Employees nowadays are working in highly competitive workplaces (Watkins, 2021). Promotion almost always signals success for employees, as it provides higher wages and higher workplace status (Clor-Proell et al., 2015). However, with the advance of technologies and strong market competition, an increasing number of organizations are becoming structurally flatter (McCleese et al., 2007). Thus, the path to a senior position in an organization has become much narrower, which suggests that most employees are likely to stay in the same position for a long period without any hope of being promoted (Wen & Liu, 2015). In other words, employees experience a hierarchical plateau, which reflects a low likelihood of being promoted and which is considered an undesirable career experience (Ference et al., 1977) that leads to negative work behaviors and attitudes. For example, Armstrong-Stassen and Ursel (2009) found that a hierarchical plateau was negatively related to employees’ intention to remain in their job.

In the existing literature, scholars have identified several mediators of the negative relationship between a hierarchical plateau and employees’ work behaviors and attitudes (see, for a review, Yang et al., 2019). Some studies have found that employees’ perceptions of the conditions and environment in their current workplace and job could serve as mediators in this relationship, such as employees’ perceived lack of organizational/supervisory support (Armstrong-Stassen & Ursel, 2009; Gerpott & Domsch, 1987; Lapalme et al., 2009) and decreased job satisfaction (Armstrong-Stassen & Ursel, 2009; Xie et al., 2014, 2016), and others have explored the mediating effect of employees’ perceptions of their career future prospects, such as perceived declined external employability (Lin & Chen, 2020). Thus, most career plateau studies have ignored employees’ past career experience when examining the negative consequences of a hierarchical plateau. In this context, forgone work identity is defined as the work identity that employees did not choose while they were able to in their past career path. However, recent research has revealed that employees retain their forgone work identity when they are dissatisfied with their current career (Felix & Cavazotte, 2019; Mühlhaus et al., 2021; Obodaru, 2012, 2017) and a hierarchical plateau is just such an unpleasant career experience. Given that even though it is imaginary, employees’ forgone work identity can have a significant influence on their current work attitude (Burgess et al., in press), it is important to include this factor when examining the negative consequences of a hierarchical plateau.

In this study we introduced a mediator, forgone identity dwelling, to explain why the existence of a hierarchical plateau results in employees’ decreased work engagement. Forgone identity dwelling means that employees engage in repetitive and circular reflection on their forgone work identity (Burgess et al., in press). Using conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 2001; Hobfoll et al., 2018), we argued that employees who have forgone an alternative work identity in the past will adopt forgone identity dwelling as a coping strategy to deal with a hierarchical plateau in their current workplace. When employees dwell on their forgone work identity, they envision what life would be like if they could become what they have forgone. As a result, they become distracted from their current work, leading to decreased work engagement. This indirect effect is further moderated by employees’ promotion regulatory focus because employees with a high promotion focus will suffer greater resource loss when faced with a hierarchical plateau than will those with a low promotion focus. Thus, employees with a high promotion focus will be more inclined to dwell on their forgone identity.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Hierarchical Plateau and Work Engagement

According to conservation of resources theory, individuals strive to obtain, retain, protect, and foster those things that they value (Hobfoll, 2001). Employees devote their effort, time, and energy to working hard, with the expectation of this being reciprocated by resources, such as status and money. However, when there is a hierarchical plateau, this means that the resource of a higher position is not available to them as a reward (Yang et al., 2019). Thus, employees experiencing a hierarchical plateau feel threatened with potential resource loss and have a sense of failure to gain desirable resources after significant resource investment, which results in a negative impact on them (Hobfoll, 2001). For example, Drucker-Godard et al. (2015) found that a career plateau positively impacted employees’ turnover intention and negatively impacted their organizational commitment.

Work engagement is a positive and fulfilling work-related state of mind that has three dimensions: vigor, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Vigor is characterized by energy and mental resilience, and a willingness to work hard even when faced with difficulties. Dedication represents a sense of the importance of the task involved in the work role, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. Absorption reflects a state of concentrating on one’s work. Prior studies have indicated that resources are significant for igniting employees’ work engagement (see, e.g., Liu & Huang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2017), as resources can help employees to achieve goals, enhance their personal development, and reduce the cost of meeting job demands (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). These valued resources can revitalize employees and make them more engaged in their work (Shantz et al., 2016). However, a hierarchical plateau leads to resource loss for employees; therefore, they do not have sufficient resources to be engaged in their work. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Hierarchical plateau will be negatively related to employees’ work engagement.

