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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The Future of Work: Mental Representations of a Changing World of Work
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Lauren Howe
  • Leonie Jolanthe Hentrup
  • Jochen Menges
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Academy of Management. Proceedings
Publisher Academy of Management
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0065-0668
Volume 2021
Number 1
Page Range 10273
Date 2021
Abstract Text The future of work is central to discussions in society, but surprisingly absent as a theme in management scholarship. Although there is scattered research on topics related to the future of work, conceptually there is a lack of clarity about what “the future of work” means and entails, and empirically, its temporal positioning in the future has made it challenging to gather data in the present. We resolve these issues by drawing on literature on prospective cognition to offer a novel conceptualization of the future of work as an individual’s mental representation of how work will change; these representations can be assessed in the present. Here we build theory about and study empirically whether people systematically differ in how they feel about, prepare for and thus ultimately shape the future of work. Across a series of archival, survey, and experimental studies focused specifically on skills needed in the future of work, we find general support for our theoretical framework that people overrepresent technical (as opposed to socioemotional) aspects, that this systematic distortion has adverse emotional effects on women (but not men), and that shifts in mental representations can change how people feel about and prepare for the future of work.
Free access at DOI
Digital Object Identifier 10.5465/AMBPP.2021.10273abstract
Other Identification Number merlin-id:22061
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