Overqualification is prevalent in times of economic downturn, and research has increasingly focused on its outcomes. This study aimed to explore the psychological burden caused by perceived overqualification (POQ) and its impact on creativity among high-tech enterprise employees. Drawing from effort–reward imbalance theory, we examined the effect of POQ on emotional exhaustion, along with the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the POQ–creativity relationship and the moderating role of pay for performance (PFP) in strengthening the link between POQ and emotional exhaustion. Using cross-sectional data from a sample of 359 employees in China, we found that (1) POQ was positively related to emotional exhaustion; (2) emotional exhaustion was negatively related to creativity; (3) PFP moderated the effect of POQ on emotional exhaustion as well as the indirect effect of POQ on creativity via emotional exhaustion. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications.

Given the rapid changes in current technologies, business models, and work environments, organizations and managers increasingly rely on their employees’ proactive behaviors, such as taking charge, to gain competitive advantages. Taking charge involves a range of risky and future-oriented behaviors, and it requires employees to work hard to achieve them in the future. For employees with high job-insecurity, their job continuity in the future is threatened. Thus, they may not be willing to take risks to do additional work that is “future-oriented”. To our knowledge, the effect of job insecurity on employees’ taking charge has rarely been studied. As a result, the purpose of our study is to investigate whether, how, and when job insecurity will influence taking charge. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and proactive motivation model, we develop a theoretical model. Moreover, we employed a multi-wave and multi-source survey to test our predictions. Based on the data from 194 full-time employees paired with their direct supervisors, the results provided consistent support for the proposed hypotheses. Specifically, the results indicate that job insecurity prohibits employees’ taking charge behaviors through deteriorating their work engagement. Furthermore, employees’ perception of interactional justice moderates the negative influence of job insecurity on their work engagement and, consequently, their taking charge behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.