My dream, my strength: proactive behavior as a mediator between future work selves and career adaptability during the early career

Individuals should develop career adaptability to thrive in the contemporary labor market, where fast-changing and unpredictable changes are increasingly prevalent. This often requires individuals to be self-directed to manage their careers during the school-to-work transition. However, little is known about how salient future work selves (SFWS) contribute to career adaptability. This study draws on the conservation of resources theory to bridge this gap in the literature. It examines the indirect effect of SFWS on career adaptability via proactive career behaviors. Two dimensions of emotion regulation (i.e., expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal) as boundary conditions were tested to explain the moderated mediation model. A dataset of 311 final-year graduate students was collected across three time points. Using a structural equation model, we found that SFWS positively and significantly indirectly affected career adaptability via proactive career behaviors. Additionally, this indirect effect was stronger for newly graduated workers with low levels of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. This study provides evidence for the relevance of using the conservation of resources theory to understand career construction by highlighting the critical roles of proactive career behaviors and emotion regulation in developing career adaptability.