Fostering career crafting by developmental HR practices: the mediating role of future work self and moderating role of AI awareness

Purpose The deep integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) has triggered a transformation in career patterns, requiring employees to promptly adapt to changes in the vocational environment through career crafting. While human resource (HR) practices play a role in guiding employees' career self-management, further exploration is needed to determine the specific HR practices that organizations should adopt to facilitate employees' career crafting. This research takes developmental HR practices as a new premise for career crafting and examines the underlying mechanisms influencing the relationship between the two. Design/methodology/approach Using a three-stage time lag method with a two-month lag in each stage, we collected sample data from 386 employees in the intelligent manufacturing industry and employed multiple regression analysis to test the research hypotheses. Findings The results of this paper show that developmental HR practices positively influence employees' career crafting behaviors through their future work self and that AI awareness moderates this relationship. Originality/value Drawing upon career construction theory, we propose that developmental HR practices cultivate employees' future work self, thereby eliciting career crafting behaviors. Moreover, the mediating role of future work self is more pronounced when employees have a high level of AI awareness, as this awareness stimulates self-cognition-driven behaviors. These findings enrich the understanding of career crafting by shedding light on the career construction process in the relationship between developmental HR practices and career crafting and by identifying the boundary conditions for the relationship.