The changing work environment has given rise to the importance of career longevity with employee well-being, leading to a shift in research focus from ‘careers’ to ‘sustainable careers’. The study aims to present a systematic literature review to gain deep insights and uncover key trends contributing to the discourse of sustainable careers. A database of 51 articles was utilized for a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Content analysis of the highly cited articles has also been carried out to compile a broader research overview. Additionally, research profiling helped uncover current developments in the literature. The findings highlight the emerging trends and antecedents, of sustainable careers. Also, the conceptual framework is developed, which could act as a roadmap for future scholarly research. The findings also offer practical implications for organizations and policymakers that can lead to long-term, sustainable career development in the continuously evolving work environment.
This study examines how career resources influence pre-service teachers' transition from university to workforce and their well-being. Using a longitudinal design, we analyzed data collected at two time points. We applied a latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify career resources profiles including calling, career adaptabilities, and career decision self-efficacy at T1 and a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine their influence on career outcomes (turnover intentions and job satisfaction) and well-being (flourishing and life satisfaction) at T2. From the LPA, a three-profile solution was identified distinguishing profiles with low, medium, and high levels of resources. Multinomial logistic regression revealed gender differences: female participants were more likely to belong to profiles characterized by higher career resources. MANOVA results demonstrated that profiles predicted career outcomes at T2. These results underscore the importance of cultivating career resources in teacher education programs and raise questions about the pivotal role of calling in career choice.
Career construction theory (CCT) offers unique insights into how students gain career adaptability skills to become employable. Although universities provide the same education to their students, some students' perceptions of employability may be lower than others'. This study examines the relationship between career adaptability and employability and the moderating role of personality within the context of CCT. The sample comprised 317 students from the economics and administrative sciences faculty at a state university in T & uuml;rkiye. The measurement model and hypotheses were tested using convergent and discriminant validity, correlation, and regression analyses.Results showed that career adaptability significantly and positively affects perceptions of employability, and that consciousness and extroversion strengthened this relationship. Gaining career adaptability skills is especially essential for students low in consciousness and extroversion. The findings emphasize that personality traits serve as fine-tuning factors within the adaptive process, suggesting that tailored career guidance is particularly essential for students low in these traits to navigate challenging labor markets.
Building on 2009 and 2025 position papers on career counselling, and on the fourth paradigm for careers in the XXIst century, this article proposes a transformational framework for career counselling in line with the Anthropocene era and the emerging Counsellocene perspective in career counselling. It investigated how career counselling could respond to technological disruption, socio-economic inequality, and ecological crises to help people construct meaningful, hopeful, and sustainable career-lives. Recent scholarship was synthesised based on an adapted qualitative systematic literature review. Deductively, and drawing on well-established theoretical frameworks, five thematic domains were uncovered. Inductively, subthemes of these domains were identified. The findings suggested that career counselling practice move towards transdisciplinary approaches that engage people as active authors of their career-lives against the backdrop of social justice and planetary imperatives. The proposed model emphasises agency, hope, and adaptability while helping people recognise their roles in reversing environmental degradation and building equitable futures.
This contribution highlights the role of organizational context in facilitating or hindering recovery from work and introduces the concept of Organizational Climate for Recovery (OCR), defined as employees' shared perceptions of the extent to which recovery activities are expected, supported and encouraged within the organization. This paper is a conceptual study with exploratory qualitative evidence. Description of recovery and organizational climate theories is complemented with semi-structured interviews involving 22 employees from different productive sectors. Interviews allowed to refine the construct of OCR and identify five organizational factors characterizing a recovery climate: management of workload, social support, autonomy, availability of recovery resources, and leadership support. By conceptualizing OCR, this paper contributes to the literature on employee well-being and offers practical recommendations for organizations to foster recovery-supportive climates. Future research should focus on developing measurement tools, assessing the impact of OCR, and designing interventions to enhance employee well-being and productivity.
Navigating pathways into education, training, and the workforce has always been challenging for young people. With the growing complexity of the world of work and varied post-secondary education pathways, providing support and guidance is crucial. In Australia, national policies such as the Australian Blueprint for Career Development, National Career Development Strategy, and the National Career Education Strategy aim to support young people's career readiness. Despite the acknowledged importance of careers education, there is limited national reporting on its current state in Australian secondary schools. This article explores the experiences of over 15,000 Year 10 students in Australian schools, using data from the first wave (2022) of the GENERATION longitudinal study. It examines student participation in various career education activities and focuses on equity of access. The study aims to address the following research questions: What careers education activities are Australian students participating in during Year 10? Does student participation vary by student characteristics or school characteristics? The findings highlight the importance of contextualizing career education practices and ensuring equitable access to career guidance and support for all students.
