In the organizational studies field, interest in the notion of competence has contributed to keeping the concept of overqualification at work outside of the mainstream. The research objective of this investigation intends to fill this gap: to verify the influence an individual's Perceived Overqualification at work has on Satisfaction, Intention to leave an organization, and Cooperation within an organization. After developing hypotheses, 331 workers from 8 organizations were investigated via survey and the hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Model. The results point out that, between the two Overqualification dimensions - Mismatch (having more skills than necessary for a function) and No Growth (restrictions to the development and use of skills), it is the No Growth factor that more significantly influences Satisfaction, Intention to leave an organization and Cooperative behavior. We further verified that the Mismatch dimension positively influences an individual's cooperation within an organization.
overqualification; satisfaction; intention to leave an organization; cooperation; service sector
