Hans van Dijk
Department of Organization Studies, Tilburg University Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
j.vandijk1@uvt.nl
Amanda Shantz
Business School, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
shantza@tcd.ie
Kerstin Alfes
Department of Organisation and Human Resource Management, ESCP Europe Heubnerweg 8-10, D-14059 Berlin, Germany
kalfes@espceurope.eu
IN PRESS AT HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT REVIEW
* Corresponding author
Abstract
social learning, and (4) identification advantages. For each advantage we explain the conditions under which they are likely to materialize. We also theoretically explore how the advantages relate to each other as well as to the theories outlining the potential negative consequences of overqualification, and provide an according integrative model on the Relational Effects of Overqualification on Performance (REOP). After discussing the theoretical implications and providing an agenda for future research, we close with a discussion of the
managerial implications of leveraging the bright side while acknowledging the dark side of overqualification.
Keywords: Overqualification; Performance; Human capital; Status; Social learning; Identification
Welcome to the Bright Side: Why, How, and When Overqualification Enhances Performance It is not uncommon to hear of stories of experienced professionals who are taxi drivers, bachelor-degree educated individuals who work as servers in restaurants, or job seekers who intentionally omit some
the general image of overqualified individuals is that they are undesirable workers (Gallo, 2011; O’Connell, 2010).
Despite the negative effects of overqualification on overqualified employees’ attitudes, the relationship with job performance has been equivocal. Our review of the literature (discussed more in detail below) shows that in most cases, there is no significant relationship between overqualification and performance. However, research is beginning to mount that shows that through some mechanisms and/or under some conditions, overqualification relates to higher levels of performance (e.g., Fine & Nevo, 2007; Hu, Erdogan, Bauer, Jiang, Liu, & Li, 2015). Despite these developments, little attention has been paid to accounting for the conditions under which overqualification yields positive performance outcomes. Instead, the current focus lies in identifying contingencies that minimize the potential detrimental attitudinal, behavioral, and performance effects of overqualification (e.g., Erdogan, Bauer, Peiró, & Truxillo, 2011; Hu et al., 2015; McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011; for an exception, see Bashshur, Hernández, & Peiró, 2011).
Whereas these studies have greatly contributed to our understanding of how the negative consequences of overqualification are mitigated, they have blinkered us from seeing that overqualification can also yield positive consequences. For example, the two theories in which nearly all research on overqualification is grounded are relative deprivation (Crosby, 1976) and equity (Adams, 1965) theories, which provide ample room for understanding the mechanisms through which overqualification yields negative consequences. However, they fall short in accounting for why, how, and when overqualification yields positive consequences, up to the point where researchers tend to be surprised by positive relationships between overqualification and performance (e.g., Hu et al., 2015). Accordingly, the field needs a perspective on the positive consequences of overqualification that does justice to studies that report positive effects of overqualification on performance, and to the reality that so many employees in organizations are overqualified, which would be unlikely if overqualification was not related to any positive outcomes.
considered in relation to overqualification, but that we argue provide key insights on potential positive consequences of overqualification. Based on those theories we derive a set of propositions that outline the mechanisms and contingencies explaining why, how, and when overqualification yields positive consequences.
Second, building on the fact that employees nowadays tend to be part of larger work groups
(Hollenbeck, Beersma, & Schouten, 2012), we not only focus on how overqualification positively affects the overqualified employee’s own performance, but also focus on how overqualification leverages the
performance of other individuals in the group. The key mechanism that we argue plays a role here is that overqualified employees are likely to be attributed a higher status, which refers to the amount of prominence, respect, and esteem in the eyes of others (Anderson, John, Keltner, & Kring, 2001). Such an increase in status provides overqualified employees with more opportunities to perform, as well as influence over other group members’ performance (Correll & Ridgeway, 2003); and can therefore positively shape the performance of overqualified employees as well as their group members.
Third, we theoretically explore how the different mechanisms and contingencies relate to each other. This is important because the different mechanisms via which overqualification can negatively or positively affect the performance of overqualified individuals as well as their group members do not co-exist in a vacuum, but are likely to be interdependent. As such, our theory provides a more nuanced and detailed understanding of why, how, and when overqualification shapes job performance.
In the following, we first provide a brief overview of research on overqualification to date, in which we argue that the literature tends to portray a grimmer picture regarding the performance consequences of overqualification than the actual findings indicate. We subsequently outline the mechanisms shaping the positive performance consequences of overqualification and their contingencies.
