Challengers, not followers? The effect of leaders' perceptions of team overqualification on leaders' empowering behavior
基于社会认知理论，通过实验和实地研究，发现领导感知团队过度资质会降低领导自我效能感，进而减少授权行为，且领导的面子意识会强化这一负面效应。
Purpose Although employee overqualification is a common occurrence in the workplace, most research has focused on overqualification at the individual level rather than at the team level. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study aimed to uncover how leaders' perception of team overqualification influenced their cognition and follow-up behavior. Design/methodology/approach We performed two studies to test our model. In Study 1, we conducted an experiment to examine the causal relationship between leaders' perception of team overqualification and leadership self-efficacy. In Study 2, a two-wave field study was conducted to test the overall model based on a sample obtained from a steel company in China. Findings We found that leaders' perception of team overqualification reduced leadership self-efficacy, which in turn hindered leaders' empowering behavior. In addition, leaders' social face consciousness strengthened the negative relationship between leaders' perception of team overqualification and leadership self-efficacy, such that the relationship was more negative when leaders' social face consciousness was high rather than low. Originality/value Our study contributes to the literature on employee overqualification and its effects on leaders through investigation at the team level to show how leaders respond to overqualified teams.