IMPROVING JOB SATISFACTION: THE MODERATING
ROLE OF JOB AUTONOMY TO DECREASE THE NEGATIVE
EFFECTS OF UNDER- AND OVERQUALIFICATION
Master thesis, Msc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
January 17, 2016
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IMPROVING JOB SATISFACTION: THE MODERATING ROLE OF JOB AUTONOMY TO DECREASE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF UNDER- AND OVERQUALIFICATION
ABSTRACT
To obtain a better understanding of the relationship between over- and
underqualification, and job satisfaction, this study examined the moderating effects of job autonomy on this relationship. We expect to see that objective and perceived overqualification are negatively related to job satisfaction and that objective and perceived underqualification are negatively related to job satisfaction as well. In addition, we expect to see that job autonomy will mitigate the negative relationship between overqualification and job
satisfaction and will strengthen the negative relationship between underqualification and job satisfaction. To test these hypotheses, empirical data of the OSA – Labour Supply Panel wave of 2012 was used. As hypothesized, overqualification is indeed negatively related to job satisfaction. In contrast to our expectations, the negative relationship between objective underqualification and job satisfaction was not found to be significant. However, perceived underqualification is indeed negatively related to job satisfaction. At last, these relationships were not moderated by job autonomy. This was not in line with our reasoning, however, job autonomy does influence the severity of over- and underqualification. Nevertheless, this study has contributed to the existing literature on over- and underqualification and has given
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INTRODUCTION
The Swiss management consultants Peter Werder and Philippe Rothlin state in their book, ‘Bore-out’, that approximately 15 percent of office workers perceive such a high level of boredom that they become sick. This, so called, bore-out is caused by the lack of variety in job tasks, the lack of complacency and a lack of energy (Akkersmans, 2015). The employee does not feel challenged, because the tasks to be performed are too simple in comparison with his qualities and this results in job dissatisfaction. Past research has shown that there is no doubt about the advantages of job satisfaction for both the employer and the employee (Borooah, 2009). Satisfied workers show much more commitment to their organization and research has shown that high job satisfaction leads to a higher level of individual
performance, which in turn leads to a higher level of organizational performance (Maynard & Parfyonova, 2013). For this reason, it can be stated that satisfied workers can be key to a competitive advantage. One of the leading researchers on job satisfaction, Locke (1969), has defined job satisfaction as “a state resulting from an employee’s perception that his or her job allowed for the fulfilment of his or her values”. Job satisfaction is also defined as “an overall measure of the degree to which the employee is satisfied and happy with the job” (Hackman, Oldman, Janson & Purdy, 1975: 162). Research has also shown that job satisfaction is significantly related to overall life satisfaction and it is therefore worthwhile investigating how to get satisfied workers.
Because there is no debate in literature about the advantages and importance of job
satisfaction, it is obvious that there is a lot of research done on this topic. However, little is known about a more recent phenomenon in relation to job satisfaction, namely
overqualification and, especially, underqualification of employees.
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educational levels have increased much faster compared to the demand for an educated workforce (Mottaz, 1984). However, since the publishing of this article, the demand for highly educated employees has increased, which has resulted in an enlargement of the wage differences. This has to do with the fact that technology has evolved rapidly (i.e. quality of the work) and requires higher educated personnel (i.e. quality of the workforce). Hence, we could say that this development diminished the effect described by Mottaz (1984), but still, there are overqualified employees. This might be caused by corporate downsizing and restructuring, because this may force employees to accept less optimal jobs (Feldman, 1996). Another explanation for this is the fact that nowadays both partners in a family work and they want a certain type of flexible employment to combine with their family life. Because of this they are more inclined to accept underemployment (Feldman, 1996). People become underqualified when they are promoted within their company to a function which requires a higher
educational level than they actually possess. Hamersma et al. (2015) showed that
approximately 22% of the employees in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries are underqualified for their job.