Overqualification: A Bird’s Eye View of the Field
Researchers have differentiated between two overlapping conceptualisations: ‘objective’ overqualification, where comparisons between qualifications and job demands are made by an external observer; and ‘subjective’ overqualification, which relies on employees’ perceptions of how their qualifications match the requirements of their jobs (Maltarich, Reilly, & Nyberg, 2011). Regardless of whether their focus lies on objective or subjective overqualification, prior studies suggest that when employees are overqualified, it yields negative consequences. These studies are fueled by two theories that predominate the field and focus on a different angle in explaining why being overqualified leads to negative consequences.
First, equity theory (Adams, 1965) asserts that when employees’ inputs (e.g., education, experience, skills) do not match their outcomes (e.g., salary, status) in relation to comparable others, individuals develop a sense of unfairness. If the comparison other is a person working in the same job role, the overqualified employee may experience a sense of frustration. The comparison other might also constitute a similarly qualified person, who holds a job in which he or she is not overqualified. In this case, the overqualified employee may experience anger or jealousy. Regardless of the comparison other, equity theory suggests that overqualified employees experience negative states because the overqualified employee’s input-output ratio is lower compared to others, causing them to feel unfairly treated. Equity theory suggests that in such cases, people actively seek to restore justice by attempting to negotiate a higher status job or emphasizing satisfactory elements of their job. Alternatively, they might reduce their performance, or even look for another job
(Greenberg, 1987).
The second theoretical lens, relative deprivation theory (Crosby, 1976), postulates that people become dissatisfied when there is a discrepancy between what they desire, expect, or feel they deserve, and what they receive. They can become aware of such a discrepancy based on a comparison with others, but also based on a comparison with one’s own past and/or potential (Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin, & Bialosiewicz, 2012). To the extent that the comparison others are equally qualified but in adequate (i.e., higher-qualified) jobs,
use their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and given their education and/or work experience, they believe that they deserve a better job. The greater the relative deprivation, the greater the sense of frustration, culminating in increased negative job attitudes and behaviors (Erdogan et al., 2011).
Whereas equity theory thus focuses on the comparison with others and on distributive justice
(Cropanzano & Folger, 1989; Folger, 1986), relative deprivation theory indicates that comparisons can also be made between what is versus what could be, and also involve procedural justice (Smith et al., 2012). However, despite these different lenses, equity theory and relative deprivation theory both predict that being
overqualified negatively affects an employee’s attitudes and motivation at work. Importantly, both arguments are grounded in the idea that overqualification will yield negative consequences when overqualified employees are aware of the fact that they are overqualified. That is, objective overqualification is argued to yield negative job attitudes, motivation, and further employee performance via employees’ subjective experience of feeling overqualified (Maltarich et al., 2011).
At first blush, these theoretical frameworks seem to have received substantial support from studies showing that overqualification is related to various negative job attitudes (McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011). However, the relationship between overqualification and performance is far less negative. Table 1 summarizes key published empirical papers that have examined overqualification and performance (we focus on in-role as well as extra-role performance, but purposefully excluded studies that have examined self-report performance because overqualified employees may evaluate their own performance based on other criteria than other employees evaluate their own performance; Farh, Werbel, & Bedeian, 1988). Out of the 48 bivariate relationships tested across the studies, there are only two (i.e., Erdogan, Karaeminogullari, Bauer, & Ellis, 2018; Liu, Luksyte, Zhou, Shi, & Wang, 2015) that show a negative relationship between overqualification and performance, despite the fact that several studies rely on subjective overqualification measures. Ten are positive, and 36 show non-significant relationships with performance. Moreover, nearly all studies indicating non-significant relationships demonstrate that under some conditions (moderators), or through some
---Insert Table 1 about here
---In doing so, we broaden the theoretical perspectives that have been used to explain overqualification outcomes in two inter-related ways. First, we include various other theories which speak to the nature of overqualification that have not been tapped into, yet contain useful insights regarding the potential
consequences of overqualification. Second, performance in today’s organizations is intimately entwined with the group context, and so we turn our attention to this important organizational reality. There are only a few studies that have taken an initial step in considering how other group members affect the performance of overqualified workers’ performance (Alfes, 2013; Deng, Guan, Wu, Erdogan, Bauer, & Yao, 2018; Hu et al., 2015). Based on equity and relative deprivation theories, Alfes (2013) and Hu et al. (2015) both argued that overqualified workers are less likely to perceive an imbalance between their input and what they receive in return when they are part of a work group with more overqualified workers. In line with this argument, they found that the performance of overqualified employees was higher when they were part of a work group that consisted of more overqualified employees.
