Perceived overqualification and deviant innovation: Psychological empowerment mediation and psychological safety moderation

Perceived overqualification is a common situation among employees in the workplace. However, its impact on deviant innovation has not been fundamentally explained. Based on the theory of psychological regulation, we chose psychological empowerment as the mediating variable and psychological safety as the moderating variable, constructing the predictive effect model of perceived overqualification on deviant innovation behavior. Sample data were collected with the assistance of university students, who forwarded questionnaires to their friends or relatives working in an organization. We received 342 completed valid questionnaires from 491 participants. The results showed that perceived overqualification significantly positively predicted deviant innovation behavior, in which three dimensions of psychological empowerment (meaning, self-determination, and impact) played a mediating role while the fourth dimension (competence) did not. Psychological safety was found to positively moderate the predictive effect of psychological empowerment on deviant innovation behavior. This study extends the application of the ability–motivation– opportunity model to the field of deviant innovation research.