How perceived restorativeness in rural tourism destinations influences job crafting willingness among knowledge workers through psychological restoration and psychological richness

This study examines how perceived restorativeness in rural tourism destinations relates to knowledge workers’ willingness to engage in job crafting, through the parallel mediating roles of psychological restoration and psychological richness. Drawing on Attention Restoration Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, and Broaden-and-Build Theory, we tested a structural model on survey data from 764 knowledge workers in China using AMOS 28.0. Three findings stand out.

Extent and fascination were directly and positively associated with job crafting willingness, whereas mental escape and physical distance related to it only through psychological restoration (full mediation); compatibility showed neither a direct association nor significant mediation through either mechanism in the rural tourism context. Psychological restoration partially mediated the associations of extent and fascination with job crafting willingness and fully mediated those of mental escape and physical distance. Psychological richness mediated the fascination path significantly and the mental escape path tentatively (the bootstrap confidence interval excluded zero, but the z-test did not reach the 5% level), and did not mediate the compatibility, extent, or physical distance paths.

The study contributes a dual-mechanism (recovery-and-growth) account of how off-the-job restorative experiences cross domains to shape proactive work behavior, and it extends psychological richness theory, so far confined largely to well-being research, into the organizational behavior domain. The results offer practical guidance for designing corporate vacation benefits and rural-destination marketing strategies for knowledge workers. The authors would like to thank all participants.

Financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. Scientific Research Fund for Doctor/Professor of Hezhou University (Project Number: 2025JSQD10). School of Tourism and Sport Health, Hezhou University, Hezhou, 542899, China The authors declare no competing interests.

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