The relationship between being either over- or underqualified and job satisfaction is interesting. Overqualified personnel show lower levels of job satisfaction (Maynard et al., 2013), but also higher levels of performance ratings by supervisors (Fine & Nevo, 2008). This paradox also exists in underqualified personnel, because they are less satisfied with their jobs as well, but are also stimulated to develop themselves which leads to higher commitment (Hamersa et al., 2015). Having either under- or overqualified employees might have negative consequences for employers, because these employees seem to be more likely to quit their job than other employees (Hersch, 1991). Johnson & Johnson (1999) showed that being under- or overqualified can also lead to health declines, for example stress in relation with
underqualification, which will lead to higher rates of absenteeism.
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for failures and successes in these jobs and having this responsibility might influence the relationship between being over- or underqualified for the job and job satisfaction.
This research contributes to existing literature in several ways. First, a lot of research has been done on the relationship between someone’s qualification for the job and job
satisfaction, but this was in general not a combination of both over- and underqualification. It is interesting to examine the differences between these two forms of qualification to see what form of qualification is more unconstructive for organizations. Secondly, this research
examines job autonomy as moderator. There is little known about this variable as moderator for the aforementioned relationship, while this might be useful for organizations to use as a solution for over- or underqualified employees. Finally, I examine the difference between perceived and objective over- and underqualification. Most of the existing literature only takes one of these measures into account. Practically, this research can help organizations to deal with the increase of under- and overqualified employees by giving implications for improving job satisfaction. After all, every company relies on the performance of their employees and for that reason they should be satisfied.
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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Qualification for the job
According to Karasek’s (1979) job demands-control model, a job consists of two dimensions. First, the job demands, which can be explained as a psychological stressor. Examples of job demands are requirements for working fast and hard, having a big work load and all of this in a limited time (Xie, 1996). The other dimension is job decision latitude and this can be defined as the amount of control someone has over the job, for example,
someone’s authority to make decisions on the job and the variety of skills required by the employee (Xie, 1996). In this paper, I refer to this as job autonomy and this can help
employees to deal with suboptimal work conditions as under- or overqualification to enhance job satisfaction. Someone’s qualification for the job can be applied to this model in a way that overqualification consists of low job demands and high control which results in a low strain job. Underqualification on the other hand can be separated into high job demands and low control and this will lead to a high strain job.
Low job demands and low control will result in a passive job and the opposite, high job demands and high control, are characteristics of an active job (Karasek, 1979). Ideally, the job demands and the job control are balanced, because this will result in a higher level of job satisfaction.
FIGURE 1
Job demands-control model, adapted from Karasek (1979)
Past research has made a distinction between objective over- and underqualification and
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should contain the educational level, experience level and knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) of the employee. Unfortunately, the different objective measures does not contain on-the-job training and experience, but only the formal qualifications someone has attained through education. However, literature stresses the fact that an objective measure for over- and underqualification is useful for research, but it depends on which objective measure is used (Groot & Maassen van den Brink, 2000). There are multiple objective measures for qualification, but Van der Meer (2006) showed that, based on criterion validity, the Statistics Netherlands measure scores best. This measure compares the required knowledge and skills for a specific occupation directly with education. In our study, there are 441 overqualified respondents and there are 435 underqualified respondents, objectively measured.
8 FIGURE 2
Overlap between the objective and perceived measure of over- and underqualification.
Objective
overqualification
441 respondents 435 respondents Objective
underqualification Perceived
overqualification
792 respondents 177 respondents Perceived underqualification
-351 respondents 258 respondents
Overqualification
Of all the possible factors where overqualification might have an influence on, the relation with job satisfaction is found to be the strongest and best established (Fine & Nevo, 2008). The negative relationship between overqualification and job satisfaction has been explained using the relative deprivation theory (Johnson et al., 1999, Feldman, 2011). ‘Relative deprivation theory states that the objective situation of individuals is rarely sufficient to explain how they feel and behave’ (Erdogan et al., 2009: 558). Instead, how someone reacts to a situation depends on subjective evaluations. Relative deprivation theory conclude that when an individual really wants a specific object and he thinks he deserves to get it but he does not get it, this individual becomes frustrated (Crosby, 1984).
