Transformational Leadership and Perceived Overqualification: A Career Development Perspective

Does paradoxical leadership influence employees' proactive work behavior? A study based on employees in Chinese state-owned enterprises

Paradoxical leadership has emerged as an increasingly important research topic in the context of Chinese state-owned enterprises, which are currently facing contradictions between maintaining stability and implementing changes, short-term profits and long-term sustainable development, and public nature and marketization. Based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, this study employed a questionnaire survey to explore the influence of paradoxical leadership on employees' proactive work behavior and the mediating role of superior-subordinate guanxi and self-efficacy. The study involved 540 employees working in Chinese state-owned enterprises. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test the validity of the measurement model and regression to evaluate the direct effects. Subsequently, we used bootstrapping to confirm mediation and serial mediation effects. The study found that (1) Paradoxical leadership can effectively enhance employees' proactive work behavior; (2) The superior-subordinate guanxi plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behavior, that is, paradoxical leadership enhances employees' proactive work behavior by improving the superior-subordinate guanxi; (3) Self-efficacy plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behaviors, that is, paradoxical leadership promotes employees' proactive work behavior by enhancing their self-efficacy; (4) The superior-subordinate guanxi and self-efficacy play a chain mediating effect between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behavior, forming a chain of "Paradoxical leadership-Superior-subordinate Guanxi-Self-efficacy-Employees' proactive work behaviors." This study enriches the theoretical research on paradoxical leadership and provides suggestions for state-owned enterprises to enhance employees' proactive work behavior.

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.

High-level talents’ perceive overqualification and withdrawal behavior: A power perspective based on survival needs

Based on the power basis theory, this study examined the relationship between high-level talents’ perceived overqualification (POQ) and withdrawal behavior and the mediating role of sense of power. We also analyze the boundary effects of protected values and being trusted. The hypotheses of this study were tested through questionnaires gathered across three phases over 3 months from 371 high-level talents from 6 enterprises, 5 governments, and 13 universities in China. Hierarchical regression analyses and bootstrapping appraisals showed that: (1) POQ has a positive relationship with withdrawal behavior; (2) sense of power mediates the relationship between overqualification and withdrawal behavior, with high POQ resulting in low perceived power, which then reinforces withdrawal behavior; (3) the negative relationship between POQ and sense of power is stronger for high-level talents with high protected value (as opposed to low); (4) the negative relationship between sense of power and withdrawal behavior is stronger for high-level talents with highly being trusted (as opposed to low); (5) moderated-mediation analyses reveal that the mediating effects of sense of power are stronger for employees with high (as opposed to low) protected values or being trusted. At the end of this study, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Associations between perceived overqualification, transformational leadership and burnout in nurses from intensive care units: a multicentre survey

AIMS

To explore whether perceived overqualification increases the risk of burnout, and whether transformational leadership negatively moderates this relationship.

BACKGROUND

Perceived overqualification might contribute to burnout and lead to poor experience of transformational leadership, and transformational leadership might be associated with burnout. However, these relationships have not yet been confirmed.

METHODS

A multicentre cross-sectional study. A total of 321 nurses from intensive care units were recruited from six tertiary hospitals. Scale of Perceived OverQualification, Transformational Leadership Questionnaire and emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey were employed to collect the data. Hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrap resampling were applied to analyse the data.

RESULTS

Burnout was positively associated with perceived overqualification and negatively associated with transformational leadership (each p < 0.05). Transformational leadership significantly mediated the relationship between perceived overqualification and burnout (b = -0.6389, 95% confidence interval: -0.8706, -0.4072).

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicated that perceived overqualification and transformational leadership directly or indirectly affect burnout among nurses from intensive care units. Implications for nursing managers Personal and organizational-oriented interventions utilizing nurses' overall qualifications and implementing transformational leadership should be employed by nurse managers to alleviate burnout and promote the work performance of nurses from intensive care units.

Perceived Overqualification and Intensive Smartphone Use: A Moderated Mediation Model

Previous studies only considered the impact of personal or environmental factors on intensive smartphone use separately, while largely ignoring the impact of person-environment (P-E) fit on it. Drawing on the P-E fit theory, we proposed that perceived overqualification (POQ), an indicator of person-job misfit, positively affects intensive smartphone use via job boredom, and affective commitment moderates this indirect effect. We examined our hypotheses using four-wave time-lag data of 450 workers from 62 teams. The results revealed that POQ raised job boredom of an individual and thus increased their intensive smartphone use. In addition, when the affective commitment was high, the indirect effect from POQ to intensive smartphone use via job boredom was weaker. The implications, limitations, and future directions of this research were discussed.

Transformational Leadership, Ethical Leadership, and Participative Leadership in Predicting Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Evidence From Financial Technology Firms

Counterproductive work behaviors are a crucial issue for practice and academic because it influences employees’ job performance and career development. The present research conceptualizes Kahn’s employee engagement theory and employs transformational leadership, ethical leadership, and participative leadership as its antecedents to predict counterproductive work behaviors through a latent growth model. The present research collected empirical data of 505 employees of fintech businesses in Great China at three waves over 6 months. The findings revealed that as employees perceived higher transformational leadership, ethical leadership, and participative leadership at the first time point, they may demonstrate more positive growths in employee engagement development behavior, which in turn, caused more negative growths in counterproductive work behaviors. The present research stresses a dynamic model of the three leaderships that can alleviate counterproductive work behaviors through the mediating role of employee engagement over time.

The Effect of Perceived Overqualification on Creative Performance: Person-Organization Fit Perspective

In today's business world, the phenomenon of overqualification is widespread. Organizations need to consider - how to motivate the overqualified employees to utilize their qualifications, for example, promoting creative performance. Based on person-organization (P-O) fit theory, this study explored when and how employees, who feel overqualified can engage in creative performance. Data were collected from 170 supervisor-subordinate dyads of 41 groups in 10 manufacturing companies across two timepoints in China. Results revealed that (1) perceived overqualification is positively related to organizational identification when employee development-oriented organizational culture is strong but negatively related to organizational identification when employee development-oriented organizational culture is weak, (2) organizational identification is positively related to creative performance, (3) the indirect relationship between perceived overqualification and creative performance via organizational identification is moderated by employee development-oriented organizational culture. We provide several theoretical contributions to the overqualification literature and make some suggestions to motivate the overqualified employees to use their surplus qualifications within the organizations.