Forgone Identity Dwelling and Work Engagement

Work identity is an individual’s subjective self-description about “who I am” in the workplace (Caza et al., 2018). In a highly competitive and changeable world, employees have never been so free to decide what occupation to take up (Xu, 2021). This freedom and abundance of job choices gives employees more opportunities to forgo some work identities throughout their career paths. In her pioneering study, Obodaru (2017) found that almost all participants had one or more forgone work identities, which supports the argument that this is prevalent among contemporary employees. The forgone work identity is not really forgotten by employees, and it can be enacted through imagination (Felix & Cavazotte, 2019; Obodaru, 2017). If employees had made a different career decision in the past, they could have taken on an alternative potential work identity (Obodaru, 2017). Dwelling on this forgone identity can evoke affective and behavioral consequences. For example, Burgess et al. (in press) found that forgone identity dwelling elicits a yearning for something that is missing, which is associated with increased withdrawal behavior and decreased helping behavior. When employees dwell on their forgone work identity, they are less grounded in the present, manifesting a tendency to daydream and to avoid difficulties. As a result, they are less engaged in their current work. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Forgone identity dwelling will be negatively related to employees’ work engagement.

The Mediating Role of Forgone Identity Dwelling

With greater freedom and more choices of career path, employees have higher expectations about a career that can help them to be their “complete selves at work” (Kinjerski & Skrypnek, 2004, p. 27). However, not all employees can fulfill their self-values in their current work (Duffy et al., 2012). Such a reality is disappointing and leads them to think about their unfulfilled wishes at work, and wonder about their forgone identity (Schwartz, 2004). The unfulfilled self-enhancement value when there is a hierarchical plateau in the workplace can be fulfilled when employees envision that they can change their career path. Because of a self-serving bias, individuals usually attribute their failure to situational factors (Fiske & Taylor 2013) and, thus, are likely to imagine how successful they will be when they change their workplace. As a result, employees experiencing a hierarchical plateau are prone to retain their forgone work identity.

As suggested above, a hierarchical plateau is an undesirable career experience for employees, which results in resource loss. According to conservation of resources theory, individuals undergoing resource loss will adopt coping strategies to deal with this situation (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Resource-depleted individuals often choose a defensive coping strategy without additional resource investment (Hobfoll, 2001). Imagining how life would be different is a way for employees to escape psychologically from their current work without investing more resources. Additionally, adopting a denial strategy is not limited to employees who are highly resource-depleted. Even employees who are less resource-depleted will also use temporary and limited forms of denial before they can adopt other, more proactive coping strategies with renewed resources (Hobfoll, 2001). Dwelling on a forgone identity offers employees opportunities to mentally disengage from the current work, which causes resource loss for them, and also provides them with chances to imagine how successful they would be if they had possessed alternative potential work identities. Thus, this daydreamlike thinking can make employees “remarkably resourceful” (Obodaru, 2017, p. 526). This suggests that forgone identity dwelling can be considered an effective denial strategy for employees to deal with resource loss, leading to employees’ decreased work engagement. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Forgone identity dwelling will mediate the relationship between hierarchical plateau and work engagement.

The Moderating Role of Promotion Regulatory Focus

According to promotion regulatory theory (Higgins, 1998), individuals self-regulate their behaviors in ways that are consistent with their promotion-focused or prevention-focused goals. Individuals with a high promotion focus pursue success and are concerned about accomplishment and advancement, such as career progression (Johnson et al., 2010). To be promoted to a higher position, promotion-focused employees devote a lot of resources to their work. Thus, when faced with a hierarchical plateau, employees with a high (vs. low) promotion focus feel more threatened with potential resource loss and have a greater sense of failure to gain desirable resources after significant resource investment. As suggested in conservation of resources theory, when employees are more resource-depleted, they are more likely to adopt denial as a form of coping strategy (Hobfoll, 2001). As a result, employees with a high, compared to low, promotion focus are more inclined to dwell on their forgone identity. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4: The level of employees’ promotion regulatory focus will moderate the relationship between hierarchical plateau and forgone identity dwelling.

