Career Resilience and Behavioral Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Organizational Trust

Abstract

Career resilience refers to an individual’s capacity to adapt, persist, and remain effective when facing workplace challenges and disruptions. Although prior research has generally emphasized its uniformly positive effects, fewer studies have examined the conditions under which career resilience reduces negative emotional responses and leads to desirable work behaviors. This study tested a moderated mediation model in which organizational trust moderated the relationship between career resilience and anxiety, and the indirect effects of career resilience on workplace behaviors through anxiety. Data were collected from 229 full-time employees in South Korea across three waves with five-week intervals using a time-lagged design. Regression-based moderated mediation analyses revealed that the indirect effects of career resilience on task performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and deviant behavior via anxiety were conditional on organizational trust, supporting the hypothesized model. Career resilience reduced anxiety, and this reduction was associated with increased task performance and OCB while limiting deviant behavior. Organizational trust shaped this indirect process, suggesting that personal resources become particularly relevant when contextual resources are limited.

Keywords

career resilience organizational trust anxiety task performance deviant behavior organizational citizenship behavior

Introduction

Global labor markets are undergoing structural transformations driven by non-standard work arrangements, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic management. These changes have intensified job uncertainty, role ambiguity, reskilling demands, and performance pressure (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2025; World Economic Forum, 2025; Keegan & Meijerink, 2025), all of which may heighten anxiety and emotional exhaustion. Against this backdrop, career resilience can be a key psychological resource that enables individuals to sustain effective functioning amid instability. Surprisingly, little is known about when and why career resilience effectively safeguards employees from adverse emotional states.

From the perspective of conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), career resilience constitutes a valuable personal resource that enables employees to preserve and invest energy to prevent resource loss spirals (Hobfoll et al., 2016). Career-resilient individuals are better able to regulate their emotions and maintain performance under pressure, thereby reducing the risk of emotional exhaustion and burnout. However, existing research has largely conceptualized career resilience as a stable individual trait and has often assumed that its effects are uniformly positive. This assumption, however, may be overly simplistic. In high-demand environments, resilient employees may overinvest personal resources by taking on additional tasks or sustaining heightened arousal, which can inadvertently maintain or even exacerbate anxiety (Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). COR theory also suggests that the effectiveness of personal resources depends on the availability of contextual resources (Hobfoll, 1989). Accordingly, whether career resilience reduces anxiety may also depend on the broader social context in which employees operate, particularly on the availability of organizational trust.

Despite its theoretical relevance, the interactive effect of career resilience and organizational trust has rarely been empirically examined, particularly regarding emotional outcomes such as anxiety. Moreover, prior resilience research has tended to emphasize performance and coping outcomes, leaving the emotional processes through which career resilience exerts its effects relatively understudied. This gap is critical because anxiety serves as a proximal mechanism linking stress exposure to performance, citizenship, and counterproductive behaviors (Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009; Wu et al., 2020).

Therefore, this study addresses two key questions: (1) Does organizational trust moderate the relationship between career resilience and anxiety? and (2) Does anxiety mediate the effects of career resilience on task performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and deviant behavior? Consequently, we examined employees in a public organization in South Korea, where organizational trust may be relevant to how employees experience and manage anxiety. Following Akaliyski et al.’s (2026) caution against fixed individualism–collectivism assumptions, we interpreted the Korean setting as a specific organizational context rather than as a broad cultural category. By examining anxiety as a proximal emotional mechanism and organizational trust as a contextual boundary condition, this study helps clarify when and why career resilience is associated with workplace behaviors.