Overqualification fits into this theory, because people put a lot of effort in their education and their KSAs, where in return they expect a job they think they deserve (Vaisey, 2006). When this expectation is not met, the employee will feel mistreated and this will lead to low job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 1: Overqualification will lead to low job satisfaction.
Underqualification
When employees are underqualified, they have the opportunity for personal
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same job. Underqualified employees also report a higher level of work stress, because of the mismatch between their own skills and the required skills for the job. Work stress can be divided into four factors: work overload, work-life balance, work relationships and pay and benefits (Chen, Siu, Lu, Cooper & Philips, 2009). Underqualified workers experience a bigger workload, because they do not have the capability to cope with such high demanding tasks. Their work-life balance also suffers from this, and like argued before, they still do not earn the same amount of money compared to higher educated people in that job. In summary, because of the high job demands, underqualified people will experience stress and other negative outcomes and this is enhanced by the fact that they also do not have any control over their job. Therefore, we argue the following.
Hypothesis 2: Underqualification will lead to low job satisfaction.
Job autonomy
The abovementioned relationships can be influenced by job autonomy in both a positive and a negative way. The most important theory in the field of job characteristics is the job characteristics model of Hackman and Oldham (1976). The job characteristics model states that skill variety, task identity, task significance, job autonomy and feedback result in a certain psychological state which leads to outcomes such as low absenteeism and job
satisfaction. In the specific case of job autonomy they argue that autonomy leads to a sense of responsibility for the outcomes of the work (e.g. organizational commitment) and this will lead to a higher level of job satisfaction. The activation theory explains that employees may feel bored when they are overqualified for their job, because being overqualified makes their job simple and not challenging and this leads to job dissatisfaction. This theory further argues that job autonomy can decrease this feeling of under activation at work, because the
decentralizing of decision making will make jobs more challenging (Scott, 1966).
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employees, because they will feel even more underqualified when they have to make a lot of job-related decisions. To summarize, I hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 3: Job autonomy will moderate the negative relationship between
underqualification and job satisfaction, in such that the relationship will be more negative when job autonomy is high and less negative when job autonomy is low.
Hypothesis 4: Job autonomy will moderate the negative relationship between
overqualification and job satisfaction, such that the relationship will be less negative when job autonomy is high and more negative when job autonomy is low.
Age
Furthermore, it would be interesting to see if age influences the abovementioned relationship as well. Therefore, age is added as an additional variable. People obtain
knowledge and skills through both formal education and on-the-job training. This on-the-job training creates work related knowledge (i.e. expertise) and is related to years of experience, because more experienced employees have enjoyed more on-the-job training which creates an advantage over less experienced, younger employees (Groot & Maassen van den Brink, 2000). In sum, by becoming older, employees acquire more experience and enjoy more on-the-job training and therefore, they become better qualified for the job.
It is to be expected that younger people who have just entered the labour market are more often overqualified in contrast to older people, because they lack this on-the-job training (Grooten & Maassen van den Brink, 1996). Overqualification may compensate for a lack of experience, but Bounds (1994) argued that 25% to 30% of future college graduates will be underemployed. We expect that the negative effect of objective overqualification will be stronger for older employees, because they do not only possess a higher educational level, but also a lot of experience.
Also, research has shown that objective underqualification increases with age and experience (Wolbers, 2003), because the lack of formal education will be compensated with experience. Therefore, it is possible that someone who is objectively measured as
11 FIGURE 3
Objective over- and underqualification in different age groups.
Objective overqualification Objective underqualification 25-40 years old (814) 20% (160 respondents) 10% (81 respondents)
41-60 years old (1693) 17% (281 respondents) 21% (354 respondents)
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METHODS Sample and procedures
To test the abovementioned hypotheses I used empirical data of the OSA – Labour Supply Panel wave of 2012. This panel makes use of both Paper And Pencil Interviewing (PAPI) and Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) questionnaires. The OSA is commissioned by the Dutch Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP).
