The Future of Work: Mental Representations of a Changing World of Work

Abstract

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.