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The purpose of this study is to examine young consumers’ financial behavior (e.g. saving) and pro-environmental behavior (i.e. reduced consumption and green buying) as effective proactive strategies undertaken in the present to satisfy materialistic values and maximize well-being.

The study is based on an online survey among a panel of young American adults (N = 968).

The study finds a positive effect of materialism on personal well-being and negative effects on financial satisfaction, proactive financial coping and reduced consumption, but no effect on green buying, a separate and distinct pro-environmental strategy. Both proactive financial coping and reduced consumption are positively associated with subjective well-being.

Future research should re-examine conceptualizations of materialism in the context of climate change and the meaning of possessions in the global digital economy; studies could also focus on the specific well-being effects of reduced consumption and alternative pathways to align materialistic and environmental values.

Consumer education should look to models of financial education to demonstrate how limited natural resources can be managed at the micro level to enhance consumers’ subjective well-being, as well as reduce resource strain at the macro level.

Key contributions are the examination of materialism and consumption in the dual contexts of financial and environmental resource constraints and the effects of these key macro-social phenomena on consumers’ perceived well-being. Another study highlight is the differentiation of two strategies for proactive environmental coping, of which only one, reduced consumption, increased personal well-being and decreased psychological distress.

Self-employment is considered one of the responses to precarious employment, particularly among those who lost jobs during an economic crisis. Although starting a new business is widely available, operating new ventures remains challenging. This article aims to explore the premises of self-employment success, namely self-employment intention and proactive coping as crucial predictors of further performance.

The authors recruited participants among initially unemployed individuals who participated in the entrepreneurial program aimed at creating self-employment. Since entrepreneurs are expected to have specific personal characteristics important for performance, the authors assessed proactive coping as the key factor for self-employment intention.

The results depicted proactive coping as crucial in performing own ventures in the long run, which suggests that self-employment intention may change over time.

Proactive coping is particularly appropriate for self-employed at any stage of the entrepreneurial process because it maintains the intention to perform own business. Thus, the findings underline the need for proactive coping training for entrepreneurs, particularly those previously unemployed.

As the self-employment intention may differ in time, the importance of being proactive in operating small businesses increases.

The purpose of this paper is to test a process model of coping with job loss by examining the impact of distal to proximal variable sets for incrementally explaining two distinct subjective well‐being variables: life satisfaction and unemployment stigma. A second purpose is to test for mean differences between study scales for increasingly long‐term unemployed individuals.

A unique sample of unemployed victims completed an online survey investigating the impact of six variable sets on life satisfaction and unemployment stigma. These sets fall within the McKee‐Ryan et al. taxonomy and included: human capital and demographics; personal and financial coping resources; cognitive appraisal; escape‐focused coping; problem‐focused coping; and job search effort.

Results partially supported the hypothesized variable set impact order on both life satisfaction and unemployment stigma. In addition some significant differences on study variables were found comparing four unemployed groups: up to six months; and three progressively long‐term unemployed groups, i.e. seven to 12 months; 13 to 24 months; and over 24 months, with the over 24 month unemployed respondents (23 per cent of the sample) suffering the most.

The cross‐sectional self‐report study research design is the foremost limitation. However, given the challenges of collecting unemployment related‐data on such a diverse sample, the unemployment agency/job services recent‐job‐loss‐respondent longitudinal data collection approach used in previous research was not an option. The one‐factor test found that only 15 per cent of “common method variance” was explained by the first factor, suggesting that this is not an overriding limitation. Survey constraints necessitated using shortened validated scales in several instances. However, the authors did select the highest loading items when shortening scales and such scales were generally reliable.

Implications of study results for careers and steps to prevent longer‐term unemployment are discussed. There seemed to be a general “disconnect” between unemployed respondent self‐ratings of positive skill assessment, networking comfort, and proactive search, all of which were fairly high, against recent behavioral job search which was lower. This disconnect suggests that it may be hard for many unemployed to objectively look at their job search process.

A unique unemployed sample, primarily executives, middle managers and professional, salaried individuals, with most being longer‐term unemployed, was utilized. Initial psychometric support for several new scales was found, including unemployment stigma and behavioral job search. This study represented a fairly comprehensive test of the McKee‐Ryan et al. taxonomy for correlates of psychological well‐being during unemployment specifically applied to life satisfaction and unemployment stigma. An innovative on‐line data collection approach, snowball sampling, was used.

