaptation.

The authors used a two-wave survey design to collect data from 414 full-time working professionals representing different organizations located in India. The authors tested the proposed hypotheses using structural equation modeling in IBM SPSS AMOS.

Results supported a serial indirect effect model with career adaptability and proactive career behaviors carrying the effect of proactive personality on career sustainability.

The study contributes to the emerging sustainable careers literature by unveiling the role of individual factors in career sustainability. Furthermore, the authors investigated these relationships through the complete career construction model of adaptation. By doing so, the current study contributes to careers literature by revealing the linkage between the career construction model of adaptation and career sustainability.

The literature on leadership is quite extensive; however, this study explains the impact of leadership styles on career success, career competence and career adaptability in the health sector. It explains the impact of servant leadership on career competence and career adaptability with a serial mediating impact of psychological safety and proactive behavior as well as self-efficacy and proactive behavior.

It is a quantitative study, and it tested the suggested model in hospitals in Pakistan. The data were collected from 310 health practitioners from the hospitals, and it was analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that psychological safety and proactive behavior serially mediate the impact of servant leaders on career competence and career adaptability; hence, servant leadership tends to increase career competence and career adaptability of individuals. One more serial mediation has been tested with positive results between servant leadership and career competence and career adaptability.

The study takes a very well theoretically linked model which tests the serial mediating path of servant leadership to career competencies and career adaptability.

As the current “one size fits all” research approach is likely to be ineffective in identifying the conditions that promote the entrepreneurial career of the solo self-employed, this paper advances the current understanding of the heterogeneity among the solo self-employed.

A person-centered approach is used to identify groups among the solo self-employed based on their starting motives and to examine their engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), six groups displaying distinct motivational profiles are identified: (1) the pushed by necessity, (2) entrepreneurs by heart, (3) control-seekers, (4) occupationally-driven, (5) challenge-seekers and (6) the family business-driven. In line with the argument that starting motives affect behavior because they reflect the future work selves that individuals aim for, results show that solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in their engagement in proactive career behaviors. For future research, it is recommended to examine the role of demographic characteristics in the engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Although starting motives among self-employed people have been studied frequently, this research applies an innovative methodological approach by using LCA. Hereby, a potentially more advanced configuration of starting motives is explored. Additionally, this study applies a career perspective towards the domain of solo self-employment by exploring how solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in terms of managing their entrepreneurial careers.

Although top‐down interventions have the potential to reduce repatriate turnover, most organizations have not been very accommodating and repatriate turnover continues to remain high. Drawing from career transitions theory and the protean perspective of career management, this paper proposes a model of repatriate proactivity as an alternate approach. A “successful” repatriation transition outcome is defined as one in which, upon return, the repatriate: gains access to a job which recognizes any newly acquired international competencies; experiences minimal cross‐cultural re‐adjustment difficulties; and reports low turnover intentions. Individual antecedents are posited to include proactive repatriation behaviors and the personality characteristics which are suggested to drive the use of these behaviors. The strength/weakness of the repatriation situation is posited to moderate the relationship between personality and the emergence of proactive repatriation behaviors. Practical and theoretical implications for both the repatriation problem, and the career development literature in general, are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of servant leadership on perceived employability and examine the mediating role of three proactive career behaviours, namely, career planning, skill development and networking behaviour in this relationship.

Data for this study were collected from 176 employees who were working in a large food and beverage company operating in Pakistan. Structural equation modelling and the bootstrapping procedure were used to test the research hypotheses.

Results showed that servant leadership was positively related to career planning, skill development and networking behaviour, which, in turn, were positively associated with perceived employability. Furthermore, it was found that the three proactive career behaviours fully mediated the effects of servant leadership on perceived employability.

The findings of this study indicate that servant leadership can play a key role in enhancing workers’ employability. Thus, it is important that organisations focus on creating conditions, which help them to develop servant leaders.

This is the first study, which has empirically established a link between servant leadership and perceived employability. In addition, it uncovers three distinct mechanisms in the form of career planning, networking behaviour and skill development through which servant leadership can influence workers’ employability.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together job design and career theory in the examination of how proactive employees optimize their well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and perceived health) through job crafting and career competencies. This study offers an integrated account of the pathway from proactive personality to well-being.

Data were collected by a cross-sectional self-report survey study among 574 employees working in various organizations.

The results of structural equation modeling analyses supported the proposed double mediation model: job crafting and career competencies both mediated the positive relationship between proactive personality and well-being. The findings suggest that proactive employees can enhance their well-being both through proactive job redesign and the development of career-related skills and abilities.

This study precludes causal explanations. Future research should further investigate the role of employee proactivity related to contemporary work topics, including temporary contracts and self-employment.

Managers and HR practitioners can optimize employee well-being by focusing on HR policies related to job redesign, as well as investing in training and development of career competencies.

This paper integrates two research domains by exploring how proactive employees take a proactive stance toward their job as well as their career, and investigates how this proactive approach contributes to their well-being. In addition, the authors demonstrated a link between the development of career competencies and employee health.