I despise but also envy you: A dyadic investigation of perceived overqualification, perceived relative qualification, and knowledge hiding

Integrating relative deprivation (Crosby, 1984) and social comparison (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007) theories, this paper extends perceived overqualification to the dyad level with perceived relative qualification, and proposes that the two may lead to employees' knowledge hiding from relevant peers through a complex interpersonal process. Across two studies, with 940 dyadic-level observations (Study 1) and 245 dyadic-level observations (Study 2), respectively, the social relations modeling analyses revealed that an employee who perceived himself/herself as overqualified for the job was more likely to hide knowledge from his/her peers on the team. Furthermore, when the employee perceived himself/herself as relatively more qualified than a specific peer, he/she was more likely to hide knowledge from this peer because he/she was both contemptuous and envious of this peer. Finally, the relationship between the focal employee's relative qualification to a specific peer and his/her knowledge hiding from this peer via his/her contempt and envy of this peer, respectively, was stronger when his/her perceived overqualification was low than when it was high. Implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed.

Automated summary

This paper integrates relative deprivation and social comparison theories to explore the impact of perceived overqualification on employees' knowledge hiding. The findings suggest that employees who perceive themselves as overqualified for the job are more likely to hide knowledge from their peers, and those who perceive themselves as relatively more qualified than specific peers are also more likely to engage in knowledge hiding behaviors.