Whereas the studies of Alfes (2013) and Hu et al. (2015) thus indicated that the work group context can affect the experiences and performance of overqualified employees, they relied on the same conventional theories suggesting that overqualification in general negatively affects performance. Consequently, a strict interpretation of their findings considering the theories used suggests that a larger proportion of overqualified employees at best mitigates the negative effect of overqualification on performance. However, Hu et al. (2015, p. 1234) indicated that overqualification in their study positively affected performance, up to the point where:
Hence, there is a need for broadening the theoretical background that explains why, how, and when overqualification leads to beneficial outcomes. In the following we therefore identify the mechanisms and contingencies via which overqualification can positively affect the performance of overqualified employees and how overqualified employees, through interactions with others, can also positively affect the performance of other group members.
Mechanisms and Contingencies: Why, How, and When Does Overqualification Positively Affect Performance?
Based on four different theories, we delineate four distinct advantages of overqualified employees. The first two advantages pertain to why, how, and when overqualification advances the performance of
overqualified employees, the last two advantages regard the mechanisms and contingencies underlying the positive effects of overqualification on the performance of other group members. To facilitate an
understanding of how the different advantages of overqualification shape performance and relate to each other as well as to the negative consequences of overqualification as outlined by relative deprivation and equity theories, we have developed a model that shows these different mechanisms and their interrelationships (see Fig. 1). Our Relational Effects of Overqualification on Performance (REOP) model distinguishes between three levels. The first (lowest) level represents the overqualified employee, the second (intermediate) level represents the overqualified employee’s group members, and the third (highest) level represents the group level. Our focus in this paper is on the individual-level qualifications and performance of overqualified employees and their individual group members. The group level is therefore only incorporated to show the context and indicate how the composition of the work group in terms of overqualification shapes the individual-level relationships between overqualification and performance.
---Insert Fig. 1 about here
contingencies from Figure 1 except for overqualification salience because of its central role in most advantages (cf. van Dijk, Meyer, van Engen, & Loyd, 2017).
The Human Capital Advantage
The first advantage is grounded in human capital theory, which asserts that qualifications are strong predictors of an individual’s job performance because such qualifications are indicators of the extent to which the employee holds knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that determine an employee’s performance on the job (Becker, 1993; Unger, Rauch, Frese, & Rosenbusch, 2011; cf. Campbell, 1990). Because overqualified employees by definition hold more qualifications, their surplus in KSAs renders it likely that overqualified employees outperform other employees who are not overqualified. We expect this to be true of in-role as well as extra-role performance, given that a surplus in qualifications enables employees to see where they can help others and to recognize and voice concerns (cf. Van Dyne & LePine, 1998).
In our REOP model we have depicted the human capital advantage with the direct line at the bottom from overqualified employee’s qualifications to overqualified employee’s performance.
Contingencies. Whereas the argument regarding the human capital advantage is relatively
straightforward and has been made before (e.g., Bashshur et al., 2011), we argue that there are a number of contingencies that determine when this advantage becomes manifest. First, we contend that the performance advantage of overqualified employees only pertains to performance that is assessed relative to their
counterparts or some objective standard. Performance ratings of an overqualified employee that are mainly based on a comparison with the overqualified employee’s potential (as is likely to be the case with self-evaluations, or in performance reviews where overqualified employees are held to a different standard than their group members) are less likely to reveal the human capital advantage of overqualified employees. How performance is measured thus is likely to affect the extent to which the human capital advantage is visible.
unhelpful in increasing performance. Alternatively, a surplus in more generic KSAs can also lead to higher performance. For example, the best predictor of job performance is General Mental Ability (GMA) (Gonzalez-Mulé, Mount, & Oh, 2014; Scherbaum, Goldstein, Yusko, Ryan, & Hanges, 2012; Schmidt & Hunter, 2004), which tends to be related to formal education, but is a mobile resource and is comparable across individuals, thereby making it a useful measure of objective overqualification (Maltarich et al., 2011). A surplus in job-related or general KSAs thus is more likely to result in a human capital advantage than a surplus in specific, non job-related KSAs.
Third, we argue that job complexity is likely to matter. For some jobs, it is virtually impossible to outperform others, for example because they mainly require an employee to invest time and lack the complexity for employees to distinguish themselves via their KSAs. On such jobs the in-role performance differences between overqualified employees and their group members thus are likely to be minimal.
Regarding extra-role performance, job complexity may matter less because overqualified employees conserve energy and time on jobs low in task complexity, which enable them to perform better on other, extra-role tasks (cf. Edwards, 1996; Edwards & Shipp, 2007).
