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Stewardship behavior is an important embodiment of the spirit of employee ownership, which is critical to the sustainability of companies, especially under the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic. Most previous studies have focused on how to motivate employees’ stewardship behavior, but little is known about how stewardship behavior affects employees themselves. The purpose of this study is to explore how employee stewardship behavior affects their work-family interface based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory.

In this study, structural equation modeling was conducted using two-wave survey data from 323 employees through three internet companies in Southern China.

Results reveal that engaging in stewardship behavior is positively correlated with both positive emotion and emotional exhaustion. Positive emotion and emotional exhaustion, in turn, mediate the effects of stewardship behavior on work–home interface. Family motivation influences the strength of the relationships between positive emotion or emotional exhaustion and work–family interface, that is, high family motivation strengthens the positive association between positive emotion and work–family enrichment and weakens the positive association between emotional exhaustion and work–family conflict.

This study suggests that managers should give employees more support and care to ease the worries of engaging in stewardship behavior. Also, organizations should recruit employees with high family motivation, which can reduce the negative effects of stewardship behavior on work–-family interface.

Based on an actor’s perspective, this study examines both the positive and negative effects of stewardship behavior on employees themselves, thereby increasing understanding of the dual effect of stewardship behavior. In addition, this study further elucidates the mechanisms that moderate the positive and negative effects of individual family motivation on their engagement in stewardship behavior within the COR theory.

This study examines the associations among specific personality traits, job search strategies (JSSs) and job search outcomes.

Time-lagged data (three-waves) were collected from 528 Chinese graduating students. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results revealed a positive association between conscientiousness and both a focused job search strategy (FJSS) and an exploratory job search strategy (EJSS). Neuroticism was positively related to a haphazard job search strategy (HJSS), but negatively associated with both a FJSS and an EJSS. Moreover, FJSS and EJSS were positively related to both the number of job offers (NJOs) and the number of satisfied job offers (NSJOs). However, compared with FJSS, EJSS explained more variance in NJOs but less in NSJOs. Additional analysis showed a significant positive association between conscientiousness and job search intensity (JSI), but no significant relationship between neuroticism and JSI. JSI had significant associations with both NJOs and NSJOs. Further, FJSS and EJSS mediated the association between focal personality traits and both NJOs and NSJOs. Additionally, JSI also mediated the association between conscientiousness and both NJOs and NSJOs.

Previous research has confirmed that JSSs (Stevens and Turban, 2001) are consequential for important job search outcomes. However, whether fresh job seekers are predisposed to the use of JSSs is yet to be explored. This study adds to the job search literature by filling this void.