Employees’ Envy And Workplace Ostracism Toward Overqualified Colleagues:A Social Comparison Perspective

With the increasingly common phenomenon of overqualification,organizations are faced with tough problem of personnel management.Overqualified employees have the potential to help enterprises carry out organizational change,promote innovation and improve performance.However,these "big fish in small pond" are easily excluded by other members of the organization,therefore lose their effect and value.Social comparison theory explains the process: when employees see overqualified colleagues,they will make adverse upward social comparison with them,feel envy of their colleagues’ advantage and potential,and then conduct workplace ostracism to protect self-esteem,alleviate pain and weaken the advantage of their colleague.Especially,when the extent of perceived overqualification is low,the consequences of peer overqualification are more negative.The negative consequences of upward comparison can be alleviated by psychological meaningfulness.The above process was tested using one experiment and two questionnaires.In study 1,207 participants completed the experiment using a single-factor inter-group experimental design.The experiment used situational materials to initiate different levels of peer overqualification,then relevant variables were measured.In study 2 and study 3,questionnaires were carried out in organizational situation,mature existing scales were used for measurement.380 and 296 valid questionnaires were obtained,respectively.After data analysis of three studies,these conclusions were drawn:(1)Peer overqualification will lead to envy;(2)Envy increases the possibility of workplace ostracism;(3)Peer overqualification can increase employees’ workplace ostracism at work through envy;(4)When employees’ perceived overqualification is low,perceived peer overqualification leads to stronger envy and more workplace ostracism behavior;(5)Psychological meaningfulness moderates the mediating effect.When employees have higher sense of psychological meaningfulness,envy caused by peer overqualification will lead to less workplace ostracism.This study expands the colleague perspective of overqualification and helps clarify the specific theoretical mechanism and boundary of the negative interpersonal aftereffects of overqualification.In practice,it helps managers to realize the potential interpersonal crisis of overqualified employees,and provides reference for organizations to rationalize personnel assignment,provide psychological support for employees and make scientific talent introduction plans.