Career Resilience

Psychological resilience is a concept that helps individuals understand how to cope with or overcome emerging changes and risks (Jin et al., 2024). Resilience refers to the capacity of a system, individual, community, or organization to withstand, adapt to, recover from, and even thrive in the face of adversity, shocks, or stressors (Luthans et al., 2006). As the concept of resilience has expanded across fields such as management, public policy, and social systems, scholarly interest in resilience has similarly increased (Hillmann, 2021; Maor & Park, 2023). The theoretical underpinnings of career resilience are rooted in the broader construct of psychological resilience, which highlights individuals’ capacity to effectively cope with and rebound from adverse experiences (Mishra & McDonald, 2017). Building on this foundation, career resilience applies these principles to the work domain by emphasizing how individuals sustain or restore their occupational functioning when confronted with career-related disruptions (Rochat et al., 2017). London (1983) conceptualized career resilience as a capacity that enables individuals to manage adverse work environments and initiate changes within their occupational contexts.

Expanding on this view, Day and Allen (2004) emphasized the psychological adaptability component of career resilience, defining it as the ability to respond constructively to shifting or unfavorable career conditions. Career resilience is characterized by attributes such as self-efficacy, willingness to take risks, and achievement orientation, which enable individuals to persist and thrive amid career-related challenges. Seibert et al. (2016) similarly defined career resilience as the ability to adapt to changing environments and overcome difficulties. Mishra and McDonald (2017) suggested that career resilience reflects a developmental process through which individuals continue, adapt, and prosper in their careers despite difficulties, changing circumstances, and uncertainty over time.

Although the construct of career resilience is theoretically rich and increasingly emphasized in the context of a turbulent labor market, empirical research on it remains relatively limited. Prior studies have linked career resilience to career change behaviors (Carless & Bernath, 2007) and career self-management (Chiaburu et al., 2006), yet its antecedents and outcomes remain insufficiently explored (Lyons et al., 2015). Furthermore, although career resilience has often been framed as an individual trait (Mishra & McDonald, 2017), recent literature adopting a systems perspective argues that it is shaped by complex, interacting systems such as organizational culture, social relationships, and access to support resources (Forster & Duchek, 2017). Within this system-oriented view, career resilience is interpreted not merely as a stable personal characteristic but as an emergent property that develops through interactions between individuals and their environments. McMahon and Abkhezr (2025) highlighted the recursive interplay between individual and environmental influences, suggesting that understanding career resilience requires a holistic approach that goes beyond individual agency to incorporate social justice concerns and systemic support mechanisms.

Hypothesis Development

This study adopts a moderated mediation model (Preacher et al., 2007) grounded in COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to explain how career resilience influences employee outcomes through anxiety. According to COR theory, individuals are motivated to acquire, protect, and preserve valued resources—including personal, social, and emotional assets—and psychological stress arises when these resources are threatened, lost, or insufficiently replenished (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 2016). Within this framework, career resilience functions as a personal resource that enables individuals to strategically invest and conserve resources when encountering workplace stressors (Hartmann et al., 2020). Employees with high career resilience are better able to regulate their emotions, maintain goal clarity, and employ proactive coping strategies that reduce anxiety, thereby preventing emotional exhaustion, burnout, and depression (Hartmann et al., 2020; Zheng et al., 2024). Such adaptive responses provide the foundation for enhanced well-being and subsequent positive organizational outcomes.

Career resilience has been consistently linked to a range of positive behavioral outcomes in organizational settings (Hartmann et al., 2020). Individuals with higher levels of career resilience are more likely to sustain strong task performance because they can navigate uncertainty, cope with ambiguous role expectations, and remain persistent under demanding work conditions (Hartmann et al., 2020; Seibert et al., 2016). Their proactive problem solving and sustained focus under pressure facilitate effective work execution. Career resilience may also be positively associated with both forms of OCB examined in this study: behaviors directed toward individuals (OCBI) and behaviors directed toward the organization (OCBO). According to Williams and Anderson (1991), OCBI refers to discretionary behaviors that help coworkers, such as assisting others with heavy workloads. On the other hand, OCBO refers to discretionary behaviors that support the organization, such as following informal organizational rules for organizational purposes. Resilient employees are likely to have greater psychological energy, engagement, and sense of meaning at work, which may encourage both interpersonal helping and organization-directed citizenship behaviors (Mishra & McDonald, 2017). Moreover, career resilience may serve as a protective factor against deviant behaviors, as individuals who regulate their emotions effectively are less likely to respond to stress with harmful or retaliatory actions (Hartmann et al., 2020).

