159 Proactive Vitality Management Among Employees with Chronic Liver Disease management in a potentially vulnerable group of people. By exploring proactive vitality management among working individuals with a chronic health condition, we have focused on a strategy that seems especially relevant for those who may be confronted with a disadvantage regarding their occupational health and performance. Indeed, considerable evidence supports the link between illness and poorer work experiences, functional limitations, and absenteeism (e.g., Boot et al., 2011; Darr & Johns, 2008; Fouad et al., 2017; Newton & Jones, 2012). Despite their potentially demanding health condition, these employees are still willing to invest effort into their work to remain functional (Hockey et al., 1997; Parker et al., 2010). Especially for chronically ill individuals, taking some control over their own occupational health and performance in spite of their illness may promote feelings of self-reliance and fulfillment, and may have considerable, beneficial effects (Beatty & Joffe, 2006; Saunders & Nedelec, 2014). Our findings show that proactive vitality management relates to improved well-being and more favorable work and personal outcomes over time. These results correspond with the notion of ‘personal agency’ (Bandura 2006; Montano & Kasprzyk, 2015) and show that the proactive behavior of chronically ill individuals themselves may complement efforts from other relevant parties that play a role in their occupational health, such as medical care, the government, employers, and supervisors. Indeed, while those parties carry a responsibility to provide social support and a healthy work environment, chronically ill employees carry a responsibility for their own occupational health and performance too (cf. Beatty & Joffe, 2006; Grant & Parker, 2009). Proactive Motivation and JD-R Theories Our research provides additional support for proactive motivation theory, which states that individuals may initiate goal-directed behaviors to change aspects of the self or the environment (i.e., locus of change) in order to achieve a different future (Parker et al., 2010). Examples of proactive behavior in an organizational context often involve actions directed at the job or the work environment, such as job crafting (Tims et al., 2012; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), voice (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998), or playful work design (Bakker et al., 2020; Scharp et al., 2019). In contrast, proactive vitality management involves behavior aimed at changing aspects of the self – more specifically one’s physical, affective, and cognitive state. To uncover the potential value of proactive vitality management for individuals with a chronic health condition, we integrated proactive motivation theory with JD-R theory to investigate possible psychological 6
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