The sample consists of 2507 respondents and they all live in the Netherlands. This sample is drawn from the OSA-panel of approximately 4800 respondents and having a job was a requirement for being selected into the sample. Of this sample, 1232 of the respondents were male and 1275 were female. The average age of the sample is 45 (SD = 9.77), ranging from 25 to 60 year. To exclude students with a part-time job, the minimum age is 25, because they are probably overqualified for their current job. The average educational level of the respondents was 4, meaning a HAVO, VWO or MBO degree, ranging from elementary school to a university degree (SD = 0.948).
Measures
Qualification for the job. Someone’s objective qualification for the job has been measured by comparing someone’s educational level according to the SOI-2006 (‘Standaard Onderwijsindeling 2006’) with the standard job codes of the SBC-2010 (‘Standaard
Beroepenclassificatie 2010’). The SOI-2006 consists of seven levels, namely nursery school, elementary school, VMBO/LBO/MAVO, MBO/HAVO/VWO, HBO, university and Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD). For this research, nursery- en elementary school are combined, just as university and PhD. The SBC-2010 contains five levels, elementary, low, middle, high and scientific.
Someone’s perceived qualification for the job has been measured by one item. This item is “Are your knowledge and skills a match with your current job?” and was measured on a 4-point scale with the possible answers “There is a match”, “I am underqualified”, “I am overqualified” and “Other”.
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decide in what pace I perform my tasks” and “I have sufficient influence on the content of my job”. Cronbach’s alpha is 0.819.
Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction has been measured by one item on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from very satisfied (1) to not satisfied at all (4). This item is “How satisfied are you, all things considered, with your job?”. This item is reverse coded and this will be
handled in the analysis. Analytic approach
In order to test the hypotheses, I performed correlational and regression analyses. First, I examined the relationship between qualification for the job and job satisfaction. Secondly, the relationship between qualification for the job and job autonomy was analysed and finally the relationship between job autonomy and job satisfaction. In these analysis I control for the effects of age, gender, health, subjective income, type of job (part-time or fulltime), marital status and the presence of children. Furthermore, I control for the effects of four motivators of the Herzberg model (1969), namely recognition, responsibility,
advancement and personal growth. Recognition has been measured by the item “My supervisor lets me know when he is satisfied with my work” on a 5-point Likert scale.
Responsibility has been measured by the item “How many employees do you supervise?” and this item has been transferred into the dummy variable “Do you supervise other employees?”. Advancement has been measured by three items, namely “I have sufficient possibilities in my current organization for some kind of promotion”, “I am satisfied with the promotion
14 RESULTS Correlations
Table 1 shows the correlations between the different variables. The table shows that there are negative correlations between perceived over- and underqualification and job satisfaction, r = -.15, p < 0.01 and r = -.11, p < 0.01. Furthermore, there is a negative correlation between objective overqualification and job satisfaction, r =- .10, p < 0.01. In contrast with our expectations, there is a positive correlation between objective
underqualification and job satisfaction, r = .04, p < 0.05.
Results also showed that there is an insignificant negative correlation between perceived overqualification and job autonomy, r = -.03, p > 0.05. There is also a negative correlation between perceived underqualification and job autonomy, r = -.08, p < 0.01. This is also true for objective overqualification, r = -.13, p < 0.01. The correlation between objective underqualification and job autonomy is positive and significant, r = .07, p < 0.01.
Moreover, table 1 shows a positive correlation between job autonomy and job
satisfaction, r = .33, p < 0.01, and an insignificant, positive correlation between job autonomy and age, r = .02, p > 0.05.
Furthermore, the results showed a negative correlation between age and perceived underqualification, r = -.04, p < 0.05 and also a negative correlation between age and
perceived overqualification, however, this correlation is insignificant, r = -.01, p > 0.05. We have found a negative correlation between age and objective overqualification, r = -.05, p < 0.05, and a positive correlation between age and objective underqualification, r = .16, p < 0.01.
In terms of control variables, the correlation table shows that there are significant correlations between Advancement (r = .48, p < 0.01), Health (r = -.22, p < 0.01), Job variety (r = -.17, p < 0.01), Personal growth (r = .49, p < 0.01), Recognition (r = .41, p < 0.01), Responsibility (r = .07, p < 0.01), Subjective income (r = .16, p < 0.01) and job satisfaction.
