Leader Member Exchange: A Study of Antecedents and Organizational Outcomes

Abstract

Abstract Research on LMX (Leader-member exchange) is based on the assumption that the quality of the relationship between the supervisor and the subordinate affects important individual and organizational outcomes. This suggests that both the supervisor and the subordinate are relevant parties when studying LMX, yet most research has studied LMX from either the supervisor or the subordinate’s perspective. Recent research has reiterated that it is important to study dyadic LMX i.e. LMX studied from both the leaders’ and the subordinates’ perspective because agreement/disagreement of LMX quality has implications on important work outcomes like performance, commitment, etc. Yet, there are very few studies that have explored dyadic LMX. So, the researcher proposed to study dyadic LMX. There has also been a call from researchers to explore antecedents and consequences of dyadic LMX. So the researcher has also explored value congruence with the supervisor as an antecedent of dyadic LMX (operationalized as LMX congruence) and organizational commitment (OC) as a consequence of it. This study also examined if value congruence with the organization moderates the relationship between LMX and OC. A survey was used to collect data from IT companies of different sizes from the Gujarat state region for this study. 385 supervisor subordinate dyads completed the survey which included measures of LMX, values and organizational commitment. To measure congruence supervisor and subordinate responses were matched for LMX and profile similarity indices were calculated for value congruence measures. For analysis within and Between Analysis (WABA) was used given the dyadic nature of the data. The results showed that value congruence with the supervisor had no relationship with LMX. They also showed that LMX congruence had differential impact on organizational commitment. As expected, balanced low and balanced high dyads were associated with relatively low and high levels of OC respectively, while the incongruent combinations generally yielded intermediate levels of outcomes. However, contrary to the relationship proposed it was seen that follower underestimation was related to high levels of OC, whereas follower overestimation was associated with low levels of OC. Also when examining the moderation relationship it was found that value congruence with the organization was a moderator only in the case on congruent dyads. Dyads with balanced high LMX and low congruence with the organization had higher commitment than those with balanced low LMX and high value congruence with the organization. The contributions to theory and practice as well as the directions for future research and study are discussed.