Anxiety is one of the most prevalent emotional reactions in today’s rapidly changing work environments, where employees frequently encounter instability, ambiguity, and continuous change (Zheng et al., 2024). Drawing on COR theory, anxiety emerges when individuals perceive that their personal, social, or material resources are threatened or depleted (Hobfoll, 1989). As a form of psychological strain, anxiety can hinder effective functioning and accelerate resource loss spirals (Halbesleben et al., 2014). Empirical research shows that anxiety impairs attentional control, slows cognitive processing, and disrupts decision making (Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009), ultimately reducing task performance (Wong et al., 2013; Chung et al., 2022).

Anxiety may reduce both OCBI and OCBO by depleting an employee’s emotional and cognitive resources required for discretionary effort beyond formal job duties (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Specifically, anxiety may limit an employee’s capacity to notice and respond to coworker needs, thereby reducing OCBI, while also narrowing their focus toward self-protection and immediate stress management, thereby reducing OCBO (Chang et al., 2007; Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009). Moreover, heightened anxiety has been linked to reduced self-control and impaired judgment, increasing the likelihood of counterproductive or deviant behaviors (Moser et al., 2012). Thus, anxiety serves as a proximal mechanism linking resource threats to both constructive and destructive workplace behaviors.

The relationship between career resilience and anxiety is likely to be contingent on the level of organizational trust. Organizational trust reflects employees’ perceptions of fairness, ethical conduct, and the reliability of organizational members and systems (Mayer et al., 1995). High levels of organizational trust provide psychological safety, reduce perceived threats, and encourage individuals to invest personal resources without fear of exploitation, thereby reducing the extent to which personal resources are required to buffer anxiety (Joo et al., 2023). Conversely, in low-trust environments, employees may engage in defensive resource conservation and remain hypervigilant, which increases their reliance on personal resources such as career resilience to regulate emotional strain. Consistent with a systems perspective (Forster & Duchek, 2017), organizational trust can be viewed as a contextual resource that shapes the extent to which individuals can rely on or supplement their personal resilience.

Accordingly, drawing on COR theory, we propose that the anxiety-reducing effect of career resilience will be stronger when organizational trust is low, because employees must rely more heavily on personal resources in the absence of contextual resources. In contrast, when organizational trust is high, contextual resources already buffer anxiety, reducing the incremental benefit of personal resilience. Although COR theory also suggests that resources may function in an additive or amplifying manner when multiple resources are available, the present study adopts a resource substitution perspective. Therefore, career resilience becomes more consequential for reducing anxiety when organizational trust is limited. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1

Anxiety will mediate the relationship between career resilience and task performance, such that the indirect effect is conditional on levels of organizational trust.

Hypothesis 2

Anxiety will mediate the relationship between career resilience and OCB, such that the indirect effect is conditional on levels of organizational trust.

Hypothesis 3

Anxiety will mediate the relationship between career resilience and deviant behavior, such that the indirect effect is conditional on levels of organizational trust. The overall hypothesized research model is presented in Figure 1.

Methodology

Participants and Procedure

To reduce concerns related to common method bias and provide temporal separation among the constructs, data for this study were collected using a three-wave time-lagged survey design. Each time wave was administered at five-week intervals, allowing the predictor, mediator and moderator, and outcome variables to be measured at different points in time, consistent with established methodological recommendations (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Questionnaires for each wave were distributed in individually sealed envelopes to ensure anonymity, and demographic variables were collected at all waves for cross-verification purposes. Participation was voluntary, and only individuals who provided informed consent took part in the study. The first set of questionnaires (T1), which measured career resilience, was distributed to 300 participants, and 264 were returned (response rate = 88%). After screening the missing data, 253 questionnaires were deemed usable. The second set of questionnaires (T2), which measured organizational trust and anxiety, was distributed to 253 eligible respondents, and 243 were returned (response rate = 96%). After screening, 231 questionnaires were deemed usable. The third set of questionnaires (T3), which measured task performance, deviant behavior, and OCB, was distributed to the 231 respondents, and 229 were returned (response rate = 99%). Thus, the final sample comprised 229 full-time employees.

