The positive side of overqualification: examining perceived overqualification linkage with knowledge sharing and career planning

How does perceived overqualification promote employees' creative deviance: The role of leadership emergence and job autonomy

Inspiring the creative potential of overqualified employees can facilitate a mutually beneficial outcome for both the company and the employees. However, further investigation is required to ascertain how to stimulate the perceived overqualification of employees to carry out creative deviance. Drawing upon role theory, this study explores the impact mechanism of perceived overqualification on employee creative deviance, with leadership emergence as the mediating variable, and further examines the moderating role of job autonomy. Adopting a two-stage design, 362 valid data samples were collected from various companies, and analysis was conducted using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results indicate a positive correlation between perceived overqualification and creative deviance. Perceived overqualification not only positively influences leadership emergence but it also indirectly affects creative deviance through leadership emergence. Furthermore, when individuals with perceived overqualification and possess a greater level of job autonomy, they are more likely to engage in creative deviant behavior. The findings contribute to understanding the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of employees' perceived overqualification influencing creative deviance from a positive perspective, offering valuable managerial insights for organizations.

Perceived overqualification as a double-edged sword for employee creativity: The mediating role of job crafting and work withdrawal behavior

With the continuous development of education level and the downturn of economic situation, employment competition is intensifying, more and more high-quality talents appear, and the misfit between people and posts has become a common phenomenon. However, there is no consensus on the relationship between perceived overqualification and employee creativity. Based on the conservation of resource theory, this study reveals the micro mechanism and boundary conditions of the influence of excessive qualification on employee creativity. This study analyzed 487 valid samples obtained in three stages. The results show that: (1) Job crafting has a positive mediating effect on perceived overqualification and creativity, and the path of the two halves is positive; (2) Work withdrawal behavior plays a negative mediating role between the perceived overqualification and creativity. The path in the first half is positive, and the path in the second half is negative; (3) Organizational identity moderates the effect of perceived overqualification on job crafting and work withdrawal behavior. Specifically, the higher the sense of organizational identification, the stronger the positive effect of perceived overqualification on job crafting and the weaker the positive effect on work withdrawal behavior; (4) Organizational identification moderates the mediating role of job crafting and work withdrawal behavior in the relationship between overqualification and creativity. Specifically, the higher the organizational identity, the stronger the indirect positive effect of perceived overqualification on creativity through job crafting, and the weaker the indirect negative impact of perceived overqualification on creativity through work withdrawal behavior. The study conclusion deepens the research on the mechanism of the influence of the perceived overqualification on employees' work behavior, and provides practical enlightenment for the organization and management of employees with excess qualification.

Perceived overqualification and knowledge sharing: The role of organizational identity and psychological entitlement

BACKGROUND

Employees' perception of being overqualified is a critical factor in influencing their knowledge sharing behavior. However previous studies have not examined the internal mechanism by which perceived overqualification affects knowledge sharing.

OBJECTIVE

Drawing on social exchange theory, the present study aimed to explore the relationship between perceived overqualification and knowledge sharing and to examine the mediating effect of organizational identity and the moderating role of psychological entitlement.

METHODS

Participants were 284 full-time employees from different companies in China. They answered self-report questionnaires that assessed perceived overqualification, knowledge sharing, organizational identity, and psychological entitlement. Path analyses were conducted, and the latent moderated structural equations were used to judge the significance of the mediation and moderation.

RESULTS

The results revealed that overqualified employees were less willing to share knowledge, and the mediating role of organizational identity was significant. Further, the presence of high psychological entitlement would diminish the beneficial effect of organizational identity on employee knowledge sharing.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of the study enrich and expand our knowledge on the relationship between overqualification and knowledge sharing and have theoretical and practical implications for promoting constructive behavior among overqualified employees.

Cross Culture Examination of Perceived Overqualification, Psychological Well-Being and Job Search: The Moderating Role of Proactive Behavior

Purpose

This study delves into the intricate interplay between perceived overqualification, job search behavior, psychological well-being, and proactive behavior, within two distinct and diverse work settings.

Methods

Drawing upon the Person-Job Fit theory, we investigated these dynamics in two unique samples: Sample 1 encompassed corporate sector employees in the United Arab Emirates (N=409), while Sample 2 comprised IT sector workers in Pakistan (N=337). Hayes PROCESS macro were used to examine the proposed hypotheses and AMOS (Version 28) were conducted to examine model fitness.

Results

In Study 1, we established a positive association between perceived overqualification and job search behavior among employees in the UAE corporate sector. Notably, this relationship was mediated by psychological well-being, suggesting that the impact of perceived overqualification on job search behavior is, in part, channeled through its effects on individuals' psychological well-being. Study 2 showed that proactive behavior exhibited a moderating effect on the negative link between perceived overqualification and psychological well-being. Specifically, employees displaying higher levels of proactive behavior demonstrated a less adverse influence of perceived overqualification on psychological well-being. Importantly, this adaptive effect of proactive behavior was found to indirectly influence job search behavior.

