Does hiring overqualified employees trigger unethical behavior and thus harm the organization? Whereas previous studies have examined perceived overqualification’s (POQ) detrimental effects on unethical behavior, in our research we integrated dual-strategies theory with the literature on POQ to examine whether employees who perceive themselves as being overqualified engage in subtle strategic behaviors to enhance their social standing in their organizations. In particular, we propose that to pursue higher social status in their organizations, such employees tend to enact status-seeking strategies—either prestige or dominance strategies—which have divergent effects on unethical behavior. Across a scenario-based experiment conducted in the United States (Study 1) and a three-wave time-lagged field survey conducted in China (Study 2), we found evidence supporting POQ’s indirect effects on unethical behavior via prestige and dominance strategies. We also found that employees’ bottom-line mentality can amplify POQ’s impact on dominance strategies while undermining its effect on prestige strategies. In this article, we discuss what those findings imply for the literature on POQ and dual-strategies theory.