Measures

To ensure both conceptual clarity and linguistic accuracy in the adaptation of measurement instruments, a back-translation procedure was implemented. The original English items were translated into Korean and then independently translated back into English to identify potential inconsistencies in meaning, phrasing, or nuance (Brislin, 1970). All items were rated using a standardized seven-point Likert scale, with response options ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement.

Day and Allen’s (2004) 7-item scale was used to measure career resilience. Sample items from this scale included “I am able to adapt to changing circumstances.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .85, McDonald’s ω = .87).

Cook and Wall’s (1980) 6-item scale was used to measure organizational trust. Sample items from this scale included “Management at my firm is sincere in its attempts to meet the workers’ point of view.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .94, McDonald’s ω = .94).

Anxiety was measured with Spitzer et al.’s (2006) 7-item scale. Sample items from this scale included “I feel nervous, anxious or on the edge.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .93, McDonald’s ω = .93).

Task performance was measured with Van Dyne and Lepine’s (1998) 4-item scale. Sample items from this scale included “I perform the tasks that are expected as part of the job.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .94, McDonald’s ω = .95).

Bennett and Robinson’s (2000) 19-item scale was used to measure deviant behavior. Sample items from this scale included “I acted rudely toward someone at work.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .95, McDonald’s ω = .96).

OCB was measured with Williams and Anderson’s (1991) 14-item scale. Seven items measured organizational citizenship behavior toward individuals (OCBI): “I help others who heavy work loads.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .92, McDonald’s ω = .92). And seven items measured organizational citizenship behavior toward organization (OCBO): “I give advance notice when unable to come to work.” The reliability of this scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .78, McDonald’s ω = .78).

Control variables can help account for potential confounding factors that might influence the independent and dependent variables but are not the focus of the research. This study used demographic variables as control variables to provide essential descriptive information about the study participants and to gain a better understanding of the sample’s characteristics (Goldberg et al., 1998). For all the analyses, the demographic variables such as gender, age, level of education, position, and tenure were included as they have been consistently argued in prior organizational studies to affect individual attitudes and behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Results

The means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, and zero-order correlations are presented in Table 1. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS 26 was conducted to assess the measurement model. The hypothesized seven-factor model, in which career resilience, organizational trust, anxiety, task performance, OCBI, OCBO, and deviant behavior were modeled as separate latent constructs, showed an acceptable fit to the data (χ²(1,185) = 2,098.53, χ²/df = 1.77, TLI = .90, CFI = .91, RMSEA = .06). As shown in Supplemental Table S1, this model outperformed a series of alternative models in which theoretically related constructs were progressively combined, supporting the distinctiveness of the study constructs.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, Skewness, Kurtosis, and Zero-Order Correlations

	Mean	SD	Skewness	Kurtosis	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1. Gender	.13	.34	2.2	2.87	1
2. Age	37.21	8.75	.63	−.65	−.06	1
3. Education	2.49	.97	−.39	−.38	.18**	.08	1
4. Position	2.74	1.27	.09	−.1	−.01	.78**	.10	1
5. Tenure	10.7	8.68	.81	−.43	−.01	.93**	.00	.82**	1
6. CR	4.95	.85	.17	−.59	−.07	.02	.06	.05	.03	1
7. OT	3.97	1.32	.09	−.14	−.17*	.07	−.05	.02	.05	.34**	1
8. Anxiety	2.56	1.22	.64	−.07	.14*	−.10	−.05	.05	−.03	−.36**	−.26**	1
9. TP	5.25	1.04	−.31	.15	−.08	.12	.09	.11	.10	.47**	.30**	−.38**	1
10. OCBI	5.22	.90	−.30	.87	−.10	−.04	.08	−.03	−.04	.58**	.38**	−.37**	.58**	1
11. OCBO	5.47	1.04	−.59	.05	−.05	−.01	−.01	−.07	−.03	.48**	.25**	−.38**	.49**	.62**	1
12. DB	2.04	.93	1.22	1.5	−.03	.16*	.01	.25**	.23**	−.26**	−.15*	.43**	−.26**	−.24**	−.32**	1