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to achieve a sustainable society in response to growing concerns about environmental deterioration and resource depletion. Beyond individual and societal initiatives to achieve the SDGs, organisations around the world are slowly adopting sustainable practices across their operations. The present work investigates how the association between SDG-aligned HR practices and culture influence SDG- aligned organisational citizenship behaviour through person-environment fit. It also examines the moderating role of satisfaction in the SDG-aligned job in the relationship between person-environment fit and SDG-aligned organisational citizenship behaviour. Data were collected from 477 employees of Indian organisations and analysed using structural equation modelling. The study revealed positive associations between SDG-aligned HR practices and culture and person-environment fit . The moderating role of SDG-aligned satisfaction was also found significant in the relationship between person-environment fit and SDG-aligned organisational citizenship behaviour. The study revealed that SDG-aligned HR practices and the organisation's culture can enhance SDG-aligned organisational citizenship behaviour among employees. The study also stands among the pioneers of empirical research on the alignment of the SDGs with employee behaviour in the Indian context.
Many business schools are focusing on developing the employability of their management graduate students. This study proposes academic engagement as a key source of management graduate students' perceived employability, assuming a direct relationship between these two variables. We also posit that this relationship is mediated by career engagement and moderated by employability orientation. We tested these relationships using a two-wave study and a quantitative survey-based analysis. The two surveys were conducted with a one-year time lag. A total of 231 (Wave 1) and 148 (Wave 2) students participated in the study. The results supported our hypotheses and highlighted the impact of academic engagement activities on management graduate students' perceived employability. This is one of the first studies to incorporate the notion of a career ecosystem at the meso level, thereby adding to the literature on the interplay between personal factors and an individual's response to contextual factors influencing career development.
Understanding career goal discrepancies is vital for fostering adaptive career development. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Positive Career Goal Discrepancy Scale and tested its measurement invariance across gender among Iranian university students (N = 363). Confirmatory factor analysis supported both three first-order and second-order factor structures. Convergent validity was confirmed via positive correlations with employability and proactive personality, while divergent validity was demonstrated through a negative correlation with the Negative Career Goal Discrepancy Scale. The scale exhibited high internal consistency (alpha = 0.91) and composite reliability (CR > 0.80), with acceptable average variance extracted (AVE >= 0.52). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis confirmed gender invariance. The Persian Positive Career Goal Discrepancy Scale is a valid and reliable tool for assessing career progress perceptions in Iranian contexts, supporting its use in research and practice.
Adolescence is a critical period in acquiring a vocational identity. During this period, adolescents who experience a crisis related to their vocational identity need to make decisions that allow them to successfully navigate their vocational development and climb the steps toward becoming future leaders by making informed decisions. Thus, the current study aims to investigate the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between adolescents' emotional intelligence (EI) and career adaptability, with 580 adolescents voluntarily participating in the study. Mediation analyses were conducted to test EI's indirect effect on career adaptability through resilience. According to our findings, resilience serves as a mediating variable between EI and career adaptability. The findings from our study provide essential practical insights for career counselors working with adolescents. As our findings indicate, practitioners can be more successful at enhancing career adaptability by adopting an approach that focuses on increasing EI and resilience skills.
In recent years, there has been a substantial gush in the number of published articles, indicating that researchers in the field of careers are enthusiastically embracing the notion of career adaptability. Despite the volume of studies, there has been a significant gap in an in-depth understanding of career adaptability in terms of theoretical frameworks, measures, application in various contexts, and understanding of career adaptability as an antecedent and consequent factor, mediator, and moderator. In order to comprehend the nomological network of career adaptability, this article reviews the literature on the subject. 43 papers covering the years 2015–2024 were reviewed using the PRISMA approach and two databases. This study offers a thorough analysis of the literature and current trends, emphasizing the need for additional research career adaptability by identifying gaps in the current literature. The current study provides various contextual factors that can impact career adaptability which was not explored previously in the research. To the best of the author's knowledge, no study has explored career adaptability in such detail before. The current research provides value by providing direction to future researchers and contributes by advancing the theoretical framework of career construction.
The aim of this review was to synthesise and appraise the evidence on the impact of media on career decisions. Academic databases were searched for papers that investigated the link between media and career choice. There was some evidence that audiovisual media (i.e., movies, TV, video games) impacted career choice, with further evidence that print media was influential. Males and those from racial minority groups were more influenced by media than others. There was a limited focus on specific careers, although it is evident that people are influenced to pursue career pathways in STEM, the criminal justice system, and marketing owing to media exposure. Overall, there is some evidence that media influences career choice, with audiovisual approaches more effective over print/text. However, this evidence is limited to a narrow range of careers. More rigorous research is warranted to develop our understanding of how media can influence career choice.
This article presents a systematic review conducted according to the PRISMA standards, considering Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and APA PsycArticles databases. The aim of the review was to systematize recent scientific evidence regarding relationships emerged in the literature between the different dimensions of the Occupational Fatigue Exhaustion Recovery Scale (OFER) and measures of health/well-being/burnout. From 524 records, 13 papers were included. Acute fatigue and Chronic fatigue were inversely associated with well-being and health outcomes: life and job satisfaction, meaning in work, quality of life, physical and mental health, and directly associated with job dissatisfaction and burnout. Conversely, Intershift Recovery was positively associated with life and job satisfaction, meaning in work, quality of life, physical and mental health, and inversely with job dissatisfaction and burnout. These findings open future perspectives for research and intervention for sustainable development, answering to the challenges of Sustainable Development Goal 3 “Good Health and Well-being”.