Taken together, we propose that overqualified employees enjoy a human capital advantage that enables them to outperform other employees, but that the extent to which this human capital advantage of
overqualification is likely to manifest depends on how performance is measured, the extent to which an overqualified employee’s surplus in KSAs is job-related and generic, and on job complexity, such that:
Proposition 1: Overqualified employees possess higher human capital, which enable them to outperform their counterparts. This performance benefit of overqualification is more likely to materialize (a) when overqualified employees’ performance is compared against objective standards or with the performance of their counterparts, (b) when their surplus in KSAs is job-related or generic, and (c) on more complex jobs.
propositions we examine how this social context shapes the relationship between overqualification and performance for overqualified employees and their group members.
The Status Advantage
Our second proposition also focuses on the performance of overqualified employees, but in contrast to the first it points out how overqualified employees’ performance can be positively affected by their group members based on attributions of status, i.e., the amount of prominence, respect, and esteem in the eyes of others (Anderson et al., 2001). Specifically, based on expectation states theory we argue that because of their surplus in knowledge, skills, and abilities, overqualified employees are perceived as more competent by their fellow group members and are therefore attributed higher levels of status (Berger et al., 1974).
Regarding the relationship between status and performance, expectation states theory suggests that there are four related types of behavior that are affected by higher status attributions: (a) receiving more
opportunities to act, (b) accepting more opportunities to act, (c) being evaluated more positively, and (d) being more likely to influence others (Correll & Ridgeway, 2003; for reviews of the evidence regarding these behaviors, see Berger, Rosenholz, & Zelditch, 1980; Wittenbaum & Bowman, 2005). Each of these behaviors individually or in concert allows highestatus individuals to outperform lower status group members (cf. Chatman, Boisnier, Spataro, Anderson, & Berdahl, 2008; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; van Dijk et al., 2017).
The status advantage therefore suggests that overqualified employees will outperform their counterparts because overqualified employees are perceived by others as more competent and therefore attributed high status, which provides them with resources and influence. This entails that according to the status advantage, an individual’s relative qualifications (in comparison to his or her social context, e.g., a work group) are more proximal to an overqualified employee’s experiences, behaviors and performance than his or her absolute qualifications, because status is attributed based on a comparison between the overqualified employee’s KSAs and the KSAs of other group members.
members, the higher the status attributed to the overqualified employee. In turn, the status that is attributed to overqualified employees shapes their performance.
Contingencies. Expectation states theory also explains the conditions under which individuals are attributed higher status. Specifically, it suggests that the salience of an individual’s characteristics determines the status that is attributed to the individual in a given work context (Correll & Ridgeway, 2003). Salience refers to the extent to which a characteristic (a) meaningfully differentiates group members (i.e. comparative fit; e.g., higher versus lower educated) and (b) is perceived as an indicator of competence in the specific job context (i.e. normative fit; e.g., having a degree in mathematics and working as an analyst versus working as a bartender) (van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004). Moreover, it clarifies that hidden qualifications will not enhance an overqualified employee’s status, because those are not salient to the other group members. Group members thus must be aware of an overqualified employee’s surplus in KSAs in order to attribute a higher status to him or her.
In combination with the main mechanism that indicates that status attributions are relative, this principle of salience thus arrives at the same conclusion as the studies of Alfes (2013) and Hu et al. (2015) regarding the buffering effect of the proportion of overqualified employees in a work group on the relationship between a focal member’s overqualification and his or her experiences in a work group. However, it offers more theoretical precision because it specifies that overqualification salience determines when the work group context causes overqualified employees to be attributed higher status, and that overqualification salience is lowered by a larger proportion of overqualified employees as well as a lower perceived fit of overqualified employees’ surplus in KSAs with the job context.
Whereas expectation states theory assumes that status in work groups is primarily based on attributions of competence, research on impression formation (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) suggests that perceptions of warmth may be at least equally important for attributions of status. Indeed, in social
interactions, negative warmth information is weighted more heavily than negative competence information (Casciaro & Lobo, 2008), and warmth-related traits tend to be more proximal predictors of people’s
2005), and the belief that dealing with people who are not likeable or warm are more dangerous to others than people who lack competence (Reeder, 1993).
In our case, if overqualified employees elicit negative affect from others because they are perceived as low in warmth, this is likely to diminish the perceived relevance of their job-related competence to the other group members because job resources are perceived to be unavailable in the exchange (Casciaro & Lobo, 2008). An overqualified employee in a group thus may be attributed lower status if the group members perceive the overqualified employee to be low in warmth. If overqualified employees are liked, on the other hand, their job-related resources are perceived as accessible, which increases their status (Meeussen & van Dijk, 2016).