Interest in psychological resilience has grown rapidly in the last couple of decades (Britt, Sinclair, & McFadden, 2016; King & Rothstein, 2010; Youssef & Luthans, 2007). Psychological resilience occurs when a person can “recover, re-bound, bounce-back, adjust or even thrive” in the face of adversity (Garcia-Dia, DiNapoli, Garcia-Ona, Jakubowski, & O’flaherty, 2013, p. 264). As such, resilience can be conceptualized as a state-like and malleable construct that can be enhanced in response to stressful events (Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). It incorporates a dynamic process by which individuals use protective factors (internal and external) to positively adapt to stress over time (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Rutter, 1987). Building on the dual-pathway model of resilience, we integrate adaptive and proactive coping to the resilience development process and add a heretofore unexamined perspective to the ways in which resilience changes over time. We propose that resilience development trajectories differ depending on the type of adversity or stress experienced in combination with the use of adaptive and proactive coping. We outline the need for future longitudinal studies to examine these relationships and the implications for developing resilience interventions in the workplace.

The 2008 economic and financial crisis has particularly hit Italy, forcing governments to cope with unprecedented shocks affecting their financial conditions. Drawing on the resilience concept, the chapter aims to investigate what capacities are deployed and developed by Italian local governments to respond to such shocks. Based on a multiple case study, it explores the role of organisational features and capacities, as well as the characteristics of the external environment, in affecting responses and the related results. From the analysis it emerges that different capacities have been deployed by Italian municipalities to anticipate and cope with financial shocks in recent years, leading to four main patterns of financial resilience: proactive and internally driven, fatalist, constrained and contented resilience. The contribution highlights that simply relying on (past) wealthy conditions, or accumulating resources, is not sufficient for coping with shocks. By contrast, it emphasises the importance of investing on anticipating the consequences of negative events.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of participating in two domains, work and school, on the subjective wellbeing (SWB) and work‐school conflict (WSC), as well as the moderating role of proactive coping between WSC and SWB among Nigerian nontraditional students.

Using a cross‐sectional survey, data are collected from a total of 141 non‐traditional Master's in Managerial Psychology students at a university located in the South West of Nigeria.

Results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis reveal that work status is inversely related to SWB and positively related to WSC. Results also confirm the moderating role of coping; such that, as perceived WSC increased, non‐traditional students with moderate to high levels of coping reported greater SWB than those with low coping skills.

Statements on causality, with respect to the present findings, must be made with caution because of the self‐report nature of the study. Further, a global challenge of WSC was adopted in this study; nevertheless, one cannot underestimate the distinctive pattern of WSC that characterised Nigerian non‐traditional students. These could be explored in future studies to further enrich the literature on work‐school obligations and health outcomes.

Results of the present study suggest the need for employers' support as well as universities' flexibility to the needs of non‐traditional students.

The study fills a void in the literature, linking fulfillment of work‐school obligations to health‐related issues among adults (non‐traditional students) in an African setting.

The purpose of this paper is to use the case of Hong Kong to assess the equalisation and individualization claim of the risk society approach to studying experience and coping of employment risks.

Two types of survey data are used: quarterly official surveys from the year of 1993 to 2008 and a cross-sectional territory-wide representative telephone survey conducted in 2009.

The findings show that contrary to the equalisation claim, experiences of employment risks have continued to concentrate on disadvantaged groups: unskilled manual workers and those with education levels below lower secondary school had continuously fared worse than professionals, managers and university degree holders. These disadvantaged groups were also not particularly proactive in adopting either capital-based or work-related coping methods when they encountered unemployment.

The lack of trend data to examine the use of different coping means is one of the main drawbacks of the current study. The study carries important theoretical implications.

Policy implications for the government to provide more comprehensive and proactive employment-related support measures and further expansion of university education.

