Causal relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction, and its long-term effects on turnover: a cross-lagged analysis across four years

This study investigates the widely assumed but insufficiently proven causalities concerning perceived overqualification (POQ). First, our study calls into question the common belief that POQ precedes job satisfaction. Based on the affect-to-cognition paradigm, we suggest that unsatisfied employees may later recognize themselves to be overqualified. Second, our study examines whether POQ increases the likelihood of actual turnover over an extended period of time. A four-year longitudinal sample of 2,409 employees from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) data was used to evaluate these two questions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our analysis found that job satisfaction precedes POQ, while the reverse effect was not pronounced. Furthermore, we discovered that the effects of POQ may persist over three years, serving as a drive to push employees to depart from their organizations.