PERCEIVED OVERQUALIFICATION AND ITS OUTCOMES: THE MODERATING ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

We investigated the moderating role of organizational learning on the relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction, affective commitment, and performance. Participants were 49 teams composed of employees and their managers (N = 301) in China. We used a hierarchical linear modeling approach for analysis. The results indicated that when the level of organizational learning was high, the negative relationship between perceived overqualification and affective commitment was stronger, whereas the positive relationship between perceived overqualification and performance was weaker when the level of organization learning was high. These findings imply that, in regard to affective commitment and job performance, in terms of organizational learning, it might be better for employees to be just sufficiently qualified or underqualified rather than overqualified. In this study we have contributed to the literature on the moderators of the relationship between perceived overqualification and its outcomes.