Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), why organizational members conduct this behavior volitionally still requires further exploration. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, our study investigated the impact of leaders’ high performance expectations on employees’ PSRB, following a hypothetical model with work stress as the mediator and perceived organizational support as the moderator. A three-waved time-lagged survey covering 208 dyad data of supervisor-subordinate from 41 teams of five enterprises in Shanghai, China, provided support for our hypotheses. After analyzing, we found that high performance expectations increased employees’ work stress, and further influenced employees’ PSRB substantially via stress, where the relationship was moderated by perceived organizational support. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed from a sustainability perspective.

The psychology of sustainability in terms of sustainable development for work–family conflict (WFC) in organizations has become increasingly relevant in sustainable human resource management research, and the pursuit of sustainable creative performance is an important aspect of corporate sustainable development. Taking a regulatory focus perspective, this study integrates a moderated-mediation model to examine the relationship between work–family conflict and sustainable creative performance. Data were collected from 203 supervisor–subordinate dyads from two branches of a high-end manufacturing enterprise in Shanghai, China. The results reveal that work–family conflict has a positive effect on sustainable creative performance through job crafting, and the effect is stronger when individuals show higher promotion regulatory focus. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the study, along with potential future research directions.

It is generally believed that having high performance expectations is an effective means of motivating employees to pursue excellence and sustain the motivation driven by it, while ignoring the negative impact that hinders the incentive to sustain such expectations. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we constructed a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between supervisor’s high performance expectations and the employee’s territoriality utilizing data from 291 supervisor–subordinate dyads from two companies in China. The results revealed that task autonomy moderated the indirect and positive effect of high performance expectations on employees’ territoriality through stress, such that this indirect effect was stronger when employees were assigned to higher levels of task autonomy. The theoretical of these findings, as well as future research directions, are discussed.

Drawing on equity theory and person–group fit theory, we examined the association between (in)congruence in employee and peer overqualification and perceived insider status. We further proposed that perceived insider status is related to employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The results of multilevel polynomial regressions using data collected with 211 employees from 55 teams supported the hypothesized congruence effect. Specifically, employees’ perceived insider status was greater, and their OCB was maximized, when employees and their peers had congruent perceptions of their overqualification levels. Furthermore, when both employees and their peers perceived their overqualification levels as low, perceived insider status and OCB were higher than when both perceived their overqualification levels as high. These findings highlight the pivotal role of congruence between employee and peer perceptions of overqualification at work.

Previous studies have shown that the outcomes leaded by perceived overqualification is influenced by contextual factors. This study tested the effect of perceived overqualification on creative performance by using 170 supervisor–subordinate dyads of 41 groups data from two manufacturing companies in China. Results revealed: (1) perceived overqualification is positively related to organizational identification when employee development oriented organizational culture is strong but negatively related to organizational identification when employee development oriented organizational culture is weak, (2) organizational identification is positively related to creative performance, (3) furthermore, the relationship between perceived overqualification and creative performance is contrary on different level employee development oriented organizational culture. More concretely, the relationship between perceived overqualification and creative performance is positive when employee development oriented organizational culture is strong but negative as compared with when the employee development oriented organizational culture is weak. Besides，organizational identification plays a mediating role in this relationship.