As suggested above, employees with a high promotion focus are more likely than are those with a low promotion focus to dwell on their forgone identity, which distracts them from their present work, making them less engaged in that work. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5: The indirect effect of a hierarchical plateau on employees’ work engagement through their forgone identity dwelling will be moderated by the level of their promotion regulatory focus.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We collected data from 550 employees in China in two waves via Credamo, which is an online panel widely used by scholars (e.g., Jiao et al., 2021). Participants were informed that the purpose of the survey was to investigate their current work experience and work attitude. We gave them the option to quit the study at any stage if they liked, promised them that the collected data would be used only for scientific research purposes, and guaranteed their right to privacy.

To ensure that our sample comprised employees who indeed possessed a forgone work identity, we set a screening question for participants at Time 1, which was adapted from Burgess et al. (in press): “People’s career paths often include turning points: They choose their current work identity and give up another possible work identity. For example, one person had the chance to become a civil servant, but chose to work in finance in an enterprise. Have you ever had such an alternative work identity?”

At Time 1, employees were surveyed about their hierarchical plateau and promotion regulatory focus. Those who indicated they did not have a forgone identity and those who failed to identify the reverse items of the Hierarchical Plateau Scale were excluded from further participation. The final sample at Time 1 comprised 503 employees. After completing the survey items, they were compensated with RMB 5.00 (USD 0.75). After 2 weeks, we sent a link to the 503 employees and surveyed their forgone identity dwelling, work engagement, and demographics. At the beginning of the survey, the same screening question used at Time 1 was repeated but ended with the sentence “You told us in the last survey that you had such an alternative work identity.” At Time 2, 423 employees filled out the second survey, were debriefed, and were rewarded with another RMB 5.00.

The average age of the participants was 29.78 years (SD = 5.49), comprising 31.4% aged 20–26 years, 48.0% aged 26–32 years, and 20.6% aged over 32 years. The average job tenure was 6.81 years (SD = 5.64), comprising 35.5% with a tenure of 1–5 years, 41.9% with a tenure of 6–10 years, and 12.6% with a tenure of over 10 years. Of the employees, 232 (55%) were women and 191 (45%) were men.

Measures

Unless otherwise noted, all measures were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.

Hierarchical Plateau
Hierarchical plateau was measured using the six-item Hierarchical Plateau Scale developed by Milliman (1992), which includes two reverse-scored items. A sample item is “My opportunities for upward movement are limited in my present organization.” Cronbach’s alpha was .95 in this study.

Forgone Identity Dwelling
Forgone identity dwelling was measured using the three-item scale developed by Burgess et al. (in press), with a slight adaptation. We translated all English language scales into Chinese by following a translation/back-translation procedure. During this procedure we found that the terms “alternative self” and “the road not taken” in the original scale were not clear for Chinese participants. Thus, we replaced these terms with “alternative work identity” to make questions more straightforward and clearer. All items began with the phrase, “Regarding the possibility of being your alternative work identity, how often do you…” Phrase endings included “…think about your alternative work identity?”, “…contemplate how life would be had you chosen the alternative work identity?”, and “…reflect on how things would have been different if you had chosen the alternative work identity?” Participants scored each item on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = almost never to 7 = almost always. Cronbach’s alpha was .90 in this study.

Work Engagement
Work engagement was measured using the 17-item scale developed by Schaufeli et al. (2002). A sample item for vigor (six items) is “At my work, I feel bursting with energy,” one for dedication (five items) is “My job inspires me,” and one for absorption (six items) is “When I am working, I forget everything else around me.” Cronbach’s alphas were .93 for vigor, .91 for dedication, and .84 for absorption in this study.

Promotion Regulatory Focus
Promotion regulatory focus was measured using the nine-item scale developed by Lockwood et al. (2002). A sample item is “In general, I am focused on achieving positive outcomes in my life.” Cronbach’s alpha was .90 in this study.

Results

Correlation Analysis and Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations among control variables, hierarchical plateau, forgone identity dwelling, work engagement, and promotion regulatory focus.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

As shown in Table 2, the confirmatory factory analysis revealed that the proposed four-factor model fit the data better than did the other three models.

Hypothesis Testing

Gender, age, and tenure were used as control variables when testing the hypotheses. The results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that hierarchical plateau, b = –0.54, p < .001, 95% confidence interval (CI) [–0.45, –0.34], and forgone identity dwelling, b = –0.31, p < .001, 95% CI [–0.39, –0.23], were significantly and negatively related to work engagement. Thus, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported.

