The Critique of Lmx Theroy

Introduction

In any work setting, one of the most vital relationships is that of the supervisors and their subordinates. It is an important relationship as these two sides must consistently communicate with each other in order to get their tasks completed successfully and satisfactorily. Moreover, communication between a supervisor and their subordinates will also bring about a better understanding of not only what the subordinates’ want or need, but also of what the supervisor expects from its members as well, resulting in a more ideal working environment and thus leading to higher retention.

This relationship is termed as Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), which is a theme that is currently being giving increase attention in academic literatures. In previous days, research on leadership has been done with the understanding that all leaders interact with all of their subordinates in the same way. However, leadership research has now evolved to accept that each supervisor has different ways of communicating with their subordinates. Research on LMX has shown that it has an impact on many aspects in the working atmosphere. What research is lacking, though, was the factors that lead to LMX.

The academic literature “Leader-member exchange development: a hospitality antecedent investigation” by Carl P. Borchgrevink and Franklin J. Boster attempts to investigate what factors will lead to LMX based on data from previous academic researches, emphasizing on the hospitality industry, and testing them through statistical methods. In this paper, the authors first describe the correlation of LMX with different subordinates’ behaviors in the working place, then describes the possible antecedents to LMX, followed by a statistical analysis to find which potential factors would be the actual leading factors to LMX, and ending with a discussion of the results. In the next section, a brief summary and key points of this academic paper is described.

LMX & Subordinate Behavior

The authors have gathered the effects of LMX on subordinates and have described them as follows:

• Turnover and occupational commitment: A company with low quality LMX, or those with low communication skills between the supervisor and subordinate, will result in employees quitting their job more frequent than those with high quality LMX. Meanwhile, a high correlation was found between LMX quality and organizational commitment.

• Performance: Findings to this category have been a mixed one, suggesting that there are other factors that are more likely to affect performance than LMX. However, task characteristics have been found to affect job performance. If a task is unpredictable and highly variable, then LMX is related positively to performance and supervision will be needed. However, if the task is routine,