Understanding the relationship between span of control and subordinate consensus in leader–member exchange

Abstract

Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractLeader-member exchange (LMX) refers to the relationship quality a leader shares with members of his or her workgroup, typically described as differentiation in quality within the group. Numerous empirical studies demonstrate that the quality of this relationship is positively related to followers' attitudes and organisational outcomes. It has been proposed that the quality of possible relationships between the leader and the led will be affected by the number of employees directly reporting to the leader, with empirical findings showing a slight negative relationship between span of control and LMX. Little is known, however, about how span of control influences variability in the quality of leader-member-exchange within the context of work groups. Therefore, following a recognized assumption to strive for as many as possible leadership relations on a high LMX level, we examine how individual and group level (consensus in) LMX can be based on different dimensions of the LMX relationship. We suggest how LMX consensus and a high LMX level can be established even in large spans of control.

Transformational leadership and R&D workers' multiple commitments: Do justice and span of control matter?

“…Similarly, Bass (1990) argues that followers can interact more and develop a higher quality of communication with physically close leaders, which is more likely to occur in a smaller span of control. Consistent with these findings, Schyns et al (2010) suggest that for employees to exert extra effort and show liking of their leaders, the leader-follower relationship should be close. In other words, leaders need to build and maintain day-to-day interactions with their followers, which is easier to do when the number of followers is relatively small (Schyns, Paul, Mohr, & Blank, 2005).…”

“…Such studies of leader distance consider span of control as one aspect of structural distance. Accordingly, the present study adopts a narrower definition of structural distance as the span of control, which is defined as the number of followers reporting formally and directly to a particular leader (Schyns, Maslyn, & Weibler, 2010).…”

A team level investigation of the relationship between Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) differentiation, and commitment and performance

“…In the first step of this regression analysis, we controlled for team size and average team tenure. Span of leadership has been indicated as a boundary condition for establishing a large number of high quality relationships (Schyns, Maslyn, & Weibler, 2010;Schyns, Paul, Mohr, & Blank, 2005), and therefore LMX differentiation can be expected to increase with team size. Moreover, in teams with a higher average tenure, members will -on average -have had more time to interact and form a consensual perception of their leader's behavior.…”

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

“…Span of leadership has been indicated as a boundary condition for establishing a large number of high quality relationships (Schyns et al, 2005;Schyns, Maslyn, & Weibler, 2008).…”