Next, we examined whether forgone identity dwelling mediated the relationship between hierarchical plateau and work engagement by performing a bootstrapping analysis (5,000 replications) and calculating 95% CIs. Results revealed there was both a significant direct effect, b = –0.35, SE = 0.03, p < .001, 95% CI [–0.41, –0.30], and a significant indirect effect, b = –0.04, SE = 0.01, 95% CI [–0.07, –0.02], of hierarchical plateau on work engagement. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported.

Thereafter, we tested whether employees’ promotion regulatory focus moderated the relationship between hierarchical plateau and forgone identity dwelling. As shown in Table 3, hierarchical regression analysis revealed there was a significant interaction effect, b = 0.11, SE = 0.04, p < .05, 95% CI [0.02, 0.20]. We then calculated simple effects to better illustrate the moderating effect. As shown in Figure 1, hierarchical plateau was significantly and positively related to forgone identity dwelling when promotion regulatory focus was high, b = 0.30, SE = 0.05, p < .001, 95% CI [0.19, 0.40]. However, when promotion regulatory focus was low, hierarchical plateau was not significantly related to forgone identity dwelling, b = 0.11, SE = 0.06, ns, 95% CI [–0.02, 0.24]. Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported.

In Hypothesis 5 we proposed that employees’ promotion regulatory focus would moderate the indirect effect of hierarchical plateau on work engagement via forgone identity dwelling. The bootstrapping analysis results showed that this conditional indirect effect was significant and strong when employees’ promotion regulatory focus was high, b = –0.06, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [–0.09, –0.03], and was weak and nonsignificant when employees’ promotion regulatory focus was low, b = –0.02, SE = 0.01, 95% CI [–0.04, 0.01]. Thus, Hypothesis 5 was supported.

Discussion

Our study found that a hierarchical plateau has a negative impact on work engagement, and revealed a mediating effect of forgone identity dwelling and a moderating effect of promotion regulatory focus in this relationship.

Theoretical Implications

This study has several important theoretical implications. First, we introduced a mediator, forgone identity dwelling, to explain why a hierarchical plateau results in employees’ decreased work engagement. This mechanism is still underexplored because of disregard for the employee’s past career experience in existing career plateau studies, although researchers on work identity have indicated that employees’ forgone identities have significant impacts on their current work attitude and behaviors (see, e.g., Burgess et al., in press). In particular, in a highly competitive and changeable society with many different occupational opportunities (Obodaru, 2017), most employees have forgone work identities, which highlights the role of forgone identity when examining employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. Thus, our research fills a theoretical gap and provides a new perspective to explain how employees respond to a hierarchical plateau in their workplace.

Second, our study contributes to the literature on work identity. As Obodaru (2017) indicated, the focus in most work identity research has been on the work identity that employees actually hold, whereas few studies have been conducted to consider their forgone identities. We found that, indeed, forgone work identities have a significant impact on employees’ work attitudes, even though these are just imaginary identities that cannot actually be enacted through activities and interactions included in their current work roles. We also found that employees with a high promotion focus were more likely to dwell on a forgone identity. This extends the understanding of forgone identity dwelling.

In addition, to our knowledge, this is the first quantitative empirical research that has been conducted to explore the antecedents of forgone identity dwelling. We found that a hierarchical plateau was positively related to forgone identity dwelling. This result is also in line with the finding that unfulfilled values lead to employees’ repetitive reflection on forgone work identity (Obodaru, 2017).

Practical Implications

In this study we found that it is counterproductive for employees to dwell on their forgone work identities. This daydreamlike thinking distracts employees from their current work and negatively impacts on their work engagement. Managers could hear from employees what forgone identity they are dwelling on, and consider helping them to achieve that identity in some way, or at least make changes to increase employees’ satisfaction with their current job and workplace. We also found that experiencing a hierarchical plateau leads to decreased work engagement. This finding can help managers enhance their efforts to help employees by establishing upward channels for promotion in the organization. Without effective career development design, employees will have uncomfortable experiences, which will lead to negative consequences for the organization.

Limitations and Future Directions

This study has some limitations. First, we collected all our data from the same source. Although we used time separation to reduce common method bias, we still suggest that future researchers collect data from multiple sources. Second, although we focused only on hierarchical plateaus, there are, in fact, different types of career plateau, such as the job content plateau. Future studies could explore whether a job content plateau has the same mechanisms as a hierarchical plateau in terms of negative consequences.

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Zhen Li, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]