This paper examines the case of Hong Kong so as to extend the empirical assessment of the risk society approach beyond the Anglo-Saxon context to mature Asian economies. The study further shows that we need to go beyond the secular trend globalisation which the risk society theory emphasises. Historical factors and business-government-labour power relations are critical factors that shape the policies and institutions of labour market regulations and welfare provision in the local context

Since 2010, Dutch local authorities (LGs) have been coping with fiscal stress and austerity. Restoring fiscal balance is difficult for Dutch LGs as they have very limited abilities to increase the level of local income. Fundamental choices regarding policy priorities and public services are required to reduce fiscal deficits. An in-depth case study of four carefully selected LGs revealed three typical financial shocks in the Netherlands: the reduction of national transfers to LGs, the decentralisation of national tasks to LGs without corresponding budgets and the declined value of municipal assets (construction land). The perceived vulnerability for financial shocks is relatively high in Dutch LGs due to their undiversified and uncertain revenue sources. This chapter illustrates that while the anticipatory capacity initially was low, many efforts have been made since 2010 improving risk management and medium-term financial planning. Dutch LGs have typically deployed short-term and long-term responses to cope with austerity. Regarding the short-term, two types of responses were commonly used to balance the budget: cutting costs and postponing investments. Long-term responses were deployed to realign actual operational outputs with strategically desired outputs. Sticking to strategic plans was not easy as financial shocks evolved quickly. An important long-term response in the Netherlands was the ‘transition of the role of government in society’, moving from a proactive self-organising type of government towards a more passive, coordinating type of government. No evidence was found for radical changes of the financial system.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether descriptions of functional coping strategies among entrepreneurs vary along temporal dimensions, from reactive or present oriented, to anticipatory or future oriented. Future-oriented coping is largely unexplored in stress and coping studies in the entrepreneurship literature, despite evidence that a future time perspective is advantageous for entrepreneurs.

This study adopts an exploratory, qualitative approach: interviews were conducted with 22 entrepreneurs and coping strategies were classified, via thematic analysis, according to function, then time orientation.

Results confirmed that entrepreneurs’ coping strategies can be classified according to conventional functional taxonomies of coping that emphasize form (affective, behavioral, cognitive) and direction (change, adapt, disengage), but additionally suggested that time orientation may be an important dimension for classifying coping strategies in the entrepreneurship context.

The findings inform the assessment of coping strategies in future research on stress, coping and strain among entrepreneurs. In particular, researchers should assess temporal dimensions of coping alongside the functional dimensions which have been emphasized in past research. Assessment of meaningful dimensions of coping is necessary to identify adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies in future research. Knowledge of adaptive coping strategies among entrepreneurs can inform coping skills interventions for stress resilience.

This study makes a unique contribution to the emergent body of literature on stress and coping among entrepreneurs by utilizing both functional and temporal coping taxonomies to identify relevant dimensions of coping for study in this context.

This study aims to explore the role of frontline service employees’ (FSEs) awareness that their job can be substituted by smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) in their job autonomy and proactive service performance and when these relationships can be buffered. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, the study examined the mediating relationship between FSEs’ STARA awareness, job autonomy and proactive service performance and the moderating effects of self-efficacy and resilience on this relationship.

The authors administered two-wave online surveys to 301 South Korean FSEs working in various service sectors (e.g. retailing, food/beverage, hospitality/tourism and banking). The Time 1 survey measured respondents’ STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy, and the Time 2 survey assessed their proactive service performance.

FSEs’ STARA awareness negatively affected their subsequent proactive service performance through decreased job autonomy. The negative association between STARA awareness and job autonomy was weaker when FSEs’ self-efficacy was high than when it was low. While the authors observed no significant moderation of resilience, the author found a marginally significant three-way interaction between STARA awareness, self-efficacy and resilience. Specifically, STARA awareness was negatively related to job autonomy only when both self-efficacy and resilience were low. When either self-efficacy or resilience was high, the association between STARA awareness and job autonomy became nonsignificant, suggesting the buffering roles of the two personal resources.

Given that the measurement of variables relied on self-reported data, rater biases might have affected the findings of the study. Moreover, the simultaneous measurement of STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy could preclude causal inferences between these variables. The authors encourage future studies to use a more rigorous methodology to reduce rater biases and establish stronger causality between the variables.

Service firms can decrease FSEs’ STARA awareness through training in the knowledge and skills necessary to work with these technologies. To promote FSEs’ proactive service performance in this context, service firms need to involve them in decisions related to STARA adoption and allow them to craft their jobs. Service managers should provide FSEs with social support and exercise empowering and supportive leadership to help them view STARA as a challenge rather than a threat.

Distinct from prior research on STARA awareness and employee outcomes, the study identified proactive service performance as a key outcome in the STARA context. By presenting self-efficacy and resilience as crucial personal resources that buffer FSEs from the deleterious impact of STARA awareness, the study provides practitioners with insights that can help FSEs maintain their job autonomy and proactive service performance in times of digitalization and automation.