Note. N = 229. CR = career resilience; OT = organizational trust; TP = task performance; OCBI = organizational citizenship behavior directed toward individuals; OCBO = organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the organization; DB = deviant behavior. *p < .05, **p < .01.

Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analyses and Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 1, 4, 7) in SPSS 26. As shown in Table 2, career resilience was negatively associated with anxiety (β = −.44, p < .001). The interaction between career resilience and organizational trust was also significant (β = −.21, p < .01), supporting the proposed moderation effect. Simple slope analysis (Aiken et al., 1991) revealed that the negative relationship between career resilience and anxiety was stronger at low levels of organizational trust and weaker when trust was high (Figure 2). Specifically, when organizational trust was low, higher career resilience was associated with a substantially greater reduction in anxiety, whereas this association was attenuated under conditions of high organizational trust.

Table 2.

Regression Results for Testing Moderation

	Anxiety
Gender	.36
Age	−.06*
Education	−.05
Position	.26*
Tenure	.03
Career resilience	−.44***
Organizational trust	−.07
Career resilience x organizational trust	−.21**
R²	.25
F	9.16***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Consistent with the proposed mediation model, anxiety emerged as a significant intermediary mechanism linking career resilience to behavioral outcomes. As shown in Table 3, career resilience positively predicted task performance (β = .56, p < .001) and negatively predicted deviant behavior (β = −.31, p < .05). Anxiety was negatively related to task performance (β = −.21, p < .001) and positively related to deviant behavior (β = .29, p < .001). Bootstrapping analyses revealed significant indirect effects of career resilience on task performance (.11, 95% CI [.05, .18]) and deviant behavior (−.15, 95% CI [–.24, −.08]) via anxiety, indicating partial mediation. For OCB outcomes, career resilience was positively associated with OCBI (β = .61, p < .001) and OCBO (β = .60, p < .001). Anxiety negatively predicted both OCBI (β = −.14, p < .01) and OCBO (β = −.19, p < .01). Bootstrapping results confirmed significant indirect effects on OCBI (.07, 95% CI [.02, .14]) and OCBO (.10, 95% CI [.04, .17]).

Table 3.

Regression Results for Simple Mediation

	B	SE	t	p
Direct and effects
Task performance regressed on career resilience	.56	.07	7.79	.000
Deviant behavior regressed on career resilience	−.31	.07	−4.64	.000
OCBI regressed on career resilience	.61	.06	10.64	.000
OCBO regressed on career resilience	.60	.07	8.30	.000
Anxiety regressed on career resilience	−.52	.09	−5.95	.000
Task performance regressed on anxiety, controlling for career resilience	−.21	.05	−3.92	.000
Task performance regressed on career resilience, controlling for anxiety	.45	.08	6.01	.000
Deviant behavior regressed on anxiety, controlling for career resilience	.29	.05	5.94	.000
Deviant behavior regressed on career resilience, controlling for anxiety	−.16	.07	−2.43	.016
OCBI regressed on anxiety, controlling for career resilience	−.14	.04	−3.18	.002
OCBI regressed on career resilience, controlling for anxiety	.54	.06	8.90	.000
OCBO regressed on anxiety, controlling for career resilience	−.19	.05	−3.49	.001
OCBO regressed on career resilience, controlling for anxiety	.50	.08	6.60	.000

	M	SE	LL 95% CI	UL 95% CI
Bootstrap results for indirect effect
Effect on task performance	.11	.03	.05	.18
Effect on deviant behavior	−.15	.04	−.24	−.08
Effect on OCBI	.07	.03	.02	.14
Effect on OCBO	.10	.04	.04	.17

