This article discusses the contribution of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development to well-being in organizations from a primary prevention perspective. It deals with sustainability not only in terms of the ecological, economic, and social environment but also in terms of improving the quality of life of every human being. The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development is seen as a primary prevention perspective that can foster well-being in organizations at all the different levels going from the worker, to the group, to the organization, and also to inter-organizational processes. The possibilities for further research and interventions are also discussed.

This contribution deals with the concept of healthy organizations and starts with a definition of healthy organizations and healthy business. In healthy organizations, culture, climate, and practices create an environment conducive to employee health and safety as well as organizational effectiveness (Lowe, 2010). A healthy organization thus leads to a healthy and successful business (De Smet et al., 2007; Grawitch and Ballard, 2016), underlining the strong link between organizational profitability and workers’ well-being. Starting from a positive perspective focused on success and excellence, the contribution describes how positive organizational health psychology evolved from occupational health psychology to positive occupational health psychology stressing the importance of a primary preventive approach. The focus is not on deficiency and failure but on a positive organizational attitude that proposes interventions at different levels: individual, group, organization, and inter-organization. Healthy organizations need to find the right balance between their particular situation, sector, and culture, highlighting the importance of well-being and sustainability. This contribution discusses also the sustainability of work-life projects and the meaning of work in healthy organizations, stressing the importance of recognizing, respecting, and using the meaning of work as a key for growth and success. Finally, the contribution discusses new research and intervention opportunities for healthy organizations.

Building on new developments in the psychology of working framework (PWF) and psychology of working theory (PWT), this article proposes a rationale and research agenda for applied psychologists and career development professionals to contribute to the many challenges related to human rights and decent work. Recent and ongoing changes in the world are contributing to a significant loss of decent work, including a rise of unemployment, underemployment, and precarious work across the globe. By failing to satisfy human needs for economic survival, social connection, and self-determination, the loss of decent work undermines individual and societal well-being, particularly for marginalized groups and those without highly marketable skills. Informed by innovations in the PWF/PWT, we offer exemplary research agendas that focus on examining the psychological meaning and impact of economic and social protections, balancing caregiving work and market work, making work more just, and enhancing individual capacities for coping and adapting to changes in the world of work. These examples are intended to stimulate new ideas and initiatives for psychological research that will inform and enhance efforts pertaining to work as a human right.

The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development represents a new research area in the field of Sustainability Science. It introduces a psychological perspective and enhances the trans-disciplinary framework that forms the foundation of Sustainability Science. Firmly establishing the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development as a research area means recognizing and integrating the value of psychology and the psychological approach in the construction of processes linked to sustainable development. Enriching sustainable development through opening the black box of psychological processes in support of sustainable development is a new and exciting frontier, that will likely lead to major developments and concrete advances for making development more sustainable in the 21st century and beyond.

This article presents a new career construct, intrapreneurial self-capital, and provides empirical evidence to verify it. Intrapreneurial self-capital is defined as a core of individual intrapreneurial resources used to cope with career and life construction challenges and includes dimensions of core self-evaluation, hardiness, creative self-efficacy, resilience, goal mastery, decisiveness, and vigilance. The Intrapreneurial Self-Capital Scale was developed to measure this new construct. It was administered to 171 Italian high school students, and confirmatory factor analysis supported the existence of the construct and its dimensions. Intrapreneurial self-capital is a construct that will be useful for further research as well as for use in career interventions.

Drawing from career construction and positive youth development perspectives, this study explores, among 254 Italian high school students, the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and support from friends and teachers with indices of adaptive career development. Results from the full canonical correlational model revealed that dimensions of EI and teacher support were positively associated with resilience and self-perceived employability. These results suggest that EI and teacher support warrant further investigation as factors that may contribute to adaptive career progress among youth.

Human resource management that aims to promote employee wellbeing calls for a new style of leadership. Such a strategy focuses on fostering flourishing and resilient workers to build up thriving businesses and robust and sustainable organizations. In this framework, we developed a new integrated construct of human capital sustainability leadership, and a scale to assess it. This leadership style has its roots in the existing definition of the term but aims to achieve higher integration of different functions and of the four dimensions of leadership, including ethical, sustainable, mindful and servant leadership. In this study, we analyze the psychometric properties of the new scale for assessing human capital sustainability leadership for Italian workers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis reveal a factor structure with the four dimensions that have good reliability and validity. The confirmatory factor analysis confirms this four-dimensional structure, which is integrated into the construct of human capital sustainability leadership as a single second-order factor. 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations [4], good health and wellbeing represent fundamental aims to ensure the prosperity of all. Thus, the psychology of sustainability [3,5,6] has emerged and gradually acquired the connotation of paying attention to "positive sustainability". Traditionally, the verb sustain means to maintain something as it is in the present and forward it to the future without losing any qualitatively or quantitatively inherent characteristics and properties. From this perspective, the current generation attain realization over resources without jeopardizing possible future uses of those resources, therefore ensuring their fair use. At any rate, before the positive shift [3,5,7], the literature only had the perspective of not damaging resources. On the contrary, the new perspective also demands paying attention to both respecting and regenerating resources [3]. The traditional perspective is based on renewable resources and the prevention of polluting processes and materials. The new perspective is also based on renewable resources, as well as purifying and oxygenating processes for people and the environment. The traditional view focuses on using non-toxic materials and processes, as well as maintenance, processing, dismantling, demolition, disposal and recycling. On the other hand, the innovative standpoint emphasizes accountability for the enhancement of health/wellbeing and renewing/upgrading resources through "re-wellbeing, up-wellbeing and crea(te)-wellbeing" as a fundamental sustainable development goal for positive, healthy organizations [3]. From a positive, healthy organizations perspective [5], the shift from illness to positive health of individuals and organizations underlines the importance of promoting the individuals' and organizations' resources, and subsequently building their strengths. This innovative approach goes beyond the ecological and socio-economic context by focusing on sus...

Adopting a primary prevention perspective, this study examines competencies with the potential to enhance well-being and performance among future workers. More specifically, the contributions of ability-based and trait models of emotional intelligence (EI), assessed through well-established measures, to indices of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being were examined for a sample of 157 Italian high school students. The Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test was used to assess ability-based EI, the Bar-On Emotional Intelligence Inventory and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire were used to assess trait EI, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale and the Satisfaction With Life Scale were used to assess hedonic well-being, and the Meaningful Life Measure was used to assess eudaimonic well-being. The results highlight the contributions of trait EI in explaining both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, after controlling for the effects of fluid intelligence and personality traits. Implications for further research and intervention regarding future workers are discussed.