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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.

The results of this research offer an autonomous motivation perspective to explain why perceived overqualification relates to adaptive behavior and suggests a job design approach to encourage adaptive behaviors of people who feel overqualified – a sizable segment of the current workforce.

This is one of the first studies to explore adaptive behavior of workers who feel overqualified – an outcome that has not been examined in this domain. The findings further point out what can be done to encourage adaptive behaviors among overqualified employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine stressor-strain relationships that play a role in foreign-born Hispanic workers’ well-being and family-to-work facilitation (FWF) as a moderator in this relationship.

The authors used a unique sample of foreign-born Hispanic workers employed in blue-labor jobs in Texas (n=163).

Consistent with the theoretical assertions, the authors found support for the negative relationship between legal status concern and Hispanic workers’ psychological and perceived physical health. Further, FWF attenuated the negative consequences of lack of English language proficiency on psychological well-being.

Both organizations and Hispanic workers can benefit from the results of the study. Hispanic immigrants can enhance their well-being by relying more on their families and seeking more support from their friends and families when dealing with immigration-related stressors. Organizations and policymakers can improve Hispanic workers’ well-being by educating them about immigration-related issues and by offering help with mastering English language.

The authors studied psychological and physical well-being of a population that is generally underrepresented in the literature – foreign-born Hispanic immigrant employees. The paper also examined what employers can do to improve the work experience of these workers.