The present study aimed to extend understanding about the relationship between career adaptability, courage, and life satisfaction in a sample of Italian adolescents. It was hypothesized that courage partially mediated the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction. Specifically, 1202 Italian high school students with an age from 14 to 20 years (M = 16.87; SD = 1.47), of which 600 (49.9%) boys and 602 (50.1%) girls, were involved. Using a multigroup approach across gender, it was found that courage partially mediated the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction in boys and girls. Results suggested the relevance of career interventions to promote career adaptability and courage for strengthening life satisfaction in adolescence.Western European societies are characterized by fast modification of work environments, rapid technological changes, economic and social insecurity and instability, unemployment, due notably to the worldwide financial crisis, globalization, and migration flows. As a result of these social phenomena, adolescents tend to perceive their future to be full of risks (Schoon, 2007), and thoughts about the future constitute one of the main fears and concerns among other domains (e.g., relationships with parents and peers). Adolescents can experience anxiety and distress about the future, that might affect their psychological health and their levels of life satisfaction, so that Lange (2013) highlighted that job insecurity, as the perceived risk or fear of future unemployment, has a detrimental impact on personal well-being. This perception may occur especially among adolescents in countries such as Italy, where the rate of youth unemployment and precariousness is higher than other EU countries (EUROSTAT, 2016).The Life Design, developed primarily to help individuals to construct their career life in the current changing societies, is a paradigm for career counseling based on the epistemology of social constructivism and considers career development as the result of a dynamic interaction of person and environment. It stimulates persons to reflexively imagine and construct a life arranged with viable and multiple roles to guarantee well-being and adaptive functioning (Savickas, 2015). Central to the life design paradigm is the concept of career adaptability, that is an essential resource to help individuals plan their uncertain future, face adverse working conditions, adapt to changes of the job market and job conditions, and therefore increase their well-being (Savickas, 2015). In this current socio-economic context, particular relevance is also given to the propensity of individuals to behave courageously and persist despite perceived risks (behavioral courage), as this resource seem to be a strength when making difficult career choices despite fears

The authors examined the relationship between career adaptability, future orientation, and vocational interests. Specifically, they tested the role of career adaptability and future orientation in promoting a broader range of vocational interests, based on the principle that experiencing more interests can be useful in giving one's best in multiple occupations and in planning a broad range of career goals. A total of 762 Italian adolescents (383 males, 379 females) participated in the study. Results highlight the mediating role of future orientation in the relationship between 4 career adaptability resources and breadth of vocational interests. These results underscore that specific interventions in career adaptability and future orientation may foster a broader range of vocational interests, providing more opportunity for adolescents to respond to the demands of the current job market.

No abstract

The call for further research on service sustainability at all levels has been increasingly stated within the past years. However, limited research has been conducted with regard to the macro level, in which services are inevitably influenced by social, cultural, economic and technological factors. This paper develops an ecosystem approach within the service context to design a service not only from a micro level (e.g., service experience, service encounters), but also from a social level in order to help businesses and public sectors to transform the relationship among individual, collective, social, and environmental systems and increase service sustainability. Then, it applies the developed Service Ecosystem Design (SED) model in a Career Counselling Service (CCS) in the University of Milano-Bicocca (Unimib) in order to demonstrate the usefulness of this model. The empirical data were collected from service providers to illustrate the current service system maps and from first-year undergraduates to understand their perceptions and expectations on campus CCS. The results show that the Unimib CCS is a research-oriented career service and the fundamental service improvements should focus on designing the peer counselling, follow-up, pre-service, a holistic online platform, law education, technology education, optional course, hands-on experiences and student activities.

Academic self-efficacy beliefs influence students’ academic and career choices, as well as motivational factors and learning strategies promoting effective academic success. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the academic self-efficacy of university students in comparison to students at other levels. Furthermore, extant measures present several limitations. The first aim of this study was to develop a reliable and valid scale assessing university students’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing academic tasks. The second aim was to investigate differences in academic self-efficacy due to gender, years of enrollment, and student status. The study involved 831 students (age M = 21.09 years; SD = 1.34 years; 66.3% women) enrolled in undergraduate programs. Indicators of academic experiences and performance (i.e., number of exams passed and average exam rating) were collected. A new scale measuring students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs was administered. Results from a preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis were consistently supported by findings from a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Multigroup CFA supported the presence of measurement invariance. Analyses revealed that the new scale has eight factors: “Planning Academic Activities,” “Learning Strategies,” “Information Retrieval,” “Working in Groups,” “Management of Relationships with Teachers,” “Managing Lessons,” “Stress Management,” and “Thesis Work.” Self-efficacy dimensions showed significant relations with academic experiences and students’ performance indicators, as well as differences due to gender, years of enrollment, and student status. Findings are discussed in terms of practical implications for the implementation of intervention programs aimed at fostering self-efficacy beliefs and academic success.