The Effect of Coworker Relative Overqualification on Employee Reaction from Social Comparison Theory

Perceived relative overqualification (PRQ) is a big step forward on the overqualification theme. The only two papers available on PRQ focus on downward comparison (Jahantab et al., 2021; Li et al., 2022), yet this may only consider one side of the coin. Drawing on social comparison theory and upward comparison perspective, this paper examines perceived coworker relative overqualification on their subsequent knowledge behavior and to examine the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions. Through the 315 employee-coworker dyadic data collected at the three time points in East China, we found that when the cooperative goal interdependence between employee and coworker is high, the perception of coworker’s relative overqualification will cause benign envy of employees, which in turn promote employees to engage in knowledge seeking from coworker. However, when the competitive goal interdependence between employee and coworker is high, the perception of coworker’s relative overqualification will cause malicious envy of employees, which in turn promote employees to engage in knowledge sabotage towards coworker. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.