Linking individuals’ resources with (perceived) sustainable employability: Perspectives from conservation of resources and social information processing theory

Abstract

Rapid technological advances, socio-economic changes, globalization and increasingly dynamic working environments continue to present unique challenges for individuals with regard to sustaining their employability. While previous research highlights key factors that shape an individual's employability and ways of getting employment, there is a paucity of research on sustainable employability. To bridge this gap, this paper adopts an integrative review methodology to assess, analyse and synthesize extant literature on sustainable employability with the main focus on its antecedents. Building on conservation of resources theory and social information processing theory, our analysis demonstrates that sustainable employability involves three key components: employability, vitality and work ability. The analysis further reveals that sustainable employability can be achieved through selected personal and social support resources. Based on these we develop an integrative sustainable employability framework proposing personal and social support resources as key antecedents of sustainable employability. Personal resources comprise career competencies, psychological capital, mindfulness, core self-evaluations and emotional intelligence. Social support resources are provided by co-workers and supervisors and exhibited as social cues. With that, we extend and contribute to the sustainable employability literature by offering avenues for future research. From a managerial perspective, this review holds important implications for individuals to enrich their working capabilities as well as organizations to employ productive individuals.

Development and validation of Chinese college students’ future employability scale

“…Different scholars have different understandings of the term "employability". Some researchers, based on the conservation 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1063437 of resources (COR) theory, believe that employability is a kind of individual asset possessed by individuals in the workplace (Hobfoll et al, 2003;Yu et al, 2014;Jabeen et al, 2022). It provides the possibility of individual employment; Vanhercke et al (2014) suggest that employability is an individual's ability to obtain and maintain employment.…”

Effect of Despotic Leadership on the Employee Work Withdrawal Behavior and Acquiescent Silence

“…The study is built on the conservation of resource (COR) theory which explains the impact of organizational resources on people's psychological learning and growth. Resources can be either the company's work environment such as the level of strategic communication, knowledge sharing, freedom to share ideas, and participative decision making (Jabeen et al, 2021;Xia et al, 2019). Similarly, when employees are working under despotic leaders, they are inclined to safeguard their employment by utilizing other means for instance using the quality of work-life as a shield to outlive the dark behavior of the Leader (Fan et al, 2020;Penney et al, 2011).…”

The role of psychological safety in online tourism and hospitality learning

“…Therefore, through the competency-based approach, the five domains of knowledge and skills can be viewed as threshold competencies that the students should be able to apply in the tourism and hospitality workplace context upon graduation. As pointed out by Jabeen et al (2021), this type of employability could be viewed subjectively, particularly when individuals' perspectives are needed to understand potential weaknesses. For example, self-perception and belief in own ability have been found to influence confidence to find employment (Rothwell & Arnold, 2007) or to move between jobs and workplaces (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2011).…”

“…Thus, in the online learning context, students continually receive social clues from their online class -their peers and lecturerswhich may lead to the decisions of whether one would invest in their personal resources to interact and engage with their peers and seek support from lecturers for learning gains or not, as they may find some of these resources potentially energy-draining. Jabeen et al (2021) suggest that the social context influences one's perception of whether a given resource is valuable. Halbesleben et al (2014) pointed out that having access to a greater range or sum of resources does not guarantee successful outcomes.…”

“…Halbesleben et al (2014) pointed out that having access to a greater range or sum of resources does not guarantee successful outcomes. Hence, it is here where SIP can strengthen COR and help establish what resources are more helpful to people in a given context (Jabeen et al, 2021). Therefore, in this study, we seek to uncover whether peer collaboration and lecturer support affect the formation of psychological safety and lead to evolved graduate outcomes through online education.…”