Being on the same page matters: A meta-analytic investigation of leader–member exchange (LMX) agreement.

Abstract

Although leader-member exchange (LMX) theory offers a detailed account of leader-follower relationship building, the importance of LMX agreement as a theoretically meaningful relational phenomenon has received less attention. This has, in turn, limited scholarly understanding of its pivotal role in leaderfollower relationships. We conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize the substantive implications of LMX agreement for leader-follower relationships and to further understand which factors may influence its variation across samples. Results from the random-effects metaregression analyses provided strong support for the moderating role of LMX agreement at the between-study level. Specifically, with higher levels of sample-level LMX agreement, the relationships between LMX and followers' task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors were stronger. Moreover, different national culture configurations (i.e., horizontal individualism vs. vertical collectivism) and changes in relationship tenure were significantly associated with LMX agreement. We also examined a host of methodological factors, which generally had a very limited impact on the study findings. Overall, these meta-analytic findings suggest LMX agreement should be considered as a key relational contingency in LMX theory, as it can help unlock the full potential of high-quality leader-follower relationships. Moreover, as a substantively meaningful phenomenon, its variation across situations is intricately related to contextual influences. Based on our theoretical integration and empirical synthesis, we discuss the implications for LMX theory and identify important directions for the next stages of LMX research.

Ethically treated yet closely monitored: Ethical leadership, leaders' close monitoring, employees' uncertainty, and employees' organizational citizenship behavior

“…Even when employees perceive that they have good relationships with their leaders, if the leaders and employees have not reached a consensus about their roles in those relationships, employees may develop a sense of role ambiguity and withdraw their voluntary commitment to OCB (Matta et al, 2015). Indeed, a recent meta-analytic study showed that the relationship between LMX and OCB is weaker at lower levels of LMX agreement (Yuan et al, 2023), which captures the role consensus between leaders and employees (Graen & Scandura, 1987). Because we did not measure supervisorrated LMX, we could not examine this possibility in our study.…”