Financial Worries, Health Complaints, and Career Exploration: The Role of Action Crises

Abstract

AbstractFinancial worries, a distressing emotional state prompted by perceived threats to financial resources, are particularly prevalent among employees during economic downturns. This study investigates associations between financial worries and employees’ health and career behaviors, drawing on conservation of resources theory and the self-regulation literature. We propose that financial worries are not only positively related to health complaints, but also positively related to employees’ career exploration as a coping mechanism. In addition, we explore how financial worries are associated with action crises—internal conflicts about whether to leave one’s job—and how these crises may help explain the relationships between worries and employee outcomes. In a two-month time-lagged study with 312 employees, we observed a positive association between financial worries and health complaints, but no significant association with career exploration. Furthermore, the experience of an action crisis mediated the relation between financial worries and health complaints. Action crises were positively related to subsequent career exploration, and we established a significant indirect effect of financial worries on career exploration through action crises. This research contributes to a better understanding of the potential health-related and behavioral outcomes of financial worries by introducing action crisis as a cognitive–emotional mechanism. It also expands the limited research on antecedents and consequences of action crises and responds to calls for research on the predictors of career exploration as a career self-management behavior. We discuss the study’s implications for theory, research, and practice in light of the its limitations.