Note. Bootstrap size = 5000. LL = lower limit; CI = confidence interval; UL = upper limit *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Finally, moderated mediation analyses (PROCESS Model 7) supported the proposed conditional indirect effects. As reported in Table 4, the indirect effects of career resilience on task performance (.04), OCBI (.03), OCBO (.04), and deviant behavior (−.06) through anxiety were significant at different levels of organizational trust, with 95% CIs excluding zero. These results underscore that the protective effects of career resilience on work outcomes via anxiety are contingent on organizational trust. The index of moderated mediation was significant, indicating that the indirect effect of career resilience on outcomes via anxiety depends on organizational trust. As a robustness check, we additionally estimated the hypothesized framework using SEM with the lavaan package in R, including the interaction term between career resilience and organizational trust as a predictor of anxiety. As shown in Supplemental Table S2, the SEM results confirmed a pattern consistent with the PROCESS-based findings. Thus, Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were supported.

Table 4.

Moderated Mediation Results

	M	SE	LL 95% CI	UL 95% CI
Bootstrap results for moderated mediation
Effect on TP		.02	.02	.08
(Low level)	.04	.03	−.03	.09
(High level)		.04	.07	.24
Effect on OCBI		.01	.01	.06
(Low level)	.03	.02	−.02	.07
(High level)		.04	.03	.18
Effect on OCBO		.02	.01	.08
(Low level)	.04	.03	−.02	.09
(High level)		.05	.05	.24
Effect on DB		.02	−.11	−.02
(Low level)	−.06	.04	−.13	.03
(High level)		.05	−.32	−.11

Note. Bootstrap size = 5,000. LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit; CI = confidence interval. TP = task performance; OCBI = organizational citizenship behavior directed toward individuals; OCBO = organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the organization; DB = deviant behavior. Conditional indirect effects were estimated at low and high levels of organizational trust.

Discussion

The present study examined how career resilience influences employee behaviors through anxiety and the contextual conditions under which these effects are strengthened or weakened. Building on COR theory, we proposed that career resilience would reduce anxiety and that this reduction would serve as a proximal mechanism explaining its effects on task performance, OCB, and deviant behavior. Furthermore, we argued that the effectiveness of career resilience depends on the level of organizational trust, a contextual resource that shapes how employees evaluate and respond to potential resource threats. The empirical results largely supported this framework.

First, career resilience significantly reduced anxiety, underscoring its role as a valuable personal resource that helps employees regulate emotional strain in demanding environments. This finding is consistent with COR theory, which posits that individuals possessing strong personal resources are better equipped to prevent resource loss spirals. By demonstrating that anxiety is a key explanatory mechanism, the results extend prior research that has often focused on direct relationships between resilience and performance-related outcomes while paying insufficient attention to the emotional processes underlying these effects.

Second, the results revealed a significant interaction between career resilience and organizational trust. Importantly, the anxiety-buffering effect of career resilience was stronger when organizational trust was low. This finding aligns with COR theory, which suggests that when contextual resources are scarce, employees rely more heavily on personal resources to prevent further resource loss. In low-trust environments, career-resilient employees appear to draw more heavily on their internal coping capacities, resulting in greater reductions in anxiety. In low-trust contexts, employees may be uncertain about the reliability and fairness of organizational systems, which increases the salience of personal coping capacities. Consequently, resilient individuals may rely more heavily on proactive coping, emotional regulation, and adaptive behaviors to counterbalance limited contextual resources. In contrast, in high-trust environments, organizational systems provide psychological safety and reduce perceived threats, diminishing the incremental benefit of personal resilience. This finding aligns with COR theory, which emphasizes that personal and contextual resources interact dynamically to shape stress-related outcomes.

