185 Summary and General Discussion de Vries & Bakker, 2021). Accordingly, proactive vitality management may be even more important in physically demanding jobs, while it may at the same time be more difficult to obtain positive results. Moreover, with the exception of a German (Chapter 5) and American (Chapter 2 and 5) sample, the studies involved participants of Dutch nationality. It is possible that proactive vitality management may manifest itself differently in other – currently unexplored – cultures, such as Asian cultures. Finally, the current studies have not taken into account demographic variables such as gender or age, which may also play a role. For example, it is possible that proactive vitality management may be more important for the aging workforce, who may deal with losses in personal resources, providing themwith reason-to motivation to be proactive (Bakker & Hakanen, 2019). At the same time, physical and mental health issues seem to be highest among the younger workforce (TNO, 2020). FUTURE RESEARCH Thus far, as described above, I have made suggestions for future research that may tackle the methodological limitations of the studies included in this dissertation. In the following section, I will elaborate on several future research directions that may tackle theoretical questions that have thus far remained unanswered. First of all, future research may further explore how proactive vitality management may not only complement top-down factors, such as job design, but may also interact with elements of the job or the work environment in its effect on occupational health and performance. The studies included in this dissertation are partly based – and build further – on JD-R theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). More specifically, I consider proactive vitality management as a behavioral strategy that individuals can deploy to directly their occupational health and performance processes. With regards to the actual interplay between (elements of) job design and proactive vitality management, the discussion so far focused mostly on job resources, such as social support and job autonomy. However, the role of job demands in the proactive vitality management process has so far remained largely unexplored. 7
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