Purpose: Drawing upon strengths-based inclusive work theory, this study explores how strengths-based leadership promotes employee career sustainability, particularly in the absence of protean career orientation (PCO), with career adaptability as a mediator.Design/methodology/approach: A three-wave survey of 329 Chinese employees tested the moderated mediation model. Hypotheses were assessed using SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.3.Findings: Strengths-based leadership positively influences career adaptability, leading to greater career sustainability. The effect is stronger when PCO is low, highlighting the compensatory role of strengths-based leadership.Originality/value: The present paper extends the existing literature on strengths-based leadership and unveils that strength-based leadership can compensate for a lack of PCO. Also, it augments strengths-based inclusive work theory and provides meaningful insights to cultivate employee career sustainability.Research limitations/implications: The cross-sectional design and self-reported data limit causal conclusions. Future research should use longitudinal methods and diverse cultural contexts to improve generalizability.

Purpose: In the evolving landscape of work, individuals are transitioning from relying on employers to self-manage their careers in pursuit of progression and growth. This study aims to advance the understanding of career growth by identifying family motivation as a crucial antecedent. Drawing upon the wise proactivity perspective, we examine how family motivation influences career growth through the mediating role of career crafting, with work–family balance serving as a moderator.Design/methodology/approach: A three-wave survey involving 244 employees in China was conducted to test hypotheses using hierarchical regression in SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.Findings: The results indicate that family motivation positively influences career growth through the mediating role of career crafting, with the effects amplified under high work–family balance.Practical implications: Organizations can promote career growth by enhancing work–family balance through flexible work arrangements, improved welfare policies, and relevant training programs. For employees, understanding and leveraging family motivation can encourage proactive career crafting and reflection, enabling individuals to align professional goals with family focused values. By fostering this alignment, the study offers insights into achieving sustained career growth while supporting individual and organizational development.Originality/value: This study clarifies the mediating mechanism from family motivation to career growth from the wise proactivity perspective, thereby expanding the literature on career crafting. Also, it extends the wise proactivity perspective into the family and career domains, enriching research on the antecedents of career growth.

Career crafting offers a new approach for individuals to cope with changing career situations. However, few studies have focused on personality-related antecedents that stably predict career proactivity. Additionally, as individuals’ careers are embedded in various social relationships, career crafting involves significant social interaction. Our study focuses on gratitude, which is related to social interaction, suggesting that gratitude fosters an appreciation for interpersonal relationships, providing a beneficial impetus for career crafting. A quantitative approach was adopted with a three-wave survey with 825 responses, and SPSS 26 and Mplus 8.3 were used as the analytical software for confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and path analysis. We conducted an empirical examination employing a moderated mediation model grounded in the framework of proactive motivation. The results revealed a positive correlation between gratitude and career crafting, with prosocial motivation mediating this relationship. Simultaneously, intrinsic motivation moderated the relationship between prosocial motivation and career crafting. Our study emphasizes gratitude’s role in career crafting and explores how it, along with prosocial motivations, drives proactive behaviors, responding to calls for relational work redesign and examining interactions between intrinsic and prosocial motivations in careers. It has important practical implications for individuals, organizations, and career counselors.

Although perfectionism has received considerable attention from organizational scholars, research on how it enhances employee creativity remains limited. Drawing on the model of proactive motivation and trait activation theory, this study investigates the relationship between employees’ self-oriented perfectionism and creativity (including both radical and incremental creativity), with job crafting as a mediating mechanism. In addition, we incorporate work stress as a moderator and propose a moderated mediation model. Multi-wave survey data were collected from employees in several Chinese organizations. The results show that self-oriented perfectionism is positively associated with both radical and incremental creativity, and that job crafting mediates these relationships. Furthermore, work stress moderates the mediated relationships, such that the positive indirect associations are stronger when work stress is higher. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.