Implications of perceived overqualification for employee's close social ties: the moderating role of external organizational prestige

Abstract

In this study, we examine the relationship between perceived overqualification and life satisfaction of an employee's close social ties, as mediated by employee's perceived career performance and life satisfaction. Further, we propose that close social ties' perceptions of organizational prestige moderates this mediating process. In a sample of 118 employees from a Greek organization in the gambling industry and their close social ties (i.e., spouses, romantic partners, parents, siblings, or close friends), we found that close social ties' perceptions of organizational prestige moderated the relationships of perceived overqualification with both perceived career performance and employee life satisfaction in a way that these relationships were negative only when employees' close social ties perceived that the organization where employees worked had lower (vs. higher) prestige. Further, results showed that the indirect relationship between perceived overqualification and close social ties' life satisfaction via employee life satisfaction was negative only when prestige was lower, and nonsignificant when organizational prestige was higher. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.