Future Work Self-Salience and Career Adaptability in Career Women: The Moderating Role of Work–Family Conflict

Abstract

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This study investigates the relationship between future work self-salience (FWSS) and career adaptability among career women in Taiwan. It further explores the potential moderating effect of work–family conflict (WFC) on this association. Guided by career construction and identity-based self-regulation constructs, a cross-sectional survey was analyzed in SPSS for screening, descriptives, reliability, correlations, and hierarchical regression. The moderation process was examined using PROCESS (Model 1). The measurement quality was assessed in AMOS by computing composite reliability and extracting the average variance. The results indicated that FWSS demonstrated a significant positive association with CA, whereas WFC exhibited a negative association with CA. However, the interaction term between FWSS and WFC was insignificant, suggesting that WFC does not moderate the FWSS–CA relationship. A series of supplemental t-tests and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine potential subgroup differences.Overall, the findings underscore that FWSS is an antecedent of CA, while WFC operates as a contextual strain rather than a boundary condition that alters their relationship. These results highlight the importance of fostering a salient future work self to enhance women’s adaptive career resources and underscore the need for organizational support to mitigate work–family strain to sustain career adaptability.