The roles of career calling, occupational identity, and capital resources in shaping the creativity of new-generation professional farmers

The creativity of new-generation professional farmers (NGPFs) is a core driver of sustainable agricultural transformation. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study builds an integrated moderated mediation model to examine how career calling influences NGPFs' creativity. On the basis of survey data from 282 NGPFs in China, hierarchical regression and moderated mediation analyses were conducted to test the proposed model. The results show that career calling was associated positively with NGPFs' creativity. Occupational identity plays a partial mediating role in this relationship, forming the key path for psychological transmission from career calling to creative output. Furthermore, social capital moderates the association positively between career calling and occupational identity, whereas psychological capital moderates the association positively between occupational identity and NGPFs' creativity, indicating that external relational resources and internal psychological resources jointly strengthen different stages of the resource conversion process. This study supports the applicability of COR theory in agricultural innovation scenarios, expands the research on the antecedents of farmers' creativity, and provides targeted practical guidance for stimulating NGPFs' innovative vitality and advancing sustainable agricultural development.