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The initial transition into work has become less predictable. Therefore, emerging adults should take charge and be proactively engaged in their careers during the preparation stage of the school-to-work transition (STWT). We explored which behaviors emerging adults display during the STWT to foster their happiness, health, and productivity, how various contextual factors enable or hinder these behaviors, and to what extent these behaviors can be considered proactive.

Taking a qualitative approach, we conducted 44 semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students at an Applied Sciences University in the Netherlands six months before graduation. Additionally, we held nine focus groups (n = 55) and four interviews (n = 6) with contextual stakeholders (i.e. parents, faculty/staff, employers, the board of the university, higher education policymakers, and the Ministry of Education).

The students mentioned three main behaviors to foster their health, happiness, and productivity, namely, eating healthy food, maintaining social contacts, and reflecting on their motivations. Our analysis shows that, conceptually, none of these behaviors can be considered truly proactive. Moreover, the findings revealed multiple systemic underlying contextual hindrances to portray these behaviors, such as educational system characteristics, which make proactive behaviors less likely.

As the STWT is affected by multiple contexts, adopting a multi-stakeholder perspective is imperative when studying the phenomenon. We adopted the sustainable careers framework as a lens to uncover how emerging adults may build early career sustainability—additionally, we nuance current research on proactivity by concretizing the conceptualization of proactive behaviors.

Recent evidence from glass cliff research suggests that women are more willing than men to accept risky leadership positions. The purpose of this paper (based on three studies) is to reveal and resolve the apparent paradox that women are more risk averse than men yet end up in risky leadership positions.

In Study I, risk attitudes of 125 participants were surveyed to understand gender differences in risk taking. In two experimental vignette studies, 119 university students (Study II) and 109 working adults (Study III) were offered a leadership position in either a risky or successful company and asked to rate their willingness to accept the job.

Together, the results showed that although women are generally more risk averse than men, women who scored low on career self-efficacy were more likely to perceive a risky job as a promotional opportunity and were therefore more willing to accept such a job. These findings shed light on the role of women’s career decision making in the glass cliff phenomenon.

Glass cliff research has focused almost exclusively on organizational decision makers. The authors aim to better understand the glass cliff phenomenon by incorporating the perspective of job seekers.