Career Ecosystems and Sustainable Careers: A Cross-National Study of India and Italy

Introduction

The notion of sustainability has become increasingly important in modern career studies. Indeed, current careers are more likely to put individuals on less predictable and more fragmented career paths that can negatively affect individuals' functioning in life domains and ultimately harm the sense of security, psychological well-being (PWB), and life satisfaction (Akkermans et al., 2021; De Vos et al., 2020; Nimmi et al., 2021; 2022). Scholars of contemporary career theory have a strong interest in defining a sustainable career and considering the contributing factors. van der Heijden and De Vos (2015) theorize sustainable careers as having three dimensions: person, context, and time. These aspects are seen as the pillars of an effective adaptation to contemporary careers and their fast-paced evolution (Talluri & Uppal, 2022). They contribute to preserving and promoting one's happiness, PWB, and productivity, which are the core indicators of career sustainability (De Vos et al., 2020).

Although relevant at the theoretical level, empirical scrutiny of career sustainability is still in its infancy and presents room for extension (Talluri & Uppal, 2022; Van der Heijden & De Vos, 2020). Only recently, there has been an increase in studies analyzing the nature of career sustainability, considering antecedents at the organizational and personal level (Bozionelos et al., 2020; Donald et al., 2020; Nimmi et al., 2021; Richardson et al., 2021; Udayar et al., 2021), in line with the assumption that sustainability is shaped by context- and person-related dimensions (De Vos et al., 2020). Still to be explored is the role of the context at a macro-level of analysis, incorporating the part played by career ecosystem factors (e.g. labor market conditions, geographical and cultural boundaries) in crafting career sustainability (De Vos et al., 2020; Nimmi et al., 2021). Also, more must be done to reveal the interrelations between context and person-related dimensions leading to sustainable careers.

Moreover, Talluri & Uppal (2021) remarked that much career sustainability research adopted qualitative enquiry methods, which must be complemented with quantitative research. Additionally, most empirical research has been conducted with samples of employees and only scarcely with those exposed to higher vulnerability to career-related threats (e.g. non-standard, expatriate or self-employed workers, workers with disability, etc.). Sustainability among graduates at early career stages is important as graduates place more emphasis on sustainable jobs (Gamlath, 2022). Previous studies have looked into career sustainability from an early career perspective by looking into the skillsets required in the 21^st century (Karaca-Atik et al., 2023) and determinants of career sustainability and its benefits for graduates and organizations (Donald et al., 2020). Recently, Nimmi et al. (2022) have investigated the importance of psychological resources like psychological capital and perceived employability in determining the career sustainability of college students. Research has overlooked these psychological resources in the early career stages, where one’s sustainability can be jeopardized by structural (e.g., career instability, skills mismatch, competition), normative (e.g. social expectations related to transition) and exceptional (e.g. COVID-related recession) employment-related factors (Akkermans et al., 2021; OECD, 2021).