Do Big Fish in a Small Pond Gossip Too? The Impact of Perceived Overqualification on Workplace Gossip: The Roles of Illegitimate Tasks Perception and Perceived Organizational Politics

The impacts of individual emotions, personality traits, and attitude characteristics on workplace gossip have been highlighted in earlier research. However, little is known about how employees’ person-job fit in the workplace influences the choice and impact of workplace gossip. On the basis of the role theory, this research examines whether perceived overqualification (POQ) is associated with two types of workplace gossip and explores the underlying mechanism of how POQ affects workplace gossip via illegitimate tasks perception. In addition, we hypothesize that perceived organizational politics (POP) serves as a critical moderator that amplifies the association. between illegitimate tasks perception and two types of workplace gossip. Specifically, with the observation of a sample of 337 employees from Chinese enterprises, we found that POQ is positively related to positive workplace gossip (PWG) and negative workplace gossip (NWG) and the perception of illegitimate tasks mediates the POQ-PWG and POQ-NWG relationships. And we also tested the role of POP and the moderated mediation model. To sum up, our findings emphasize the significance of illegitimate tasks perception as a fundamental mechanism affecting the gossip decisions of overqualified individuals.