Third, the moderated mediation analyses further showed that the indirect effects of career resilience on task performance, OCB, and deviant behavior through anxiety were conditional on organizational trust. When trust was low, the anxiety-reducing effect of career resilience had a stronger influence on behavioral outcomes, suggesting that personal resources play a more decisive role in shaping behavior when organizational resources are limited. Conversely, under high trust, contextual resources already reduce anxiety, resulting in smaller differences between high- and low-resilience employees. Taken together, these findings reinforce the idea that career resilience is not uniformly beneficial but rather operates as a context-sensitive resource whose influence depends on the availability of situational support.

Theoretical Implications

This study advances the literature on career resilience by identifying anxiety as a key psychological mechanism through which resilience influences workplace behavior. While previous research has largely focused on the positive outcomes of career resilience (e.g., job satisfaction, performance; Wu et al., 2020; Ibrahim & Hussein, 2024), little attention has been given to the emotional pathways underlying these effects. Our findings address this gap by demonstrating that anxiety mediates the link between career resilience and both constructive (e.g., task performance, OCB) and destructive (e.g., deviant behavior) outcomes. This highlights that career resilience operates not only as a personal resource but also as an affect-regulation resource that shapes diverse behavioral responses.

From a COR theory perspective, psychological stressors such as anxiety represent signals of resource depletion that can undermine performance and promote counterproductive behaviors (Halbesleben et al., 2014). By showing that career resilience reduces anxiety, this study identifies a proximal emotional mechanism that explains how personal resources help employees prevent resource loss spirals. Surprisingly, empirical research integrating boundary conditions into career resilience models remains limited. Existing studies have seldom examined when the positive effects of career resilience are strengthened or diminished. This study contributes to theory by establishing organizational trust as a contextual resource that shapes the effectiveness of career resilience, thereby extending COR theory’s proposition that personal resources operate in tandem with situational resources.

The moderated mediation findings further demonstrate that organizational trust influences the pathways through which career resilience affects task performance, OCB, and deviant behavior. These results clarify why prior studies have reported inconsistent associations between resilience and behavioral outcomes—its benefits are contingent rather than universal. Hence, by revealing when and why career resilience translates into reduced anxiety and improved behaviors, this study enriches theoretical understanding of both resilience and COR models.

Practical Implications

The findings offer several practical insights for organizations seeking to enhance employee well-being and performance. First, career resilience can be developed through targeted interventions such as resilience training, stress-management programs, and adaptive coping workshops. These initiatives strengthen employees’ emotional regulation capacities and help them maintain effective functioning in uncertain or demanding environments. Because higher career resilience is associated with lower anxiety and more favorable behavioral outcomes, organizations may benefit from incorporating resilience-building components into leadership development, onboarding, and ongoing training programs.

However, the results also show that the effectiveness of career resilience depends on the organizational context. Specifically, its anxiety-buffering role becomes most critical when organizational trust is low, meaning that employees rely more heavily on personal resources when they perceive limited support from the organization. Therefore, resilience-enhancing interventions should not be treated as substitutes for a supportive work environment. Organizations must also cultivate trust through transparent communication, fair performance evaluation systems, and consistent managerial behavior. When employees believe the organization acts reliably and ethically, baseline anxiety decreases, and employees are better able to deploy their personal resources.

Finally, organizations should consider implementing structured support systems such as mentoring, coaching, and feedback mechanisms that reinforce both career development and emotional well-being. These practices not only promote resilience but also signal organizational commitment, strengthening trust and encouraging positive behavioral responses. By jointly investing in personal and contextual resources, organizations can create conditions in which employees are better prepared to manage uncertainty and sustain high levels of performance.

Limitation and Future Research

This study provides valuable insights into the proximal and distal effects of career resilience; however, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, data were collected from a single public organization in South Korea. Although this setting is theoretically relevant for examining organizational trust as a contextual resource, the findings should not be generalized to other cultural, institutional, or occupational contexts. Consistent with Akaliyski et al. (2026), we caution against interpreting the study findings through fixed national culture scores or overly broad individualism–collectivism assumptions, as such approaches may overlook cultural change and within-country variation.

