Building on the integrative career competencies framework, we examined the indirect association between career competencies, assessed at graduation, and subjective career success (SCS) via employability activities, both assessed six months after graduation, among a sample of 613 Italian graduates. We also examined the moderating role of three facets of academic satisfaction (i.e., vocational choice, educational goals, and occupational prospects). Our findings showed an indirect relation between career competencies and SCS through employability activities. Furthermore, academic satisfaction acted as a moderator. The results of this time-lagged study, that tapped into the actual transition into work process, have implications for (1) school-to-work transitions, providing insights into graduates’ transition into the labor market, (2) employability, focusing on employability activities and providing additional knowledge on their antecedents and outcomes, and (3) career competencies, providing further empirical evidence that career competencies are an important resource that graduates can mobilize to during and after their school-to-work transition.

The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades have fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs), and Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs). Structural equation modeling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were independently related to organizational identification and moral disengagement. These, in turn, mediated the effects of ethical climates on OCBs and CWBs. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach, and present some practical implications of our findings.

The labour market has changed dramatically in the last few decades; in particular, lifetime employment within the same organization is now less frequent and careers have increasingly become boundaryless and unpredictable. Therefore, individuals need to take charge of their career development and try to increase their chances in the labour market. This is why employability has become a key and urgent concept for employees and employers, policy makers, scholars, and practitioners. Despite this increasing interest, employability still lacks a mainstream definition and a comprehensive theoretical model. To address this void, the present integrative review aims to (a) provide a new definition of employability contrasting it with previous contributions, (b) depict accurately the current body of evidence, and based on gaps in research published to date, (c) provide a heuristic model to inspire future research and address unresolved issues.

Workplace bullying is a critical issue for its negative consequences on victims’ health and well-being. This study aimed at examining the intermediate roles of anxiety and depression, in the relations between workplace bullying as a predictor, and physical and psychological negative symptoms as outcomes. In particular, it was hypothesized that workplace bullying would be associated with higher anxiety and depression and, through them, with higher physical and psychological negative symptoms. We sampled 151 Italian employees, who called on a workplace bullying public clinical center as victims and filled a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Results of bootstrapped regressions showed that only anxiety mediated the association of workplace bullying with negative physical symptoms while both anxiety and depression mediated its association with negative psychological symptoms. The results have implications for the development of appropriate intervention strategies for both prevention and clinical treatment. In particular, timely diagnosing and treating anxiety and depression could prevent subsequent problems related to psychological and physical symptoms such as colitis, headache, tiredness, nervousness, etc. Organizational interventions in terms of primary prevention are also discussed. From an empirical standpoint, the study contributed to disentangling the differential roles of anxiety and depression with respect to physical and psychological symptoms; moreover, overcoming a common limit of workplace bullying research, the current study was carried out on actual victims.