Accordingly, we expect that overqualified employees are attributed a higher status the more that they are perceived as warm, suggesting that warmth can strengthen the performance of overqualified employees via the status advantage. In case overqualified employees are however attributed low levels of warmth (e.g., because they behave arrogantly or are looking for other jobs), they may be attributed lower status, thus inhibiting the potential status advantage of overqualification. This line of argumentation is supported by recent research which shows a positive indirect relationship between overqualification and performance via social acceptance, but only when overqualified employees’ interpersonal influence is high (Deng et al., 2018). We therefore propose that qualification salience and warmth moderate the relationship between overqualification, status, and performance, such that:
Proposition 2: Overqualified employees are attributed higher levels of status by their fellow group members, which provides them with more resources and influence and, in turn, enables them to outperform their counterparts. This performance benefit of overqualified employees is more likely to materialize when (a) overqualified employees’ surplus in qualifications is salient, and (b) they are attributed higher levels of warmth.
overqualified employees also enhance the performance of other group members. In the following we outline those arguments.
The Social Learning Advantage
Research and theory on social learning (Bandura, 1971) has argued and shown that learning often occurs via and from others (Edmondson, 1999; Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003). Such learning from others can occur in various ways, such as mimicking behaviors (Offerman & Sonnemans, 1998), or by memorizing information from others (Holtgraves, Srull, & Socall, 1989). Moreover, social learning in work groups tends to take place openly through various forms, e.g., “asking questions, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results, and discussing errors or unexpected outcomes of actions” (Edmondson, 1999, p. 353), rather than privately or outside the group. Social learning thus constitutes an exemplary manner in which the social context shapes the behaviour and performance of employees.
Regardless of the specific form in which social learning takes place, we propose that employees (can) learn more from overqualified employees than from other group members for at least two reasons. First, group members can potentially learn more from overqualified employees due to their surplus in KSAs (cf. Bashshur et al., 2011). By definition, learning involves acquiring novel information, knowledge, or skills (van der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005). Such novel input is more likely to be acquired from those who hold different or more expertise, knowledge, and experience. The surplus in KSAs of overqualified employees suggests that they are more likely to represent such sources of novel input compared to other group members, which entails that overqualified employees are more likely to be sources of social learning than other group members.
The social learning advantage of overqualification thus entails that overqualified employees can enhance the performance of other employees. The first argument suggests that it is overqualified employees’ actual surplus in KSAs that enhances the performance of their group members. The second argument suggests that it is the extent to which overqualified employees are perceived to have a surplus in KSAs that enhances the performance of their group members. These developments can occur independently but are likely to strengthen each other, such that social learning is likely to occur the most and hence leverage the performance of group members when overqualified employees hold a greater surplus in KSAs and when overqualified employees are attributed a higher status.
In our REOP model we have visualized the social learning advantage by indicating that an overqualified employee’s qualifications contributes to the performance of other group members via social learning, and that the relationship between an overqualified employee’s qualifications and social learning by other group members is moderated by the status that other group members attribute to the overqualified group member.
Contingencies. Because the status of overqualified employees plays a role in the social learning advantage, we expect that social learning will occur more when overqualified employees’ surplus in qualifications are salient. In addition, the idea that group members can learn from each other is based on the assumption that the surplus in qualifications of overqualified employees is relevant to the job of other group members. When an overqualified employee’s surplus in qualifications is highly job-specific in an area that is not relevant to the job of other group members, it will be of little use to the job performance of other group members. We thus expect that social learning is more likely to occur when an overqualified employee’s surplus in qualifications relates to the job of other group members.
Furthermore, we argue that other group members learn more from overqualified employees when there are higher levels of task and/or outcome interdependence with between overqualified and other group
Proposition 3: Overqualified employees enhance the performance of their group members because they provide richer sources of learning and are identified as richer sources of learning than their counterparts. This performance benefit of overqualified employees is more likely to materialize when (a) overqualified employees’ surplus in qualifications is salient, (b) overqualified employees’ surplus in qualifications relates to the job of other group members, and (c) there are higher levels of task and/or outcome interdependence between overqualified and other group members.
The Identification Advantage
Alongside the social learning advantage, a second reason why we argue that overqualification enhances the performance of other group members is grounded in the social categorization perspective, which represents a combination of social identity theory and self-categorization theory and is one of the dominant perspectives in research on diverse work groups (van Dijk et al., 2017; van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Social identity is “the part of the individual’s self-concept which derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance to that membership” (Tajfel, 1982, p. 24). A core tenet of social identity theory is that people define themselves in terms of their group membership to cultivate positive self-esteem (Brewer, Manzi, & Shaw, 1993). To do so, people positively distinguish their in-group from a comparison out-in-group on a valued dimension (Haslam, 2004) and selectively identify themselves with a social identity depending on the extent to which that social identity contributes to their self-esteem. Identification refers to the “perception of oneness with, or belongingness to some human aggregate” (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 21). At high levels of group identification, group members strongly embrace their group’s goals and values, which lead to group-oriented and group-serving behavior (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; van Knippenberg, 2000). Accordingly, social identity theory suggests that a higher status of a group (i.e. when they have more esteem and regard for the group) increases one’s identification with the group because the higher status of the group contributes to a member’s self-esteem.
