Employee workplace wellbeing, which can be viewed as positive sentiments experienced at work, can be used as an indicator to measure the mental health of staff in an organisation (Chari et al., 2018) and is very important for ensuring the success of an organisation (Daniels and Harris, 2000; Su and Swanson, 2019).
Studies have shown that employee workplace wellbeing can affect attitudes and behaviours (Sharma et al., 2016), such as supportive green behaviours (Su and Swanson, 2019), loyalty (Chiu et al., 2013), and turnover intention (Gong et al., 2018). Employee workplace wellbeing can also yield outcomes at the organisational level, such as improved organisational performance (Taris and Schreurs, 2009). Hence, in recent years, employee workplace wellbeing has become a key concern for both academics in the field of organisational behaviour and managers in organisations (Zheng et al., 2015). Given its significance, the study on employee workplace wellbeing has continued to increase over the past few decades.
Relating to the prevalence of employee workplace wellbeing, researchers have primarily focused on its favourable antecedents, such as individual-, group-, leader-, and organisation-level workplace resources (Nielsen et al., 2017). In particular, the importance of motivational resources in influencing work motivation and employee workplace wellbeing has been emphasized by organisational psychology scholars (Boncquet et al., 2020).
The future work self is defined as an image or a reflection of an individual in future work expectations and ambitions (Strauss et al., 2012). It is the embodiment and extension of the individual “possible self ” in the workplace (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Strauss et al. (2012) hold that it includes two dimensions, namely, salience and elaboration. An elaborate future work self is complicated and comprises manifold components, which is difficult to measure (Strauss et al., 2012).
Therefore, considering the research theme of our investigation and the critical role of the salient future work self in the motivation process of individual self-concept, we focused on the salient dimension of future work self in this study (i.e., the degree of clarity and easy imagination of the future work self, contributing to positive feelings about the self; Strauss et al., 2012).
Prior empirical studies have also used the salient dimension to measure future work self (Taber and Blankemeyer, 2015; Zhang et al., 2016; Guan et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2019). When individuals perceive their possible self, they experience increased personal motivation, which has an effect on their career-related behaviours (Hoyle and Sherrill, 2006). Earlier studies have demonstrated that the future work self positively predicts career-related outcomes (Taber and Blankemeyer, 2015), career adaptability (Guan et al., 2014), performance (Lin et al., 2016; Oh, 2020), the meaning of life, calling (Zhang et al., 2016), employee creativity (Yang et al., 2019), and job search behaviours (Kao et al., 2020).