Coping with career insecurity in the early career stage: the moderating role of ambiguity tolerance

Purpose – Career insecurity is an important issue for individuals in their early career stages. On the basis of stress and resource theories, we postulate career insecurity as a stressor that initiates the use of coping strategies (i.e. approach and avoidance coping), depending on personal resources such as ambiguity tolerance (i.e. preference for or aversion to ambiguity). We further posit that approach and avoidance coping have consequences for psychological well-being and subjective career success. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected at two time points with a one-month timespan among early-career individuals in Italy (N = 411). Findings – Path analyses showed that career insecurity was negatively related to approach coping and positively related to avoidance coping. Ambiguity tolerance played a moderating role in which preference for ambiguity weakened the career insecurity-avoidance coping relationship. Furthermore, approach coping mediated the negative relationships between career insecurity and the two outcomes (i.e. psychological well-being, subjective career success). Practical implications – The findings suggest that promoting approach coping and a preference for ambiguity may reduce the maladaptive outcomes of career insecurity among early career individuals. Originality/value – The study uncovers the unique roles of coping strategies and personal resources in the associations between career insecurity and individual outcomes in the early career stage.