Empirical Research On Multipul Perceived Overqualification And It's Relationship With Personal And Team Creativity

With the change of the economic and social environment,a huge number of employees are overqualified for their positions,that is to say,their skills and abilities are failed to be fully utilized.Statistics show that about 47% of employees in the world believe that their qualifications are higher than those required by their positions to varying degrees,especially in China(84%),Turkey(78%)and Greek(69%).Randstad,a world famous human resources service provider,pointed out in 2012 that 84% of Chinese employees argue that they are overqualified,ranking No.1 in the globe.In terms of higher education,Chinese colleges and universities have largely increased enrollment since 1999,and the resulting over-education has brought some employment problems to millions of college graduates.In some job fairs held by large enterprises,master degree and even doctoral degree have almost been the ticket to get a job.On the other hand,considering cost control and high quality employees' strong turnover intention in recent years,enterprises tend to receive less educated candidates.Therefore,it is so embarrassed that “many candidates are rejected because of their brilliance”.However,although education is experiencing rapid development in china,Chinese enterprises make no outstanding achievements in the sphere of innovation.On the one hand,there lack original and creative innovation achievements in smart personal computer(such as i Pad)and smart phones(like i Phone);on the other hand,low-tech pirated products of all sorts enter a period of blowout.Such imbalanced innovation situation will undermine the development of core competency of enterprises in the microcosmic field and goes against the current scientific development concept at the macro level.Hence,the problem in management practice is how and under which conditions overqualification among employees caused by such higher education can be better utilized in the development of individual and team creativity.It imperative to clarify that through systematic empirical studies.In theory,now many scholars have explored the influences of perceived overqualification on employees' work attitude and behaviors based on the equity theory,the theory of person-post matching and the theory of relative deprivation,only to find that overqualification is considered to be associated with a series of negative results.However,they fail to reach consensus on the potential positive influences of perceived overqualification.The relationship between overqualification and employee's creativity is an important field that have not been fully understood.At present,there are three major opinions on “whether perceived overqualification can promote an employee's creativity” in the theoretical circle: Perceived overqualification may restrain employee's creativity;there is a positive relationship between perceived overqualification and employee's creativity;there is a reverted U-shaped relationship rather than a simple linear relationship between perceived overqualification and employee's creativity.These ambiguous opinions would not only result in stagnant theoretical development,but also lead to managers' confusion in management practice.Driven by theoretical inconsistencies and practical problems,in the present research we investigated the relationship between perceived overqualification and individual and team creativity from different perspectives.Data are collected by questionnaire survey on employees working in enterprises and their immediate supervisors.The disturbance of the homologous errors is minimized by matching method.A total of 412 successfully paired effective questionnaires are collected.The present study is divided into 3 sub-studies.Study I: A multilevel study of the formation mechanism of individual perceived overqualification from the perspective of social comparison.Starting with the situational factors at the team level,this study explores the formation mechanism of individual subjective perceived overqualification on the basis of the theory of social comparison.First,according to previous studies,the concepts of objective overqualification and subjective overqualification as well as their relationship are described and discriminated,and the necessary but not sufficient influence of the degree of objective overqualification on individual subjective overqualification.Secondly,according to the social exchange theory,the multilevel formation mechanism of subjective overqualification,namely the regulation of team overqualification proportion,is discussed at the team level.By exploring the multilevel formation mechanism of individual overqualification,this study lays a foundation for the following study of the relationship between perceived overqualification and creativity.Study II: A study of the relationship between individual perceived overqualification and employee's creativity based on the self-determination theory at the individual level.On the basis of the formation mechanism of individual overqualification as described in study I,we will further discuss the influences of perceived overqualification on creativity.Considering the potential assumption that overqualification is an involuntary behavior in previous studies,we put forward the following question: If an employee has a high-level of work motivation,how perceived overqualification affects individual creativity? First,from the perspective of employee's work motivation,study II explores the mechanism of the influence of the interaction between the two work motivations of perceived overqualification and pay for performance on employee's radical activity and incremental creativity;secondly,it verifies the mediating roles of creative self-efficacy