From overqualification to job crafting: how illegitimate tasks and moral distress shape physicians’ self-regulation

Limited empirical research explains how physicians’ perceived overqualification translates into moral distress and divergent forms of job crafting when administrative duties are experienced as role-incongruent. I surveyed 437 practicing physicians in Chengdu, China. I estimated a moderated serial process model in structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation. Perceived overqualification was associated with stronger perceptions of unreasonable, illegitimate tasks, which were linked to higher moral distress; moral distress, in turn, was associated with lower approach job crafting and higher avoidance job crafting. The indirect pathway from overqualification to job crafting through unreasonable tasks and moral distress was negative for approach crafting and positive for avoidance crafting. Calling intensified the association between unreasonable tasks and moral distress, and professional identity weakened the extent to which moral distress translated into reduced approach crafting. These findings integrate overqualification, illegitimate tasks, and moral distress within a single self-regulation process and clarify how identity conditions shape physicians’ coping through job crafting.