Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend our understanding of the role of leaders in team relationship conflict. Leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation was hypothesized to be positively related to team relationship conflict. Additionally, ethical leadership was hypothesized to moderate relations between LMX differentiation and team relationship conflict. Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were examined in a sample of 79 working teams. Data were collected via a questionnaire containing measures of LMX, team relationship conflict and ethical leadership. Findings – Hypotheses were supported by the data. LMX differentiation was positively related to team relationship conflict, and ethical leadership weakened the relationship between LMX differentiation and team relationship conflict. Originality/value – This is the first theoretical analysis and empirical study of relationships between LMX differentiation and team relationship conflict. Theoretically, by using LMX theory to account for team-level outcomes, this study extended power of LMX theory. Practically, these results suggest that leaders may be responsible for team relationship conflict.

In this essay, the authors discuss the neglected state of organizational-level turnover research in the Chinese context. They provide a brief overview of the importance of turnover research in the organizational sciences, highlight the role of performancerelated turnover rates research, and outline general theories and findings that appear in the Western and English-language literature. This evidence is compared with a dearth of studies using samples of Chinese organizations and in Chinese-language journals. They conclude by calling for additional theory and empirical studies on turnover rates.Keywords: Turnover, Retention, Strategic human resource management, Organizational performance, Productivity, Strategic managementThe study of turnover-voluntary and involuntary departures from the organization--spans 100 years and the area is considered a foundation area within industrial and organizational psychology, human resource management, and organizational behavior (Hom et al., 2017). Aside from the practical value of turnover research, this domain has produced some of the most iconic individual-level theories in our field, such as March and Simon's (1958) pioneering desirability and ease of movement theory, Mobley's (1979) job content model, Mitchell's (1994) unfolding model, and Mitchell et al.'s (2001) job embeddedness theory. Spanning nearly 70 years, these theories provide detailed, multifaceted explanations for why people quit their jobs and why they stay.In terms of implications for management and organizations, organizational-level turnover research may be even more critical. This stream details not only the antecedents of turnover patterns in organizations, but also how workforce churn impacts the organizational performance. At this level of analysis, the research tradition is nearly as rich. Researchers in many disciplines (e.g., management, finance, economics, sociology, medicine, marketing, and public administration) have detailed conceptual models and accompanied them with empirical testing for why and how the organizational context and practices influence quit and discharge rates (e.g., Batt and Colvin, 2011;Shaw et al., 1998) and for how turnover patterns relate to important outcomes such as accident rates, productivity, profitability, and stock market returns (e.g., Arthur, 1994;Huselid, 1995;Shaw, Gupta, et al., 2005;Shaw, Duffy, et al., 2005). These findings are showcased in two Shaw and Shi Frontiers of Business Research in China (2017) 11:6 DOI 10.1186/s11782-017-0001-y major meta-analyses (Heavey et al., 2013;Park and Shaw, 2013). Theory tradition at the organizational level is also abundant; major, differential theories have been developed or brought to bear in economics, sociology, human resource management, and organizational behavior, to name a few Shaw, Gupta, et al., 2005). In this editorial, we outline the importance of such organizational-level turnover rate research and note the striking dearth and major omission of this type of research in the Chinese context, and outline ...

Drawing on implicit leadership theory (ILT) research, we develop and test a model that explains why integrating transformational leadership and servant leadership may achieve enhanced leader effectiveness. Using a sample of 237 hairstylists and 474 of their customers representing 31 salons, we confirm the augmentation effects of transformational leadership and servant leadership on followers' perceptions of leader stereotypicality (i.e., the extent to which a leader matches followers' implicit theories of leaders) and on customer satisfaction. However, we do not find the hypothesized interaction effect of transformational and servant leadership. Implications are discussed and directions for future research are suggested.

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