---15 Hierarchical regressions
Hierarchical regressions were performed to test the four hypotheses. During these analyses we controlled for the effects of the different control variables.
Hypothesis 1. The results confirmed the expected negative relationship between overqualification and job satisfaction. Table 3 shows the results in the case of perceived overqualification, B = -.06, p < 0.05 and table 2 for objective overqualification, B = -.06, p < 0.05. Therefore, the first hypothesis is accepted. Overqualification does have a negative relationship with job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2. The results of table 2 and 3 also support the negative relationship between perceived underqualification and job satisfaction, B = -.10, p < 0.05. However, the relationship between objective underqualification and job satisfaction is not significant, B = .02, p > 0.10. Therefore, the second hypothesis is rejected. Underqualification does not necessarily have a negative relationship with job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3. Job autonomy, as expected, did have a positive relationship with job satisfaction, B = .09, p < 0.01. However, the results were not in support of any form of moderation, because the interaction effect between perceived underqualification and job autonomy was not significant, B = .06, p > 0.10, neither was the interaction between
objective underqualification and job autonomy, B = -.02, p > 0.10. The two interactions did not contribute to the model, R² change = 0.000. Therefore, we cannot say that job autonomy negatively influences the negative relationship between underqualification and job satisfaction and that is why hypothesis 3 is rejected. These results can be found in table 2 and 3.
Hypothesis 4. Job autonomy did have a positive relationship with job satisfaction, B = .09, p < 0.01. The interaction effect between perceived overqualification and job autonomy was not significant, B = -.01, p > 0.10 (table 3), neither was the interaction between objective overqualification and job autonomy, B = .01, p > 0.10 (table 2). The two interactions did not contribute to the model, R² change = 0.001. Therefore, we cannot conclude that job autonomy positively influences the negative relationship between overqualification and job satisfaction and, because of that, hypothesis 4 is rejected.
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employees, B = .00, p > 0.10. Neither did they support our proposition that age plays a role in the case of objective underqualification, B = .00, p > 0.10. Moreover, we did not find a negative relationship between perceived over- and underqualification, and age, B = .00, p > 0.10, B = .00, p > 0.10. This can be found in table 5 and 7.
17 DISCUSSION Summary of results
The results confirmed our hypothesis that objective and perceived overqualification are negatively related to job satisfaction. This is in line with previous research that made use of perceived measures, because this relationship was also found to be negative by other studies (Johnson & Johnson, 2000b; Maynard et al., 2015; Khan & Morrow, 1991; Anderson & Winefield, 2011; Borgen, Amundson & Harder, 1988). Our results are also in line with studies that used objective measures (Kalleberg & Sorensen, 1973; Khan & Morrow, 1991; Maynard et al., 2015). However, the three other hypotheses were all rejected. Meaning, we did not find a negative relationship between objective underqualification and job satisfaction. However, there was indeed a negative relationship between perceived underqualification and job satisfaction, but this was not sufficient enough to accept the hypothesis about
underqualification and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the results of the hierarchical regressions did not show that job autonomy moderates the negative relationships between over-,
underqualification and job satisfaction. At last, we did not find a significant relationship between objective- and perceived over- and underqualification, and age. However, on basis of correlations, we are able to draw the conclusion that older employees are more often
underqualified in comparison with younger employees. We have also found that younger employees are more often overqualified compared to older employees.
Theoretical and managerial implications
This research contributes to existing literature by including both over- and
underqualification and by incorporating objective and perceived measures of qualification. This combination has not been considered before. Furthermore, we integrated job autonomy as moderator in the relationship between someone’s qualification and job satisfaction. We did so to get a better understanding of the influence of over- and underqualification on job
satisfaction and to provide research with possible new insights. Based on our results, this research has implications for theory and practice.
