LMX Theory

2022 ◽  
pp. 64-72

This chapter develops the background and use of a basic principle for the entire book: LMX. Defined in the introduction, LMX is a relationship-based approach for managing teams. It drives leader effectiveness through developing dyadic relationships with members, and even using these dyads to build effective groups. Leaders measure the dyadic relationships in terms of the level of loyalty, support, respect, and trust. The leader treats each member as a unique individual as a singular relationship is built. In role making, leaders tend to put people into groups: in-group or out-group. LMX is a powerful way to create and nurture relationships between the leader and each member supervised. It shines the light on leadership communication and demonstrates how trust, respect, and loyalty can improve work relationships.

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Glover ◽  
Charlene Lew

Orientation: Similarity of leaders and members encourage positive relational exchanges. However, the role of different time-use preferences, and how leaders and members adapt to the preferences of others in relational exchanges have not yet been studied.Research Purpose: This research explores how time-use preference plays a role in the dyadic relationships between leaders and members within leader–member exchange (LMX) theory.Motivation for the study: We argue that differences between the time-use preferences of leaders and team members result in relational adaptations.Research approach/design and method: The qualitative research design employed semi-structured interviews with nine leaders and 11 employees in a major retail bank in South Africa and data were analysed through thematic analysis.Main findings: The research shows the nature of time-use preference in varying relational exchanges, discover how time-use preferences manifest and how leaders and members adapt to one another’s preferences.Contribution/value add: The study contributes to time-use preference literature by illustrating how polychronic and monochronic preferences may manifest in the workplace. Furthermore, we contribute to an understanding of the nature of relational exchanges in LMX theory by illustrating the influence of polychronicity on dyadic relationships and discuss how leaders and members adapt their preferences.Practical/managerial implications: We propose a framework of the dynamics of time-use preference-based relational entrainment and provide practical considerations to help mitigate the negative impacts that differing preferences can have.


2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Karoline Hofslett Kopperud ◽  
Robert Buch ◽  
Christina Skogen

Due to the strong focus on dyadic relationships in leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, it is vital to investigate the predictors of the types of relationships that leaders and subordinates develop. This study explores the supervisor-level antecedents of LMX. Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study tests whether leaders’ psychological flexibility moderates the relationship between leaders’ perceptions of work overload and LMX. A field study was conducted among 186 subordinates and 93 leaders from a Norwegian public service organization. Multisource field data demonstrated general support for the hypothesized relationships. The results of multilevel analyses showed a negative relation between the perceptions of work overload of leaders with lower levels of psychological flexibility and their subordinates’ perceptions of LMX. Thus, psychological flexibility seemed to mitigate the negative implications of leaders’ work overload. This study extends previous studies on managers’ perceptions of work overload by introducing an important contingency of the relationship between managers’ perceptions of work overload and the quality of their relationship with subordinates. As such, this study contributes to a more complete understanding of the factors that relate to the development of high-quality LMX.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 486-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsuhiko Yoshikawa ◽  
Chia-Huei Wu ◽  
Hyun-Jung Lee

To critically evaluate the relevance of social exchange theory (SET) to the contemporary workplace, Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu (2018) point out a number of factors that reshape work relationships and suggest how to apply and extend social exchange theory to understand the new era work relationships. However, in their discussion, they focus mainly on reciprocal exchange (RE) in dyadic relationships. The discussion completely overlooks another important form of social exchange, namely, generalized exchange (GE), which is increasingly relevant to contemporary organizations exactly because of the changes indicated by Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu. In this commentary, we briefly review prior investigations into GE across various social science disciplines and then point out its increasing relevance to organizations. Finally, we will discuss implications for future research in the industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology literature.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryant Thompson ◽  
Elizabeth Ravlin

Dyadic work relationships are fundamental to effective organizing and are a means by which individuals find meaning at work. Such relationships may contain latent competencies with the potential to infuse the dyad with purpose. Meaningful dyadic relationships depend on the dyad’s ability to be resilient to within-dyad adversity. Our conceptual analysis examines how interpersonal interactions emerge to dyad-level phenomena in the wake of such adversity. We introduce dyadic resilience, detail the process by which it emerges, identify protective factors and risk factors of dyadic resilience, and posit that the emergence of dyadic resilience influences dyadic thriving over time.


Author(s):  
Maya Rossignac-Milon ◽  
Niall Bolger ◽  
Katherine S. Zee ◽  
Erica J. Boothby ◽  
E. Tory Higgins

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