Editorial: Emotional Resilience for Wellbeing and Employability: The Role of Learning and Training II

Rasa Smaliukiene^1,2Svajone Bekesiene^1*Sarka Hoskova-Mayerova³

• ¹General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuan, Vilnius, Lithuania
• ²Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universitetas, Vilnius, Lithuania
• ³Univerzita obrany v Brne, Brno, Czechia

Emotional resilience has become a significant topic for researchers and educators who seek to understand what helps young people cope with stress when changing jobs or entering the job market.While considerable attention has been devoted to resilience in early childhood and clinical settings, its role in relation to the transition to adult life, employability and the nature of work has received more attention only in recent years (see Vol. 1 of Emotional Resilience for Wellbeing and Employability:The Role of Learning and Training). Resilience is now viewed as both an individual trait and a competence that can be developed through educational interventions and workplace practices (Smaliukienė et al., 2024).The ability to adapt positively in the face of adversity is particularly important in work and career contexts, where emotional demands, uncertainty and changing conditions are constant. During the pandemic, studies documented the psychological strain experienced by students, employees, and job seekers, highlighting the ways in which stress, anxiety, and social isolation interfered with learning, motivation, and career planning (Dost, 2025). In this context, interest in emotional resilience as a potential enabler of employability and a buffer against negative outcomes has grown. At the same time, scholars have highlighted the trainable nature of resilience, suggesting that structured interventions, educational practices and coaching models could develop these capacities. However, the evidence base on how emotional resilience can be developed through learning and training remains fragmented. Although progress has been made in identifying key emotional and cognitive factors, such as self-regulation and adaptability, there are still gaps in understanding of the pedagogical processes and conditions through which emotional resilience contributes to well-being and employability across different groups of people. This special issue brings together ten studies that address these concerns. The issue includes empirical and conceptual contributions that examine the development of emotional resilience through training, coaching, leadership and institutional learning contexts. Taken together, the papers offer evidencebased insights into how emotional resilience is cultivated, how it supports professional development and the role that educational and organisational systems can play in enabling these outcomes. Research shows that emotional resilience can be developed. It is also becoming increasingly important to understand the psychological and educational factors that help people to develop this skill. Emotional resilience does not depend solely on personality. It is also shaped by leadership style; the level of support people feel they receive from their organisation and how well their personal values align with the work environment. The following studies explore how personal characteristics, and the work environment influence emotional involvement and resilience for employability. 2024) explore emotional resilience in the military context through the lens of secure base leadership (SBL). drawing on attachment theory and the job demands-resources model, their study with 363 military cadets reveals that SBL increases emotional resilience indirectly through its impact on work (service) engagement. Here, leadership provides not only direction but also emotional reassurance, autonomy support, and psychological safety, which are conditions that help trainees internalize challenges as developmental opportunities rather than stressors. They also found that the mediating role of engagement is very important: the study suggests that resilience is not rooted directly, but fostered through motivational mechanisms tied to perceptions of safety, relatedness, and challenge. These findings are especially relevant for high-stress environments, where leadership must simultaneously increase discipline and emotional support. The results underscore the developmental potential of leadership models that balance authority with trust and individualized guidance.Training and developing employability in vocational education. Li, Khattak and Shamim (2024) examine how collaboration between universities and industry enhances vocational students' perceived employability. This addresses a gap in research on the role of macro-level institutional factors in vocational education, an area which is often underrepresented in employability discourse. Using data collected from 341 vocational college students, the study reveals that a culture of quality, defined as a collective institutional dedication to enhancement, ethical principles, and performance, significantly enhances students' perceptions of their career preparedness. The authors recommend integrating industry-oriented learning into curricula and reinforcing internal systems that foster a culture of excellence. They conclude that employability is not merely the outcome of skill development, but rather the result of a coherent institutional strategy, effective stakeholder engagement and active student participation in educational processes. 2024) conducted a review of 51 studies to determine the extent to which organisational coaching contributes to workplace resilience. They identify a clear knowledge gap: despite the growing popularity of coaching as a developmental intervention, the existing body of research is fragmented and there is limited empirical evidence on the impact of coaching on resiliencerelated outcomes such as adaptability, self-efficacy and career engagement. They call for evidencebased coaching models to be developed that align coaching goals with resilience-building processes. They also recommend further research into the mechanisms that link coaching to employability and resilience outcomes.Career development and employability among unemployed adults. Carvalho et al. (2025) evaluated the effectiveness of a career intervention based on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), which was proposed by Lent and Brown (2013). The aim was to enhance employability resources among unemployed adults. The study used a quasi-experimental longitudinal design to follow two intervention groups (one face-to-face and one online) and a control group. Notably, the researchers identified distinct patterns of influence for different employability dimensions. For instance, career identity and self-management resources had the greatest impact in the short term, whereas human capital and professional development became more significant over time. Meanwhile, social capital and networking showed the greatest influence immediately after the intervention. These findings suggest that the different facets of employability may respond differently to intervention stimuli depending on the timing and context of exposure.Institutional culture for learning and employability in vocational education. Li et al. (2024) investigated the influence of institutional quality culture on students' perceived employability. The study introduces a conceptually rich definition of quality culture, integrating structural dimensions (e.g. accountability systems) and cultural dimensions (e.g. shared values and continuous improvement).Drawing on Huang's educational philosophy, the researchers argue that institutions of education and training must do more than simply teach skills; they must also foster professional ethics, collaborative habits and a sense of broader purpose in their students, thereby aligning education