Organizational digital transformation often relies on effective framing to increase employees’ commitment to change by conveying key information about the transformation process. This study investigates the effects of future-oriented framing on employees’ commitment to change, learning strategies, and creativity. Grounded in signal theory, we develop a moderated chain mediation model to examine how future-oriented framing influences creativity indirectly through continuance commitment and varying learning strategies, with employees’ current focus acting as a key moderator. To enhance the theoretical and practical relevance of our findings, we employ a mixed-methods approach, combining a qualitative pilot study and a quantitative field survey to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings reveal that while future-oriented framing highlights the strategic importance and long-term benefits of digital transformation, it does not consistently elicit positive responses from employees. Specifically, for employees with a high current focus, future-oriented framing fails to resonate, instead fostering continuance commitment, a passive form of support driven by loss avoidance rather than active engagement. This passive mindset significantly shapes employees’ learning behaviors, promoting surface learning rather than deep learning, which ultimately inhibits creativity. These findings extend the literature on framing strategies in organizational change by identifying the nuanced cognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which future-oriented framing influences employee outcomes. Moreover, our research offers actionable insights for organizations undertaking digital transformation, emphasizing the need to align communication strategies with employees’ temporal focus to effectively foster creativity and engagement.
