Knowledge seeking or sabotage? The effect of coworker relative overqualification on employee reaction from social comparison theory

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of knowledge transfer between employees and coworkers. That is, when and why employees engage in knowledge seeking or knowledge sabotage when confronted with coworkers with higher relative overqualification. Design/methodology/approach This study collected survey data from 315 employee-coworker pairs in East China at three-time points. Findings The results showed that when the cooperative goal interdependence between employee and coworker is high, the perception of coworker’s relative overqualification will cause benign envy of employees, which in turn promote employees to engage in knowledge seeking from coworker. However, when the competitive goal interdependence between employee and coworker is high, the perception of coworker’s relative overqualification will cause malicious envy of employees, which in turn promote employees to engage in knowledge sabotage toward coworker. Originality/value This research not only expands the theoretical perspective and outcomes of relative overqualification but also enriches the mechanism of knowledge seeking and knowledge sabotage. Meanwhile, this study also provides practical guidance for enterprises to reduce knowledge sabotage.

When the victims fight back: the influence of workplace ostracism on employee knowledge sabotage behavior

“…Hitherto, only one study has examined the role of emotion in the formation of knowledge sabotage in detail. Specifically, Zhu et al (2023) verified the claim that malicious envy is an important mechanism linking coworker relative overqualification with knowledge sabotage based on social comparison theory. In addition, scattered studies have also highlighted the potential association between various emotions and knowledge sabotage.…”

“…Previous studies have mainly empirically tested the effects of personal traits, personality disorders, personal motivation (Enwereuzor, 2023;Perotti et al, 2023;Serenko and Choo, 2020;Serenko, 2020Serenko, , 2023, interactional justice, coworker relative overqualification (Zhu et al, 2023) and workplace behavior on individual knowledge sabotage (Serenko and Abubakar, 2022). Early exploratory studies suggested that 50% of knowledge sabotage is closely related to negative interpersonal interactions (Serenko, 2019), and the extant research continues to exhibit little knowledge of the negative interpersonal antecedents of knowledge sabotage (Perotti et al, 2022;Serenko, 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, knowledge sabotage is closely related to situational factors such as interpersonal and organizational factors. The interpersonal perspective suggests that colleague-related factors such as colleague knowledge sabotage, colleague incivility (Serenko and Abubakar, 2022) and colleague relative overqualification (Zhu et al, 2023) have promoting effects on individual knowledge sabotage; however, these studies have not explored the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions involved in this process. Perotti et al (2022) proposed a potential correlation between team cohesion and knowledge sabotage, but this claim lacks corresponding empirical validation.…”

“…Serenko and Abubakar (2022) noted that the victims of knowledge sabotage incidents express negative emotions, mainly anger when they experience malicious behavior and convert that anger into knowledge sabotage toward the perpetrator. Based on these findings, Zhu et al (2023) explored only the tip of the iceberg in emotional research, and further research is needed to reveal the important roles of other emotions in knowledge sabotage. This study attempts to contribute to this task by taking anger as its starting point.…”

“…Hitherto, few studies have investigated the boundary conditions of knowledge sabotage. Based on social comparison theory, Zhu et al (2023) found that when competitive goal interdependence is high, coworker relative overqualification elicits employees' malicious envy and subsequent knowledge sabotage. When discussing the influence of dispositional greed on knowledge sabotage through cutting corners at work, Enwereuzor (2023) used social learning theory to try to verify the moderating effect of ethical leadership during the second stage.…”