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The purpose of this paper is to offer an autonomous motivation perspective to explore the relationship between perceived overqualification and adaptive work behavior and examine job autonomy as a factor that may moderate the association.

The hypotheses were tested in two culturally, demographically, and functionally diverse samples: sample 1 was based on North American community college employees (n=215); sample 2 was based on full-time workers, employed in a Chinese state-owned enterprise specializing in shipping (n=148).

In study 1, perceived overqualification was negatively related to self-rated adaptive behavior. A follow-up study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that perceived overqualification was negatively related to supervisor-rated adaptive work behavior when job autonomy was low, rather than high.