and work engagement respectively.In study II,we discuss the relationship between perceived overqualification and creativity at the individual level.Study III: A study of the relationship between overqualification proportion in a team and team creativity.After study II at the individual level,study III further examines the relationship between overqualification proportion in a team and team creativity.The consequences of employee's overqualification may vary at different levels.The results of overqualification at the individual level and a higher level may be essentially different.The characteristics of a team with overqualified employees possibly affect the degree of the positive or negative result these employees experience.For this regard,this study raises some questions: How perceived overqualification at the team level influences team creativity? What is the particularity of the relationship between the two in the special context of team? From the perspective of team cohesiveness,study III examines the influence of the interaction between overqualification proportion in a team and team interpersonal influence on team cohesiveness,and further verifies the influence of the mediating effect of team cohesiveness on team creativity.Hence,study III explores the relationship between perceived overqualification and creativity at the team level.The present study makes certain contributions in theory.First,by establishing a multilevel formation model of perceived overqualification,it reveals the regulatory role of overqualification proportion in a team.From the perspective of social comparison,the relationship between individual objective overqualification and subjective overqualification is explored in the context of team.For,the mechanism of the influence of overqualification proportion in a team on employee's subjective overqualification is studied,which would help better understand the macroscopic dynamics of the formation mechanism of perceived overqualification.Second,this study expands the boundary conditions of individual overqualification and creativity and reveals the interaction between overqualification and work motivation.The boundary conditions of overqualified employee's work motivation is determined from the angle of self-determination.Also,by dichotomy based on type of creativity,we verify the differential mechanisms of action of employee's perceived overqualification on radical creativity and radical creativity under the influences of internal and external work motivations,and reveals the effects of creative self-efficacy and work engagement in mediating perceived overqualification and two different types of creativity,thus giving a new answer to the previous controversy on the inconsistency between individual overqualification and creativity from a new view.Third,we probe into the mechanism of the influence of overqualification proportion in a team on team creativity as well as the boundary conditions.According to the social impact theory,a new model is proposed for the relationship between overqualification proportion in a team and team creativity,and the boundary conditions of team interpersonal influence are determined.Also,it is found that the interaction between overqualification proportion in a team and team interpersonal influence has an impact on team creativity by influencing team cohesiveness,and the “black box” of overqualification proportion in a team and team interpersonal influence subjected to interpersonal relationship is opened,thereby exploring the relationship between overqualification and creativity at the team level in depth and further improving the framework of the multilevel overall relationship between the two.The conclusion of the present study provide some positive reference for the practice of enterprise management.First,for those mangers who are cautious about working together with overqualified employees,to match them with other employees with similar qualifications or put them in a team consisting of many overqualified members can improve the possibility that they do not feel like they are not fit for their positions.Second,when a candidate seeking a certain position explicitly points out overqualification,the employer should attach much importance to the type and level of his or her work motivation.If such motivation derives from the passion and enthusiasm for the work itself,employee's knowledge,skills and abilities can possibly be fully exerted in the process of self-determination,thus having the potential to produce radical creativity for the organization.In addition,external reward is also an important driving factor for creativity.Manager may build an appropriate performance salary system as an incentive instrument for the external motivations of overqualified employees within the organization and put more energy in step-by-step modifications and improvements,thus making the most of their qualifications at work.Third,an organization should take active measures to develop interpersonal influence between employees.When interviewing an apparently overqualified applicant,the organization may take interpersonal influence as the selection criterion,which would greatly increase the chances to employ excellent employees and outstanding organizational citizens.Besides,it is feasible to provide some organizational training plans to enhance their recognition of the importance of good relationship between colleagues and provide them with necessary skills to master the corresponding abilities.Finally,to create an atmosphere where harmonious high-quality interpersonal relationship is valued will bring benefits to the organization.In such a context,overqualified employees are more likely to be accepted by their colleagues so that they would be encouraged to make contributions to the team.