Abstrakt: | The employment and unemployment structure within the labor
market is shaped to a large extent by economic changes and ongoing
technological progress. The development of new disciplines
and technologies simplifies work and generates demand for certain
specialists. Concurrently, industry’s rapid development and informatization
contribute to an ever more often depreciation of the human
being in favor of the machine. Redefining the concept of professional
career, which can no longer be perceived through the lens of working
in the same organization and for one employer during one’s whole
life (life-time career), highlights new trends on the labor market,
such as temporary, short-term or part-time employment. The risk of
job loss becomes realistic, which in turn frequently fosters negative
phenomena in the work place such as aggressive rivalry, devaluation
of values and moral rules. Unfavorable workplace atmosphere is
particularly felt by organizational newcomers. In the entry phase,
an employee who is new to an organization needs to gain orientation
in the existing expectations regarding their functioning at
the workplace at a relatively quick pace. The process of adapting to
new vocational settings is often accompanied by feelings of confusion,
uncertainty and insecurity. On the one hand, an individual’s
adjusting to an organization is influenced by the organization itself,
proposing various socializing techniques. On the other hand, new
employees themselves actively seek the needed information (Bauer et al., 2007). The theory of organizational socialization (van Maanen &
Schein, 1979) highlights that the goal of newcomers is reducing the
uncertainty felt in the entry phase so that their environment becomes
more predictable (Berger, 1979). Such an approach corresponds with
the process of adapting to a new workplace. The insecurity may be
mitigated, among others, by information acquired from various
sources, particularly through social interactions with supervisors
and coworkers (Saks & Ashforth, 1997). Through various techniques
and channels, employees are provided with information that is necessary
in order do their job well (role clarification), those concerning
possibilities to function well in the face of real requirements of their
professional roles as well as those regarding social relations in the
workplace (Miller & Jablin, 1991). The settings that are unfavorable
to job integration may lead to vocational exclusion.
Phenomena such as unemployment, collective and individual
redundancies, striving to reduce overemployment and inability to
obtain permanent employment increase rivalry, fear of redundancy
and feelings of permanent threat. The individuals who are forced
to change their workplace often times face difficulties with finding
a new one. Frequently the unemployment period lasts, as a result
of which individuals are classified as long-term unemployed. In
such circumstances the issue of efficient coping with joblessness
becomes vital. In a traditional view, coping with difficulties is most
frequently analyzed in the aspect of reactivity. This implies focusing
on the stressful events that have already occurred. An individual is
oriented towards compensating a loss or wrong that occurred in their
past. Even though such mode of coping seems to be adequate while
coping with joblessness, the process of seeking new employment
requires individuals to go eyond sole reactivity. A question arises
regarding the type of coping activity that would prove most useful
in the reemployment seeking process. The present work provides
empirical verification regarding a proposed answer to this question,
namely: proactive coping. With regard to the proactive coping theory
(Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002), the coping process is oriented mostly
towards enhancing the resources that are helpful in attaining ambitious
and developmental goals. Proactive individuals view difficulties as challenges. In spite of being aware of risks and potential threats,
do not perceive them as losses or wrongs (Greenglass & Fiksenbaum,
2009a). Proactive coping is mostly analyzed in relation with health
and general well-being. The presented research applies the proactive
coping theory to a distinctive context, that is, coping with joblessness.
The study’s primary focus was understanding unemployed individuals’
job search behaviors.
Increased efficiency of job search behaviors leads for reemployment.
However, the measure of reemployment success should not be
constricted to signing a job contract – it should also involve maintaining
the job. For this reason, the newcomers’ process of adapting
to the workplace gains crucial importance. Career paths nowadays
represent significantly lower linearity and are less connected with
one workplace than it could have been observed in the not too distant
past (Hall, 2004). Therefore, employees often times face a necessity
to change jobs – on average even once every two years (Bauer
& Erdogan, 2011). This translates into ongoing involvement in the
process of adapting to a new workplace. Hence, effective adaptation
to a new workplace is currently becoming an essential issue, and
managing the newcomers’ entrance to an organization in a skillful
manner seems to be the main task within human resources management.
The past view on new employees described them as submissive,
passive individuals who adjust to their environment and
go with the organization’s flow (van Maanen, 1976). However, the
concept of Proteus’s career (Hall, 2004; Turska, 2014) highlights that
employees demonstrate an ever higher responsibility for their own
professional development, which increases the significance of individual
proactivity (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). In contrast with
the older theorizations, employees are currently perceived as active
participants involved in their own adaptation processes (Chan &
Schmitt, 2000; De Vos, De Clippeleer, & Dewilde, 2009). Proactive
adaptation is described as newcomers playing an active role through
demonstrating initiative in learning etc. Proactivity appears to be
an element that is even more significant than the support received
by new employees in an organization, such as, for example, feedback
or advice provided by supervisors (Savickas, 1997). A question can be posed if and in what ways newcomers’ proactivity can be boosted.