Discussion

The findings highlight the nature of perceived overqualification in the workplace and its varying impact on employee behavior and well-being across different cultural and work settings. The mediation by psychological well-being and moderation by proactive behavior in these relationships underscores the importance of individual responses to perceived job fit issues. These insights are crucial for understanding employee behavior in diverse work environments and can inform practices for managing perceived overqualification.

The Silver Lining of Perceived Overqualification: Examining the Nexus Between Perceived Overqualification, Career Self-Efficacy and Career Commitment

Aim

This study aimed to investigate how perceived overqualification is linked to an individual's career commitment among service sector employees in China. Additionally, it sought to examine the mediating role of career self-efficacy and the moderating effect of social support.

Methods

This study collected data from 441 employees using a three-wave data collection design with a two-week gap between each round. Moreover, we employed partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data.

Results

The findings asserted that perceived overqualification was positively associated with employee career self-efficacy and commitment. Furthermore, career self-efficacy mediated the link between perceived overqualification and career commitment. The study also demonstrated that perceived overqualification and career self-efficacy were influenced by the level of social support received, with a stronger relationship observed when social support was high. These findings highlight the value of fostering social support and career self-efficacy among coworkers to increase overqualified employees' commitment to their careers and provide valuable insights for organizations seeking to manage their talent pool effectively.

Discussion

The study suggests that when employees perceive themselves as overqualified for their job, it can lead to a higher sense of career self-efficacy, which is the belief in one's ability to perform job tasks effectively. This increased self-efficacy, in turn, can lead to a greater commitment to their career. Furthermore, fostering social support and building career self-efficacy can help organizations manage their overqualified pool effectively and improve employee satisfaction and productivity.

Leveraging Empowering Leadership to Improve Employees' Improvisational Behavior: The Role of Promotion Focus and Willingness to Take Risks

Improvisational behavior is an individual's spontaneous and creative behavior in the face of emergencies, using existing material and emotional resources to respond quickly and effectively to uncertain situations. Despite increasing interest in this behavior, its antecedents remain unclear, with particular ambiguity regarding the relationship between empowering leadership and employee improvisational behavior. The present article addresses this ambiguity with the theory of reasoned action to examine whether the impact of empowering leadership on employees' improvisational behavior is determined by employees' attitudes toward such behavior. In this study, a multi-source design was adopted, and data (339 valid samples) were collected from five Internet companies in China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapping methods were used to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that (1) employees' promotion focus moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and improvisational behavior and (2) employees' willingness to take risks mediates the moderating effect of promotion focus. Our findings demonstrate employees' attitudinal utility in explaining when improvisational behavior is most likely to occur under empowering leadership.

The link between English foreign language teacher's professional identity and their critical thinking that leads to teacher's success in the Chinese context: Leaders motivational language as a moderator

The purpose of this study is to examine the link between English foreign language teacher's professional identity and employee success via mediating role of critical thinking. Further, we examined the moderating role of leader motivational language between employee professional identity and critical thing and also indirect effect on employee success via critical thinking. We collected data from Chinese MNC's school by using time lagged study design. We used hierarchical linear regression for direct hypotheses and Hayes PROCESS model's for mediation, moderation, and mediation moderation analysis. The results show that there is positive relation between employee's professional identity and teacher's success. Further, critical thinking mediates the link between professional identity and employee success. The results of the moderated mediation analysis show that critical thinking mediated the interaction of employee's professional identity and leader's motivational language on teacher's success.

Negative Work Attitudes and Task Performance: Mediating Role of Knowledge Hiding and Moderating Role of Servant Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global crisis that particularly hit employment globally. Due to the economic crisis, many small businesses attempted to minimise their expenses by either closing or downsizing. During such organisational situations, the employees face negative workplace attitudes that lead to knowledge hiding and affect team performance. This study examines negative attitudes and their effect on team performance. Further, this study examines the mediating effect of knowledge hiding and moderating the role of servant leadership. Through a multi-time data collection approach, the authors obtained 363 responses from the education sector in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. PROCESS Hayes model 1 and 4 were used for mediation and moderation analysis. Results show that job insecurity, cynicism, and role stress are significant forces behind knowledge-hiding behaviour. Furthermore, the knowledge hiding behaviour adversely affects task performance. Servant leadership shows a buffering effect on knowledge hiding behaviour caused by negative workplace attitudes. This is one of the first studies in the South Asian environment to examine the association between employees’ negative attitudes and task performance using knowledge hiding as a mediator and servant leadership as a moderator in the COVID-19 scenario. Lastly, the paper concludes with a consideration of its theoretical, practical implication and future direction.