Too smart to work hard? Investigating why overqualified employees engage in time theft behaviors

Abstract

Integrating the theory of workplace deviance with person–environment fit theory, we propose a two‐pathway model to explain why and how employees who feel overqualified engage in time theft behavior. Specifically, we anticipate that feeling overqualified will negatively influence focal employees' experienced authority fairness and erode their work meaningfulness, which in turn will lead to increased time theft behavior. Further, we argue that voice endorsement serves as a key boundary condition mitigating the negative effects of perceived overqualification. We conducted two multi‐waved and multi‐sourced field studies to test our proposed hypotheses. Study 1 (247 employees and 47 supervisors) revealed that perceived overqualification is associated with time theft behavior through the mediators of experienced authority fairness and meaningfulness. Study 2 (405 employees and 73 supervisors) replicated the findings of Study 1 and tested our full model. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Mitigating work alienation in public sector service-delivery projects caused by perceived overqualification: the roles of empowering leadership and the psychological contracts

“…Moreover, it proposes empowering leadership as a contextual variable to mitigate the negative effects of POQ (see Figure 3). The finding that the more overqualified project members perceive themselves to be, the more alienation they feel from their work agrees with the limited existing research investigating the relationship between POQ, work alienation, and work meaningfulness (S€ oylemez and Uslu, 2022;Wang et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2021;Zhao and Ma, 2023). In other words, those who believed they possessed more knowledge, expertise, and skills than their positions required were less likely to feel meaning and an emotional connection to their work.…”

“…, 2019; Yu et al. , 2021; Zhao and Ma, 2023). In other words, those who believed they possessed more knowledge, expertise, and skills than their positions required were less likely to feel meaning and an emotional connection to their work.…”