183 Summary and General Discussion them into more favorable work outcomes, such as work engagement and performance (cf. Bakker & Demerouti, 2017; Tisu et al., 2021). LIMITATIONS In this section, I will discuss several limitations of the presented research on proactive vitality management, accompanied by some ideas on how to tackle these limitations in future studies. First, the relationships explored in the studies in this dissertation have not been tested causally. I controlled for earlier levels of the mediator and/or outcome variables in the studies presented in Chapter 4, 5, and 6 to capture ‘change’ in these variables, with findings indicating that proactive vitality management coincided with changes in, for example, work engagement, creativity, and job performance. Moreover, I used a longitudinal design to capture how proactive vitality management relates to changes in occupational health and well-being over a longer time period in Chapter 6. However, actual causality can only be established with experimental manipulations, such as interventions. Such interventions would address the call by Parker et al. (2010) for insights on how to intervene in order to boost proactivity. For example, an intervention focused on awareness and instructionmay involve a workshop in which participants in the experimental group learn about their well-being in relation to work, and about how they can proactively improve this from day to day. During the training, participants may set personal goals and come up with various initiatives they can take to be physically active and get involved in interesting activities with the aim to feel energized and motivated. The majority of the studies included in this dissertation involve within-person designs that capture intraindividual fluctuations in proactive vitality management. Accordingly, an intervention in which individuals are provided with instruction and encouragement on a regularly basis – e.g., every day or even multiple times during the day – may be highly effective because it corresponds to the nature of proactive vitality management. For example, a workshop like the one described above may be followed up with a smartphone application that sends questions and alerts on a regular basis to stimulate self-reflection and nudge people intomanaging their physical and mental energy for work. 7
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