Critique and review of leader–member exchange theory: Issues of agreement, consensus, and excellence

By B. Schyns, D. Day. 2010

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The relationship quality that develops between leaders and those designated as followers is of longstanding interest to researchers and practitioners. The purpose of the present article is to review the more recent developments in the field of leader–member exchange (LMX) theory to identify specific issues related to leader–member agreement and follower consensus that have potentially important theoretical and practical implications. We introduce the concept of LMX excellence, which involves high-quality LMX, high leader–member agreement as well as high group consensus in LMX quality. We outline how leaders and followers' behaviour as well as context can enhance or hinder the development of LMX excellence and conclude with an overview of the practical and theoretical implications as well as future research needs.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/675384f93306360d945b08b73e7931f37b34348f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

1. Daniel Spurk
2. Janaki Gooty
3. A. Abele
4. O. Epitropaki
5. B. Schyns
6. Robin Martin
7. Francis J. Yammarino
8. A. Hirschi

In Social Psychology

1. Daniel Spurk
2. B. Schyns
3. Janaki Gooty
4. Robin Martin
5. A. Abele
6. Allan Lee
7. G. Thomas
8. O. Epitropaki

Citations in the corpus

• The Leader–Member Exchange Relationship (2016, methodology): “…and findings create a crossroads juncture for LMX research in that perhaps more theoretical development is needed on LMX excellence as discussed in Schyns and Day (2010) rather than LMX or LMX differentiation alone, which has been the predominant focus of the majority of this research.”
• Leader-member Exchange (LMX) and Performance: A Meta-Analytic Review (2016, background): “These differences might be conceptual or methodological in nature (see Schyns & Day, 2010).”
• Reciprocal Relationships between Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Job Satisfaction: A Cross-Lagged Analysis (2011, background): “Second, the present study adds to the notion that followers can play a crucial role in the leadership process (Howell & Shamir, 2005; Schyns & Day, 2010), which has up to now received only little empirical attention.”
• Organizational climate, relative psychological climate and job satisfaction: The example of supportive leadership climate (2009, background): “However, the above-mentioned problem of the interdependence of climate quality and climate strength poses problems, as one would assume that positive results only emerge when climate is strong and at the same time climate level is high (a phenomenon that in the context of LMX has recently been dubbe”
• Workplace loneliness, leader-member exchange and creativity: The cross-level moderating role of leader compassion (2017, background): “Given that engaging in social exchange is a risky decision that requires trust (Schyns & Day, 2010), lonely employees who see leaders as less trustworthy are relatively less willing to accept the roles assigned by their leaders than their non-lonely peers.”