This research confirmed the results of previous studies that found a negative
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The results did not confirm the expected negative relationship between objective underqualification and job satisfaction. This is not in line with previous research (Quinn & Mandilovitch, 1975; Hamersma et al., 2015). This deviation might be caused by the fact that someone who lacks the proper education (i.e. objectively underqualified) might have a lot of experience to compensate this with. This experience can be the reason that this person is a good performer, and this might cause that this person does not perceive himself as
underqualified which makes him quite satisfied with his job. Another reason might be that an underqualified employee works on a higher level and this often means more personal
development and higher incentives (Cohn & Khan, 1995). On the other hand, the negative relationship between perceived underqualification and job satisfaction is found in both our results as in previous literature (Quinn & Mandilovitch, 1975; Mottaz, 1984). This contributes to literature in a way that the perceived measure for underqualification apparently has more influence on the psychological state of the respondent compared to the objective fact that someone is underqualified. In other words, the subjective feeling of underqualification has a direct influence on the level of job satisfaction.
We did indeed find a positive relationship between job autonomy and job satisfaction, this is in line with previous work (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Nonetheless, job autonomy did not moderate the abovementioned relationships. This adds an important aspect to the literature on over- and underqualification, because job autonomy was not added as moderator in this specific relationship before. The fact that job autonomy does not function as a
moderator, might be explained with the study of Wielenga-Meijer, Taris, Wigboldus and Kompier (2011). They argue that job autonomy only is beneficial until a certain optimum level. Increases in job autonomy beyond this level may have disadvantages. Besides, some employees simply do not want more autonomy, because they do not want to be held
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control for the effects of job autonomy and other job characteristics, we would not find any effect of objective underqualification.
We did not find an effect of age on objective overqualification on basis of the regressions. This is not in line with our expectations, because we expected that older
employees would experience more negative effects of overqualification. This difference might be caused by the fact that the objective measure of overqualification does not take on-the-job training and experience into account. We did indeed find a positive relationship between age and objective underqualification, however, this was not significant. Furthermore, we have found positive relationships between age and perceived over- and underqualification, but these relationships were also not significant. However, based on the correlations and figure 3, we are able to say that older employees are more often objectively underqualified and
younger employees are more often objectively overqualified.
It might be that people sometimes suffer from an optimistic or a pessimistic bias. This implies that people tend to experience the world more negative or positive than it actually is (Menon, Kyung and Agrawal, 2009). This study might suffer from these biases with the measurement of perceived over- and underqualification and job satisfaction, because these concepts are subjective and therefore receptive to these biases. Figure 2 shows that there are 441 objective overqualified respondents, however, 792 respondents perceive themselves as overqualified. This is a difference of 351 respondents. This might be caused by the
aforementioned reason that the objective measure does not take experience and on-the-job training into account. However, this could also be explained with this optimistic bias, because they might think that their capabilities are higher than they actually are. Figure 2 also shows a quantity of 435 objectively underqualified- and 177 perceived underqualified respondents. This difference of 258 respondents can also be explained with the optimistic bias, because people fail to acknowledge that their knowledge, skills and abilities are insufficient for their job. A solution for the problems with these biases is to remove the perceived measure of over- and underqualification, however, the objective measure is not free of biases as well. Because of this, we included both of these measures.
Then on a practical level, organizations, and more specific managers, could benefit from this research by accepting that overqualification will lead to a decrease in job
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performance levels. Furthermore, it is recommended to have conversations with employees on a frequent basis about their perceived qualification. This is important, because both perceived over- and underqualification are negatively related to job satisfaction. This study will help managers to better understand the relationship between over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction, so they will make sure that the educational level and job requirements are matched properly. Another implication is that managers should pay attention to on-the-job training, because this is not measured by the objective measure, but is still very important. Furthermore, we have shown that job autonomy does not function as moderator in the relationship between qualification for the job and job satisfaction. However, job autonomy does influence the severity of over- and underqualification and managers should therefore pay attention to this. Finally, we have shed some light on objective over- and underqualification in different age groups and this will give managers some insight in how to treat these different groups.
Limitations and future directions
Firstly, the contributions of this study are limited due to the fact that only one of the four hypotheses was accepted. A reason for this is the role of job autonomy, because this variable was not included in these specific relationships in other studies before, so it was rather innovative. Furthermore, in previous literature, the findings for underqualification are often inconsistent and statistically insignificant (Quintini, 2011). Because of this, future research should include underqualification more often, because currently, most attention is focused on overqualification. Besides this, the objective measure for over- and
underqualification only includes formal education and does not take on-the-job training and experience into account.
