Managing the harmful effects of perceived overqualification amongst students in China: the roles of student leader and extracurricular activities
研究基于人-组织匹配理论，发现中国大学生感知的过度资质会降低组织认同、学习投入和个人成就感，而担任学生干部能缓解部分负面影响，参与社会实践类课外活动则能逆转对个人成就感的损害。
College students are currently facing various crises due to psychological issues, driving universities to prioritise their mental health. Perceived overqualification negatively affects students’ well-being. Drawing on the person-organisation fit theory, we propose that perceived overqualification reduces students’ organisational identification, study engagement, and personal accomplishment. Furthermore, serving as a student leader and the frequency of extracurricular activities (ECA) participation play moderating roles. We conducted a two-wave survey with 423 freshmen at a university in China. Results showed that perceived overqualification negatively affected all three outcomes. In addition, serving as a student leader mitigated the negative effects of perceived overqualification on organisational identification and personal accomplishment, whereas the moderating effect of the frequency of ECA participation was not significant. Nonetheless, a supplementary analysis found that when students participated in ECA related to social practice, their perceived overqualification enhanced their personal accomplishment. Finally, our theoretical contributions to the existing literature are discussed, and suggestions are proposed for universities to impede the harmful effects of students’ perceived overqualification.