Don’t overreact to negative events! The moderated mediations of overqualification in the relationships of workplace bullying, anger expression and deviance

Purpose – Drawing on prior research on workplace mistreatment and deviance, the present study is to explore the impact of workplace mistreatment on deviance by considering ostracism and workplace bullying simultaneously. This study aims to propose and examine a model predicting that ostracism has indirect effects on deviance via anger-out and workplace bullying has indirect effects on deviance via anger-in. Design/methodology/approach – The authors tested the moderated mediation model using dyadic data from 303 employees and their supervisors in China, collected through a multiwave (three time points) and multisource (employees and their corresponding supervisors) survey design. Findings – The results show that ostracism and workplace bullying are indicators of deviance, while anger-out mediates the effect of ostracism on deviance. In addition, perceived overqualification (POQ) moderated the indirect effects of ostracism on deviance via anger-out and that of workplace bullying on deviance via anger-in, such that the relationships were stronger when employees’ POQ was low. Originality/value – The current study expands the literature by examining both workplace bullying and ostracism as antecedents of deviance, providing novel theoretical insights and avenues for organizations to prevent and reduce the detrimental effects of both ostracism and workplace bullying on deviance.