Too Good for Your Job? Disentangling the Relationships Between Objective Overqualification, Perceived Overqualification, and Job Dissatisfaction

In the present study, we investigated the relationships between objective overqualification, perceived overqualification, and job satisfaction based on the tenets of P-E fit theory, a commonly-used theoretical framework in the overqualification literature. Specifically, we tested whether employee perceptions of overqualification mediate the relationship between objective overqualification and job dissatisfaction. Results across two studies indicated that objective overqualification and job satisfaction independently predicted perceived overqualification, which contradicts the prevailing view in the literature of unidirectional effects between overqualification and strain outcomes. Study 1 used a cross-sectional survey of recent college graduates to test the overall mediation model. Although the model was supported, the relationship between objective overqualification and job satisfaction was not significant, raising the question of whether the hypothesized predictive relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction is reversed. Study 2 tested directionality in the relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction using a three-wave longitudinal panel design in a sample of full-time university staff employees. Results indicated that job dissatisfaction predicts subsequent perceived overqualification rather than the reverse

Examining temporal precedence between customer mistreatment and customer-directed counterproductive work behavior

© 2019 American Psychological Association. Customer-directed counterproductive work behavior or CWB (harmful acts directed toward customers), a significant concern for service organizations, has become a topic of increasing interest in recent years. Although the predominant view in the literature is that customer-directed CWB represents a retaliatory response to customer mistreatment, temporal precedence between the two variables has not yet been adequately established. In the present study, we tested reciprocal effects between customer mistreatment and customer-directed CWB using a 2-wave survey in a sample of call center employees. We found that customer-directed CWB predicted customer mistreatment but customer mistreatment did not predict subsequent customer-directed CWB, suggesting that the relationship is neither reciprocal nor in the direction typically assumed. These findings challenge the prevailing unidirectional view in the literature, suggesting instead that customers mistreat employees who frequently engage in customer-directed CWB. Further, our results indicate that at the between-person level, customer-directed CWB may be driven by factors other than customer mistreatment