Rethinking underemployment and overqualification in organizations: The not so ugly truth

Thompson, Katina W.; Shea, Thomas H.; Sikora, David; Perrewé, Pamela L.; Ferris, Gerald R.

doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2012.09.009

Cited by 57 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, some recent conceptual research has indicated that the consequences of overqualification might vary across individuals depending on how they view their employment situations, with overqualification sometimes leading to positive outcomes (Erdogan, Bauer, Peiró, & Truxillo, ; Liu & Wang, ; Thompson et al, ). Overqualified employees can have higher control over their work and thus a higher probability of making a difference in the work place (Erdogan et al, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Higher in‐role performance may be largely attributed to the higher competence of overqualified employees, compared with others. However, we still know very little about how employees' different views of their overqualification influence and lead to possible positive outcomes (Thompson et al, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have emphasized the underutilization perspective. In response to the call of some scholars (Erdogan et al, ; Thompson et al, ), we focus on the flip side of the coin and investigate employees' positive perspective of overqualification, which may increase their felt competence in accomplishing a wider range of work activities beyond their job requirements, such as proactive behavior . Proactive behavior is the anticipatory and change‐oriented behavior self‐initiated by employees.…”

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confidence: 99%

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You think you are big fish in a small pond? Perceived overqualification, goal orientations, and proactivity at work

2015

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Summary Overqualification denotes situations in which job incumbents have higher qualifications than those required for the job. Drawing on the self‐regulatory perspective, we proposed that employees' perception of overqualification positively affects their proactive behavior through the mechanism of role‐breadth self‐efficacy and that this indirect effect is moderated by employees' goal orientations. We tested our hypotheses through two studies. In Study 1, we found that perceived overqualification had a positive indirect effect on employees' proactive behavior through role‐breadth self‐efficacy using a sample of 323 salespeople with a cross‐lagged panel design. In Study 2, the multi‐wave and multi‐source data from 302 teachers confirmed the indirect effect and indicated that performance goal orientation and learning goal orientation moderated the indirect relationship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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You think you are big fish in a small pond? Perceived overqualification, goal orientations, and proactivity at work

2015

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“…For many overtrained employees, job redesign or provision of resources such as more advanced technology may facilitate the opportunity to extend new skills to the current position, perhaps ameliorating negative effects ( e.g . Thompson et al ., ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Training match and mismatch as a driver of key employee behaviours

Lee

2015

Human Res Mgmt Journal

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Training is widely believed to have the potential to improve key workplace outcomes such as the in‐role behaviours and organisational citizenship of employees. However, this article argues that match of actual training provision to requirements leads to the greatest possible improvement in key behaviours, an assertion that lacks prior validation. Undertraining relative to requirements would typically be associated with lower behavioural gain, or even negative behaviours. Overtraining may have both positive and negative implications; however, this article argues that on aggregate excess training will be associated with worse outcomes compared with match. An analysis of 699 matched employee–manager dyads supports the assertion that match is associated with the best relative levels of key workplace behaviours, and associates either undertraining or overtraining with degradation in outcomes. This research highlights the importance of training needs analysis and encourages active management of trained workers to match work to skills.

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“…Although we argue that understaffing and underemployment are distinct constructs, there may be opportunities for organizations to capitalize and utilize the skills and qualifications possessed by underemployed workers (Thompson et al, 2013), including to address issues of understaffing. Recent statistics indicate a substantial portion of workers may be underemployed (McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011), including estimates as high as 20 to 30% of the labor force (e.g., Green & McIntosh, 2007;Vaisey, 2006).…”

Section: Understaffing Versus Underemploymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understaffing

Hudson

Shen

2015

Organizational Psychology Review

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Workers often identify understaffing as a major stressor in their work lives. Despite this, relatively little conceptual and empirical work on understaffing exists. This paper describes a new, multidimensional conceptualization of understaffing, specifying that there are three dimensions underlying the understaffing domain: severity of (under)staffing, type of resource shortage, and length of exposure. Drawing upon theory and research on workplace demands and self-regulation, we further argue that different types of understaffing are differentially related to workplace outcomes. After specifying what understaffing is, we then compare and contrast understaffing with conceptually similar or related constructs in the industrial-organizational/organizational behavior (IO/OB) literature to assist in explaining what understaffing is not. Finally, we address practical issues in the study and measurement of understaffing. Implications for future research and theory are discussed.

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Rethinking underemployment and overqualification in organizations: The not so ugly truth

Cited by 57 publications

References 19 publications

You think you are big fish in a small pond? Perceived overqualification, goal orientations, and proactivity at work

You think you are big fish in a small pond? Perceived overqualification, goal orientations, and proactivity at work

Training match and mismatch as a driver of key employee behaviours

Understaffing

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