with the needs of the labour market and society. Empirically, the results demonstrate that students who perceive their school as being committed to providing high-quality teaching, ethical development and continuous improvement are more confident in their own employability. The study offers two significant contributions. Firstly, it provides a localised, culturally anchored model of how employability is developed in Chinese vocational education. Secondly, it empirically validates the theoretical claim that a quality culture alone is insufficient unless it is paired with industry linkages that convert educational efforts into experience that is relevant to the labour market.The Role of Organizational Support. While leadership and self-esteem are critical resources, individual differences in personality also contribute to resilience-related outcomes. Sun et al. (2024) investigate the relationship between conscientiousness and work engagement, focusing on the mediating effect of presenteeism and the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS). Using data from 376 employees, they demonstrate that conscientiousness predicts greater engagement but also increases the risk of presenteeism-continuing to work while unwell-which in turn negatively affects engagement. Notably, high levels of POS buffer this relationship, strengthening the positive impact of conscientiousness on engagement. This study adds a nuanced perspective to the research on emotional resilience by emphasising the importance of conscientiousness. While conscientiousness is generally considered a positive trait, it can have negative consequences in unsupportive environments. Therefore, emotional resilience training must not only develop personal attributes, but also include organisational strategies that provide support and legitimacy in times of stress or illness. These findings confirm that personal and contextual resources are interdependent in fostering engagement and psychological functioning. Support During Workplace Automation. Alshamsi et al. (2025) conducted a cross-sectional study to examine the relationship between the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and pharmacists' experiences of burnout and depression within the context of pharmacy robotic dispensing systems in the United Arab Emirates. Notably, the study found a negative correlation between TAM dimensions and mental health outcomes, indicating that pharmacists who found the technology more useful and easier to use experienced lower levels of burnout and depression. These results suggest that while automation in healthcare may not inherently reduce psychological strain, its effectiveness is closely tied to how well staff perceive and adapt to it. Furthermore, the findings imply that gendered experiences with technology and organizational demands may play a critical role in moderating the relationship between innovation and employee well-being. Mediation for emotional resilience, grit, and gendered pathways to life satisfaction. Jia (2025) investigates how emotional resilience influences life satisfaction among teachers of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL), emphasizing the mediating roles of grit and employability, and the moderating role of gender. Drawing on data from 1003 teachers in China, the study applies a chain mediation model and finds that emotional resilience has no significant direct effect on life satisfaction. Instead, its influence is fully mediated by grit and employability-two constructs critical for sustained engagement in demanding educational roles. Importantly, gender differences emerged in the structure of these pathways. This finding highlights the differentiated challenges and professional strategies experienced by male and female CFL teachers, and suggests that gender-responsive research may be needed to support teacher well-being across diverse cultural and institutional settings. The study is theoretically grounded in positive psychology and career adaptability frameworks, and contributes to research on emotional health in teaching by emphasizing that resilience is not only a personal asset but also a socialized and structurally shaped capacity. Together, these studies emphasise that coaching and support for employability and career development should be considered multi-level processes shaped by personal, organisational and institutional dynamics. At the same time, career interventions, especially those targeting unemployed or at-risk populations, demonstrate that employability is developed in stages that reflect shifting psychological and social needs. Institutional environments, such as those in vocational education, further influence these outcomes by either reinforcing or undermining students' confidence in their career prospects. Finally, the interaction between personality traits and perceived support highlights the limitations of individual strengths when they are not reinforced by positive workplace or educational contexts. Overall, the findings suggest that meaningful progress in terms of employability and resilience requires a coordinated approach involving coaching models, the timing of interventions, institutional culture and organisational support. The studies in this special issue collectively support that emotional resilience is not a fixed personal trait, but rather a dynamic competence which is sensitive to context and can be developed through structured training, targeted support, and education and employment systems. This volume's key contribution is demonstrating that resilience and employability develop together through the interaction of personal attributes (such as self-regulation, career identity and conscientiousness) with organisational, institutional and technological resources. Several areas for future research emerge. Firstly, the contributions of this issues highlight the need for integrative frameworks that exceed isolated constructs and embrace models capable of capturing the interaction of emotional, social, cognitive and physical resilience resources over time. For instance, studies by Carvalho et al. (2025) and Jia (2025), among others, reveal distinct temporal patterns in the development of employability capacities. This suggests that longitudinal studies are essential for understanding when and how interventions have an effect. Secondly, the findings emphasise the importance of adapting interventions to the characteristics of specific populations, such as unemployed adults, vocational students, educators, and military recruits. Emotional resilience is shaped by individual learning processes, institutional culture (Li et al., 2024), leadership style (Navas-Jiménez et al., 2024), and the perceived impact of technological change (Alshamsi et al., 2025). These contextual variations demand a more granular approach to building resilience.Thirdly, there is a need to better integrate the physical and psychological dimensions of resilience. Drozd et al. (2025) demonstrate that physical endurance training predicts not only operational readiness, but also prepares individuals psychologically for stress, challenges, and adaptation. Future research could examine how physical training interacts with emotional learning to enhance resilience and employability. Finally, while this volume presents robust empirical findings, it also highlights methodological limitations. The most significant of these is the reliance on cross-sectional designs. There is a need for longitudinal, mixed-methods, and experimental designs that can more accurately trace the development of resilience. Taken together, the articles in this issue point to a conceptual shift from viewing resilience as an individual psychological resource to recognising it as a shared responsibility that is cultivated through pedagogical design, institutional commitment, and ongoing support throughout working life.