Be Ostracized Or Be Accepted:the Relational Model Of Perceived Overqualification

With the growing pressure of the economic downturn and more higher education expansion,overqualification become pervasive in China.Thusly,in order to provide practical suggestion for talent management,it is necessary to clarify the positive and negative outcomes of overqualification.Previous studies of perceived overqualification focused most of their attention on the negative work experience derived from perception of overqualification,while largely neglected the interpersonal effect of perceived overqualification.For the organization,to build profound understanding of interpersonal effect of overqualification is practically meaningful: on one hand,it will help understand the causes of overqualified workers' negative work experience;on the other hand,it will expose the interpersonal adjustment situation of overqualified workers,which will help manager to judge whether the workers will bring positive effect for the company.By reviewing literature of perceived overqualification,we summarized following limitation concerning the existing literature: First,it is not clear with the effect of perceived overqualification.It seems that the outcome of perceived overqualification is paradoxical,on one hand,most of the studies reported negative effect of overqualification;on the other hand,some scholars endorsed the idea that overqualification might bring positive outcomes for the organization.Second,the interpersonal effect of perceived overqualification is not clear.The traditional research of perceived overqualification adopted an employee-centric view to study perceived overqualification,while paid little attention to how overqualified employees interact with their colleagues.Third,previous studies of perceived overqualification paid scare attention the leader-follower interaction,as an important component of organizational social interaction,it is reasonable to discuss the interaction between overqualified workers and their leaders.Taking above mentioned three limitations into account,the purpose of present study istwo-folded,we hope to resolve some disagreements on the studies of perceived overqualification,and expand previous studies by endorsing the relational model of perceived overqualification.We design three studies to accomplish our research goals.First,in study one;we apply theoretical review and meta-analytic review to verify the uncertainty in previous overqualification literature.Second,in study two,we collect data to empirically test the interpersonal outcomes(workplace popularity and workpace ostracism)of percieved overqualification.Finally,supplementary to study two,we evaluate the relationship between perceived overqualification and leader ostracism.In study one,we found that,generally,perceived overqualification is connected to work attitudes,and personal health or well being.However,based on current literature,we could not make absolute conclusion on the relationship between perceived overqualification and work behaviors or personal career development.As for boundary conditions,we found that the effect of perceived overqualification varied across cultral background.In study two,we found that perceived overqualification is positively related to workplace ostracism.While the relationship between perceived overqualification and workplace popularity is not significant.Hubristic pride mediates the relationship between perceived overqualification and workplace ostracism.Different work needs would lead to different pride displays and in turn cause different interpersonal outcomes.To be specific,need for power moderates relationship between perceived overqualification and pride display.As need for power increases,overqualified workers display more hubristic pride and less authentic pride,which lead to more workplace ostracism.Need to belong modeates relationship between perceived overqualification and authentic pride.As need to belong increases,overqualified workers display more authentic pride and lead to more workplace popularity and less workplace ostracism.In study three,we found that perceived overqualification is positively related to leader ostracism,when overqualified workers have strong need for power,they will enact more leader focused self-promotion behaviors.This kind of self-promotion behavior will lead to more leader ostracism whenfollowers have lower status.Conclusion drawn from the results of our studies would make several contribution to the perceived overqualification literature.First,the meta-analysis clarifies the certainty and uncertainty in the present percieved overqualification literature,which provides more clear direction for futrue research.Second,by integrating positive and negative interpersonal outcomes in one framework,we present the whole process of overqualified workers' interpersonal adaption.Third,we provide new theoretical mechanism to explain the relationship between perceived overqualification and interpersonal outcomes,which make important theretical contribution to the literature.Finally,we apply the leader-follower interaction perspective,which verifies why and when overqualified workers will be ostracized by their leaders,this will also promotes the studies of leader-follower relationship.Our results also make some pratical suggestion for talent management in organization.