This paper presents an analysis of a focused selection of twenty-three systematic literature reviews on employability, reflecting our concerns about the quantity and quality of research and the proliferation of review studies on this topic. Our umbrella review followed PRISMA methodology and identified three broad areas of employability research: 1) the complex and multidimensional nature of employability, 2) competencies, capitals, and individual development for employability, and 3) contextual factors, inequalities, and shared responsibility in employability. Within these, we identified twelve main micro-themes of contemporary research and opportunities for future research. We found a field characterised by a complex, multifaceted, and dynamic nature, marked by diverse conceptualizations and measurement approaches. Furthermore, findings consistently point to the importance of individual attributes, competencies, and the accumulation of various forms of capital, alongside formative experiences, in shaping employability. Crucially, our review highlights that employability is deeply influenced by global transformations and systemic inequalities, necessitating a shared responsibility among all stakeholders to bridge skill gaps and foster equitable and sustainable labour market outcomes.
Globally, increasing demand for professionally qualified staff in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) directs attention to strategies to grow and sustain the workforce. One such strategy is offering training pathways in secondary school. Guided by Career Construction Theory, we conducted a thematic analysis of in-depth biographical interviews to explore the career trajectories of eight Australian educators who entered the ECEC workforce through school-based pathways. Our analysis identified the potential of school-based entry to engage individuals, build educational pathways and sustain employment in ECEC, with some advancing through to degree qualifications. However, external challenges, most notably poor remuneration and high work demands, placed challenges on career pathways with some aspiring to move into the school sector or allied careers. The findings provide valuable insights for educational institutions, policymakers, and career counsellors to better support and sustain a professionally trained ECEC workforce.
The Human Capital Sustainability Leadership (HCSL) framework integrates ethical, mindful, servant, and sustainable leadership to promote well-being and organizational resilience. Despite growing international interest, no validation studies have been conducted in Latin America. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Human Capital Sustainability Leadership Scale (HCSLS) for use with leaders in Argentina. Data were collected from 202 leaders (51% men, 49% women) across diverse sectors. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a second-order factor model with strong fit indices. The scale demonstrated high internal consistency, and Mokken analysis indicated moderate to strong item scalability. Convergent validity was evidenced through positive associations with work performance and relational civility, and negative correlations with burnout indicators. Overall, findings support the HCSLS as a reliable and valid tool for assessing sustainability-oriented leadership practices in Argentina, providing a culturally grounded instrument for leadership development and research in multiple organizational contexts.
Australian undergraduate musicians often aspire for orchestral-performance careers despite the limited available positions. Whilst research has frequently examined these aspirations, currently none has focused exclusively on Australian classical brass musicians. This study provides an exploratory analysis of eight Australian undergraduate brass musicians' aspirations. As part of a larger project, participants reflected on their current and prior career aspirations during semi-structured interviews. A substantial increase in orchestral performance aspirations during undergraduate study was found. Analysis using the Systems Theory Framework of Career Development (STF) revealed the importance of multiple constructs (Education Institutions, World of Work Knowledge, Interests, and Values) and highlighted the extensive influence of performance-focused career outlooks. STF provided an effective framework that enabled discussion of the diverse influences on brass musicians' aspirations. By highlighting participants' performance focus, these results reiterate the need for holistic curriculum reform that is consistent with industry realities.
This paper explores the role of temporality-the perception of time and its use as a regulator-as a semiotic driver for sustainable development. A dynamic framework for organizational change to promote sustainability is proposed, based on semiotic-cultural psychology theory and the fourth paradigm for twenty-first-century careers. The SCOPRI Method provides a holistic perspective on the intertwinement of organizational subjectivity. Illustrative scenarios demonstrate how interpretive expansion practices and participatory career design promote semiotic capital, synchronize individual and organizational temporalities and convert constraints into innovation's driver. Embedding multi-tiered temporal horizons within organizations enhances intergenerational equity, improves risk anticipation and fosters meaningful work. It is contended that this perspective elevates psychological intervention from diagnostic assessment to strategic co-construction, thereby promoting sustainable careers and organizational resilience.
This conceptual paper explores the psychological dimensions of agricultural work. Agriculture is a cornerstone of human civilisation and a critical domain for achieving global sustainability. Multiple sectors in agriculture's diverse value chain face challenges related to climate change, labour shortages, supply chains and transport, production and storage, and technological transformation. Psychology, particularly vocational psychology and career development, offers valuable theoretical and empirical insights and interventions for individuals' career development and the industry's workforce development. The paper includes examples from a program of research and development pertaining to aspects of agriculture including on-farm labouring work, mechanical and machinery work, technology adoption, and career education. We propose an agenda for advancing psychological theory, research, and practice for better understanding and enhancing career development in and for agriculture.