of other members in the group (Festinger, 1954; cf. Hogg & Terry, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The same group membership therefore either enhances or jeopardizes a positive sense of self, depending on whether it compares favorably or unfavorably to oneself (e.g., Luhtanen & Crocker, 1991). According to the social categorization perspective, lower-status group members generally view status dissimilarity in a more positive light than do higher-status group members (such as those who are overqualified) (Riordan & Shore, 1997; Tsui, Egan, & O'Reilly, 1992). This is because a low-status group member judges the status of the group as higher to the extent that the group is comprised of more high-status members, such that low-status members “view membership in groups consisting of high status individuals as an opportunity to enhance their self-esteem since the status of the group could “rub off” on the low status individual who then might have more opportunities for self-esteem enhancement” (Chattopadhyay, George, & Ng, 2016, p. 5).
The social categorization perspective thus suggests that the presence of overqualified employees causes other group members to attribute higher levels of status to the work group, which increases their self-esteem and identification with the work group. These higher levels of self-esteem and identification, in turn, enhance motivation and increase effort on behalf of the group, which facilitates individual performance (Ellemers, de Gilder, & van den Heuvel, 1998; Meeussen & van Dijk, 2016; Worchel, Rothgerber, Day, Hart, & Butemeyer, 1998). In our REOP model, we have depicted this identification advantage by indicating that the identification of a group member as overqualified affects the status that other group members attribute to the group. In turn, the status attributed to the group shapes group members’ identification with the group, which affects their performance.
Contingencies. Because the identification advantage depends on attributions of status, this advantage is more likely to materialize to the extent that overqualification is salient. Furthermore, we argue that
interdependence matters here as well. Members are more likely to consider themselves part of a larger group that includes an overqualified employee when there are task and/or outcome interdependencies (Haslam, 2004). The identification advantage thus is more likely to materialize under higher levels of task and/or outcomes interdependence. Accordingly, we propose:
performance benefit of overqualification is more likely to materialize when (a) overqualified
employees’ surplus in qualifications is salient, and (b) there are higher levels of task and/or outcome interdependence between overqualified and other group members.
Integrating the Advantages and Disadvantages of Overqualification
Having outlined the four advantages of overqualification for the performance of overqualified employees as well as the performance of their group members, a lingering question is how these advantages relate to the disadvantages of overqualification as outlined by relative deprivation and equity theories. To that regard, we posit that the social categorization perspective provides unique insight.
On the one hand, overqualified employees are expected to benefit from the identification advantage when other overqualified employees become part of their work group, since they enhance the overall attributed status to the group. However, a caveat of this advantage is that overqualified employees (via the same
mechanism) may attribute a lower overall status to the work group because all non-overqualified group members are lower in status compared to them. Consider a former professional basketball player joining an amateur basketball team. Whereas the other group members are likely to be thrilled that this star player is joining their team, for the former professional player it is likely to be less exciting. The lower status attributed to the group on the part of overqualified employees may reduce their self-esteem, identification, motivation, and subsequent performance.
Next to relative deprivation and equity theory, the social categorization perspective thus provides an alternative explanation for the negative attitudinal consequences of overqualification. In our REOP model, we have depicted this negative identification mechanism by indicating that overqualified employees also perceive themselves as overqualified, which in turn affects the status that they attribute to the group, their identification with the group, and their performance. In comparison, we have also depicted the mechanisms as suggested by relative deprivation and by equity theory in showing that self-attributed overqualification causes one to attribute lower status to the job, which lowers attitudes and motivation, and subsequent performance.
Contingencies. In providing a social categorization perspective on the negative attitudinal consequences of overqualification, we are able to discern a number of unique contingencies of how and when
same reasons as mentioned in the identification advantage, we expect that higher levels of qualification salience and of task and/or outcome interdependence between overqualified and other group members will decrease overqualified employees’ identification with the group and therefore inhibit their performance.