Second, the sample was predominantly male, which limits the ability to capture gender-based variations in career resilience and anxiety responses. Prior research suggests that gender may shape access to support resources, coping strategies, and perceptions of career-related stressors (McMahon & Abkhezr, 2025; Okon et al., 2025). Future research should incorporate more gender-balanced samples and explore gender as a potential moderator in the resilience–anxiety–behavior pathway. Third, although the three-wave time-lagged design provided temporal separation among the study variables, the study design does not allow definitive causal conclusions, and longitudinal research should be conducted in the future. In addition, all variables were self-reported, which raises the possibility of common method bias. Future studies could reduce this risk by collecting data from multiple raters (e.g., peers, supervisors) or by incorporating objective behavioral indicators. Additionally, experimental or longitudinal panel designs could further clarify the temporal sequencing of resilience, anxiety, and behavioral outcomes.

Fourth, individual differences may influence career resilience and emotional strain. Traits such as conscientiousness, core self-evaluations, emotional stability, and affective disposition have been shown to predict coping and regulatory capacity (Arora & Rangnekar, 2014). Future studies should examine how these traits interact with resilience to shape emotional and behavioral responses, and whether they serve as alternative mechanisms or confounding influences. Beyond these limitations, several promising avenues for future research emerge. Although career resilience is generally associated with favorable outcomes, exceptionally high levels may lead individuals to overcommit resources, take on excessive workloads, or persist under pressure without seeking help. These patterns may elevate the risk of psychological exhaustion or burnout (Bonanno, 2004). Thus, future research should investigate whether there is an optimal threshold beyond which resilience becomes counterproductive, adopting curvilinear or resource-overinvestment perspectives.

Moreover, exploring the antecedents of resilience and the contextual factors that facilitate its development would deepen understanding of how resilience emerges and evolves across individuals and environments (Mishra & McDonald, 2017). Intervention-based research, including adaptability training, mindfulness programs, and resilience coaching, may offer insights into which developmental strategies effectively enhance career resilience. Additionally, examining how digital technologies, AI-based tools, and remote work environments shape resilience processes could further enrich literature.

Finally, Hartmann et al. (2020) proposed a conceptual framework for understanding career resilience at the team level. Future studies could adopt a multilevel approach, investigating how resilience manifests at the individual, team, and organizational levels, and how cross-level interactions shape emotional and behavioral outcomes. Such work would contribute to a more holistic and context-sensitive understanding of career resilience in contemporary workplaces.

Conclusion

This study investigated how career resilience influences workplace behaviors by reducing anxiety and how these effects depend on organizational trust. Drawing on COR theory, we demonstrated that career resilience functions as a personal resource that helps employees regulate emotional strain and that anxiety serves as a central mechanism linking resilience to task performance, OCB, and deviant behavior. Importantly, the study found that these emotional and behavioral benefits are stronger when organizational trust is low, indicating that personal resources become especially critical in environments where contextual resources are limited. By uncovering a moderated mediation process, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of career resilience as a context-dependent rather than universally beneficial resource. These findings underscore the importance of examining both emotional mechanisms and situational conditions when evaluating resilience-related outcomes. Future research should continue exploring how personal and contextual resources interact to shape employees’ emotional and behavioral responses in the contemporary workplace.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Career Resilience and Behavioral Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Organizational Trust

Supplemental Material for Career Resilience and Behavioral Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Organizational Trust by Jeong Kwon Yun and Yang Woon Chung in Psychological Reports

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of all participants who completed the survey and the individuals whose cooperation facilitated the successful completion of this study.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. Participants received a written explanation of the study, and consent forms were collected in accordance with IRB guidelines.

ORCID iDs

Jeong Kwon Yun

Yang Woon Chung

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Anonymized data is available through an anonymized view-only OSF link:

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Jeong Kwon Yun is affiliated with the College of Business Engineering at the University of Suwon, Republic of Korea.

Yang Woon Chung is an associate professor in the College of Business Engineering at the University of Suwon, Republic of Korea.

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