The relationship between over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction has been studied extensively, however, there is still a lot waiting to be discovered. This study was not able to connect job autonomy as a moderator to this relationship, but future research should try to include other factors that might play a moderating role. For example, Erdogan and Bauer (2009) examined the moderating role of empowerment in the relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction. It would be interesting to apply this to objective overqualification as well as to both forms of underqualification. The job
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skill variety, task identity, task significance, job autonomy and feedback results an increase of job satisfaction. In this study, only job autonomy was incorporated.
A final limitation is the fact that this study used a research sample consisting only of people living in The Netherlands. Research in multiple countries, with different cultures, might result in other conclusions. For example, The Netherlands is an individualist society and this might give other results than a collective society, like China and, to a lesser extent, India (Hofstede, 1984). Therefore, over- and underqualification might have less negative effects on job satisfaction in China compared to The Netherlands. Future research could address this direction.
Conclusion
Job satisfaction will always remain crucial for an organization’s survival and success. This research showed once more the negative effects of perceived over- and
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APPENDIX A: TABLE 1: CORRELATION TABLE
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Obj. Qualification 3.33 .966 2 Perc. Overqualification .32 .465 -,092** 3 Perc. Underqualification .07 .256 -,073** -,187** 4 Obj. Overqualification .209 .489 -,440** ,147** ,159** 5 Obj. Underqualification .182 .408 ,128** -,045* -,024 -,190** 6 Age 44.63 9.765 -,095** -,009 -,041* -,050* ,164** 7 Job autonomy 3.52 .854 ,211** -,030 -,083** -,121** ,067** ,021 8 Job satisfaction 3.29 .634 ,095** -,154** -,107** -,104** ,044* ,014 ,327** M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 Advancement 3.14 .824 2 Experience 23.039 10.105 -,008 3 Gender ¹ 1.51 .500 -,035 -,160 ** 4 Health 2.02 .698 -,134 ** ,152** ,042* 5 Part-Fulltime 2.43 .692 ,086 ** ,005 -,576** -,090** 6 Job variety .33 .470 -,182 ** -,019 ,052** ,114** -,097** 7 Children 2 .74 .440 -,005 ,344 ** ,024 ,028 -,188** -,034 8 Marital status 1.74 1.333 -,028 -,273 ** ,052** ,022 ,106** ,024 -,560** 9 Personal growth 3.36 1.035 ,667 ** -,076** -,040* -,183** ,135** -,296** -,040* ,032 10 Recognition 3.71 1.066 ,414 ** -,004 ,052** -,101** -,002 -,093** ,013 ,028 ,383** 11 Responsibility 3 .33 .469 ,130 ** ,058** -,240** -,058** ,243** -,116** ,030 -,049* ,192** ,025 12 Subjective income 3.45 .966 ,148 ** ,011 -,033 -,157** ,046* -,152** -,106** -,014 ,156** ,084** ,081** 13 Job satisfaction 3.29 .634 ,480 ** ,022 ,030 -,221** -,011 -,168** ,029 -,016 ,492** ,407** ,068** ,158**
1 Dummy coded, 1 = male, 2 = female 2 Dummy coded, 0 = no children, 1 = children
27
APPENDIX B: TABLE 2: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 2. Effects of objective over- and underqualification on job satisfaction and the interaction effect with job autonomy
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
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APPENDIX C: TABLE 3: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 3. Effects of perceived over- and underqualification on job satisfaction and the interaction effect with job autonomy
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
31
APPENDIX D: TABLE 4: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 4. Effects of age and age square on the relationship between objective over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
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APPENDIX E: TABLE 5: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 5. Effects of age and age square on the relationship between perceived over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
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APPENDIX F: TABLE 6: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 6. Effects of age on the relationship between objective over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction, without age square.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
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APPENDIX G: TABLE 7: HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION TABLE Table 7. Effects of age on the relationship between perceived over- and underqualification, and job satisfaction, without age square.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