We further argue that the reason why the employee is overqualified matters. Specifically, we assert that the negative consequences of overqualification are likely to be mitigated when overqualified employees willingly assume the job for which they are overqualified. For example, if the former professional player faced too much competition and was not given opportunities to play (i.e. is benched too often), stepping down may not have been a voluntary choice and may make the former professional player feel like (s)he doesn’t belong among the amateurs. It could however also be that the former professional player prefers a less competitive environment, or would prefer to spend more time with family, friends or the community. Indeed, many people choose to (temporarily) step aside their career path to take care of children, pursue other passions, or simply enjoy life more (Mainiero & Sullivan, 2005). By making such a conscious, voluntary decision, overqualified employees are less likely to resent being in a position of overqualification and hence suffer a loss in
identification when other group members are less qualified than they are. We therefore propose:
Proposition 5: Overqualified employees attribute a lower status to the group, which reduces their identification and, in turn, inhibits their performance. This performance detriment of
overqualification is less likely to materialize (a) when overqualified employees’ surplus in
qualifications is less salient, (b) under lower levels of task and/or outcome interdependence, and (c) when overqualified employees have willingly assumed a job for which they are overqualified. Theoretical Implications and an Agenda for Future Research
We have presented four advantages of overqualification that explain the mechanisms underlying the positive performance consequences of overqualification and their contingencies. Based on human capital theory and expectation states theory, we argued that overqualified employees perform better than other group members via their surplus in KSAs and attributions of status, respectively. Given that the field to date relies on theories suggesting that overqualification negatively affects performance, these arguments and their
between overqualification and job performance, and in particular why many studies indicate that under specific circumstances overqualification positively relates to performance.
In addition, based on social learning theory and the social categorization perspective, we advance current theory on overqualification by arguing that overqualification can positively affect the performance of other group members and delineating the conditions under which these benefits are most likely to materialize. Research on the consequences of overqualification has almost exclusively focused on the overqualified employee in isolation, and the limited number of studies that have considered the work group context have only done so to consider the implications for the performance of the overqualified employee. As such, our study broadens research and theory on overqualification by providing a relational approach that shows how the performance of overqualified employees is affected by their group members, and how overqualified employees shape the performance of other group members.
We made a start with integrating perspectives on the positive and negative consequences of
overqualification by suggesting that the social categorization perspective provides an explanation for some positive (on the side of other group members) as well as negative (on the side of overqualified employees) outcomes of overqualification. In our REOP model, we further show how all advantages and disadvantages relate to each other. As such, the propositions and our REOP model in concert provide novel insights that deepen our understanding of the consequences of overqualification and can help future research to generate more specific expectations regarding the consequences of overqualification while taking into account a study’s social and work context. However, we do acknowledge that various empirical studies are required for assessing the interrelationships among the proposed advantages and disadvantages of overqualification.
To give some more specific direction to future research, we offer five overall implications that we think should guide any future research efforts. The first is that our theory and arguments suggest that
affects overqualified employees’ performance based on equity theory, relative deprivation theory, and social categorization theory. The third is the indirect effect that travels via other group members’ subjective perception of overqualified employees. This “other-perceived” effect positively affects overqualified employees’ performance based on the status advantage and other group members’ performance based on the social learning advantage as well as the identification advantage. Although these three effect types or categories are grounded in overqualified employees’ objective surplus in qualifications compared to their counterparts, their distinct relationships with performance suggests that different conceptualizations or measurements of overqualification are likely to be differently related to positive or negative outcomes (cf. Maltarich et al., 2011).
Building on this first implication, the second is that various consequences of overqualification can coincide. For example, a human resources (HR) generalist with a wealth of experience in HR and a Master’s level HR degree is overqualified if the generalist position only requires a Bachelor’s degree without
experience. The experienced injustice according to relative deprivation and equity theories leads the person to withdraw and reduce performance, and the social categorization perspective also suggests that she may identify less with her new job compared to previous jobs. However, given her higher levels of KSAs compared to her new colleagues and that she is likely to be attributed a higher status, she may consider her performance suboptimal but still outperform her colleagues. At the same time, we can see that the colleagues become more inspired by their new, experienced colleague. They may therefore approach her often for advice, learn more and identify more with the HR group. As a result, the performance of the colleagues of the overqualified newcomer may go up and across the board resulting in better performance outcomes. Our theory and according REOP model thus indicates that there are various ways in which overqualification can yield positive and negative consequences, and that these equivocal effects can co-exist.
our arguments suggest that the activation of the status advantage more or less automatically enforces the learning and the identification advantage. Whether this indeed is true needs to be validated by empirical studies, and in so doing, the results would be important to researchers and practitioners alike. For research, it would be relevant because it would indicate that the theories that underlie the distinct advantages of
overqualification have a common ground and suggest that further theoretical integration of expectation states, social learning, and social identity theories is warranted. For practitioners, such a potential strengthening effect among the status, learning, and identification advantage is important because it implies that all three
advantages can be materialized by focusing on one factor: improving overqualification salience. Fourth, we have argued that the willingness to be overqualified mitigates the extent to which
overqualified employees are negatively affected by their overqualification status, as these employees are less dissatisfied with being overqualified. Given that relative deprivation as well as equity theory expect
overqualification to yield negative consequences based on a similar argument, it stands to reason that a willingness to be overqualified also hampers the negative consequences of overqualification as predicted by relative deprivation and equity theory. We therefore encourage future research to explore the extent to which overqualification willingness mitigates all negative consequences of overqualification.