This work presents results of the Author’s own research works which
analyze one of the plausible answers to the mentioned question,
namely: through enhancing proactive coping. The study was carried
out in a sample of newly employed workers. It employed an intervention
aimed at boosting proactive coping.
The research work had two primary goals: firstly, to establish the
role of proactive coping in taking actions aimed at finding employment
and in the process of adapting to a new workplace that follows
reemployment (adaptation results: well-being, role clarification and
intention to change jobs), and secondly, to provide an answer to the
question if proactive coping can be acquired through training. The
first goal was pursued through two independent measurements carried
out in the following samples: 1) unemployed people, 2) newly
employed workers. The second aim was furthered by measurements
conducted in the newcomers’ sample. An important aspect of the
analysis was juxtaposing the employees on the basis of their status
prior to entering a new organization (unemployed versus employed
elsewhere). Due to the results of remaining unemployed, an assumption
was made regarding differences in proactive coping between
the considered groups. The main focus was on reemployed people,
which forms a continuation of the job-seeking process that was analyzed
on the grounds of a cross-sectional study carried out in a group
of unemployed people.
The presented work comprises two parts, namely: theoretical
and methodological/empirical one. The theoretical part describes
a selection of issues connected with the topic of proactive coping
during job search and reemployment, which constitutes the theoretical
framework for the Author’s research. This part comprises three
chapters. The first one isc centered on the issue of reemployment. It
provides readers with an introduction to the issue of unemployment,
which remains a serious psychological and social problem, and on
the phase of entering a new workplace. Unemployed people were
herein portrayed as ones who take actions oriented towards finding
employment. Several psychosocial factors accompanying such people’s
reemployment were also identified. The adopted perspective that focuses not only on the job-seeking
process, but also on the adaptation to a new workplace allows grasping
both the success linked with starting a job and remaining in it for
a longer period. The emphasis was placed on proactive coping both
during job search and adapting to new vocational settings.
Chapter two provides a description of proactivity and proactive
coping based on the proactive coping theory (Schwarzer, 2000; Taubert,
1999). Proactivity was portrayed in a two-way manner – as an
individual’s dispositional trait and as a contextual, changeable factor.
Subsequently, the contextual approach to proactivity was highlighted
as one allowing a possibility to influence it. When the role of proactive
coping as a remedial strategy is considered, it is expected that
greater skills at performing proactive coping actions can be acquired
through certain activities, for example training.
The main area of interest in this work is the ways of dealing with
joblessness, i.e. job search behavior (Kanfer et al., 2001), as well as
with adapting to a new workplace. Hence, the following third chapter
is dedicated to the topic of proactive coping, both while being unemployed
and during reemployment. It outlines the predictors of reemployment,
namely: job search behavior and expectations towards
future job, in relation to the met-unmet expectations theory (Irving
& Montes, 2009; Porter & Steers, 1973; Wanous, Poland, Premack, &
Davis, 1992). The theoretical part of the work is concluded with an
outline of the possible outcomes of the process of coping to a new
workplace such as job satisfaction and role clarification.
The second part of the work includes a presentation of the Author’s
own research results. This part comprises two chapters describing
separate studies. The first chapter is embedded into the
area of unemployment and focuses on actions connected with job
search. The second chapter analyzes the process of adapting to a new
workplace following reemployment. Primary emphasis is placed on
the outcomes of work adaptation. It describes the research tenets
and aims, questions and hypotheses formulated in line with the
described research model as well as a description of the samples
and measures. While the study of unemployed people was cross-sectional
in nature, the one concerning reemployment was longitudinal also employed an intervention. The intervention, designed by
the Author, was aimed at enhancing proactive coping among newcomer
employees. For both studies, the outcomes of proactive coping
were identified, namely: the intensity of job-seeking actions and new
workplace adaptation outcomes, including perceived well-being, role
clarification and intention to change jobs.
The presented results point to conclusions that are both theoretical
and practical in nature. Firstly, the studies test the proactive
coping theory in the context of coping with unemployment and
reemployment. Regarding this field, the results indicate a salient role
of proactive coping in unemployed people during job search and
adapting to a new workplace. Secondly, the results portray relationships
in a multi-aspect manner. Thirdly, the studies reach beyond
the understanding of proactivity that limits it to being a relatively
constant personal characteristic. The proposed training, aimed at increasing
proactive coping through gathering available resources and
enhancing one’s control, indicates a possibility to boost the level of
coping proactivity. The results also point out a necessity to pay proper
attention to the training methods used with regard to newcomers in
order for these methods to be effective in fostering proactive coping.
On that account, the result of these research works serve as a useful
starting point for additional intervention programs, at the same time
highlighting the issues that merit being incorporated while planning
such interventions. |