Managerial Implications
To date, most practitioners advise against hiring overqualified candidates given that the general image of overqualified individuals tends to be flat out negative (Gallo, 2011; O’Connell, 2010). Our work points practitioners to a new understanding of the consequences of overqualification. We identify several specific ways that our propositions can be put into practice here.
First, our propositions highlight the importance of making overqualification salient. Managers can do so by highlighting the skillset that overqualified employees possess towards their group members, and by
providing them with recognition for their surplus in KSAs. Managers can, for example, nominate overqualified employees as experts for specific subjects, provide them with the opportunity to take on additional
responsibilities and tasks, and give them the opportunity to mentor and coach their colleagues. Doing so means that overqualified employees are acknowledged and accommodated in their identity and needs (Danish & Usman, 2010). By formalizing the role of overqualified employees as mentors and coaches for their
colleagues, recognition also enhances the extent to which overqualified employees are identified as sources for learning, which suggests that mechanisms that shape social learning (i.e. “asking questions, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results, and discussing errors or unexpected outcomes of actions”, Edmondson, 1999, p. 353) take place more frequently. Practitioners could also show recognition to overqualified employees by implementing pay-for-performance schemes which recognize overqualified employees based on their added value. By paying overqualified employees according to their skills and competencies, rather than the pay-scale which is related to their job, overqualified employees may feel less deprived and experience fairer treatment. Doing so ensures that the additional skills and competencies that overqualified employees possess are adequately compensated, taking into account the human capital advantage that overqualified employees bring to the job. To ensure that such skill-based and competency-based pay systems recognize overqualified employees’ surplus in KSAs, the human capital advantage suggests that it is important that performance indicators are based on objective and measurable performance criteria (e.g., Shaw, Gupta, Mitra, & Ledford, 2005).
group members have to work together. Managers should therefore organise work such that there is a high task and goal interdependence. Task interdependence implies that team members need to share materials,
information, and knowledge to achieve defined performance goals, whereas goal interdependence means that all team members share the same performance goal (van der Vegt, Emans, & van de Vliert, 2001). Managers can foster such interdependencies by regularly communicating to all group members the output that they are collectively required to achieve, and by giving feedback on the overall group performance. They can also implement monetary and non-monetary team rewards to facilitate identification and cooperation amongst all group members. Overall, this fosters a climate of cooperation and cohesion and ensures that employees are motivated to learn from their overqualified colleagues and contribute towards achieving the group’s performance goals.
Third, our propositions suggest that overqualified employees’ performance is more likely to increase when they are perceived as being high in warmth. We therefore encourage HR managers to offer strength-based trainings (cf. Ghielen, van Woerkom, & Meyers, 2018) to overqualified employees incorporating individual reflections about their way of interacting with other group members which they might perceive as having lower status. This creates ample opportunities for overqualified employees to find out how they are seen by their group members and provides them with an understanding that being collaborative and helpful are equally important as being competent when working together in groups.
Conclusion
The predominantly negative narrative about overqualified employees in practice and in the scientific literature stands in stark contrast to the empirical evidence indicating that overqualified employees on average tend to perform on par or even outperform their counterparts. In emphasizing the bright side of
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Table 1.
An overview of studies on overqualification and performance. Yea
r Authors OverqualificatioMeasure of n
Measure of
Performance CorrelationsBivariate Moderating ResultsIndirect and/or 1 1987 King &
Hautaluoma Objective overeducation 17 supervisoryrating performance indicators (1x17) In the main, overeducated employees do not receive different supervisory ratings of performance compared to others (only 3 of the 17 ratings were positive and significant) N/A 2 2002 Holtom et al. Perceived underemployment In role performance & extra role performance (1x2) Employees who believe they are underemployed receive higher in-role performance ratings, but not extra-role performance (positive non-significant relationship) N/A 3 2007 Fine, &
Nevo Objective cognitive overqualification Training scores (sample 1 and 3) & scholastic scores (sample 2) (1x3)
Employees who are objectively cognitively overqualified have slightly better training and scholastic scores N/A 4 2007 Fine Perceived cognitive overqualification Leadership training performance assessed by peers and supervisors (1x1) Employees who believe they are smarter than others receive higher training performance scores on a leadership training course N/A 5 2008 Fine, &
