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Leader-member exchange (LMX) generally refers to the leadership process centered on the interactions between leaders and direct reports. The basic premise of high quality leader-member exchange relationships holds that direct reports gain tremendous benefits through these partnerships. LMX is perhaps the most commonly researched theory of leadership. However, few studies have specifically examined the role of dyad members’ sex as a predictor of quality LMX. Several studies investigating the role of dyad members’ sex and quality LMX examined the effect of sex in an aggregated variable, demographic similarity, which often included other demographic characteristics such as age, education level and race, yielding mixed results. This article’s purpose is to (a) review the evolution of leader-member exchange theory, (b) examine literature regarding potential effects of sex of dyad members on quality leader-member exchanges, and (c) discuss implications and future research concerning the role of dyad members’ sex and leader-member exchanges.

With the increasingly intensifying competition and the development and maturity of the modern organization, employees have no longer fully been attached to the organization. The employee‐organization relationship gets more and more attention. As spokespersons of their organizations, the leaders in all levels, to a considerable extent, have an effect on the understanding of the employee for the organization. The purpose of this paper is to explore leader and member exchange (LMX) relationships' impact on employees' organizational commitment and discuss the mediating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) during the period.

A sample consisting of 423 employees in four organizations was investigated. After testing the reliability of all questionnaires, the authors constructed a model of the mediating effect of POS between LMX relationships' impact on employees' organizational commitment and used structural equation model technology to verify it.

The results showed that: affect, loyalty and professional respect have a significant impact on affective commitment but the result of the contribution is not significant. So, work exchange (contribution) was different from social exchange (affect, loyalty and professional respect) in the influence on employee's organizational affective commitment. POS had an intermediary effect between the affect exchange and affective commitment in the organization. Leader‐membership has an important implication for the employee‐organization relationship. The exchanges of different dimensions between the leader and the member were different no matter for the affected contents of the attitude to the organization of the employee or for the affecting mechanism.

All variable data came from the same employee questionnaires, which may lead to potential problems of same source bias or common method variance. In order to test the influence of common method variance, this research carried out Harman's one‐factor test.

The organization should emphasize developing the relationship between the leaders from various levels and the members, and in particular the social exchange out of the work must not be neglected.

The present study explores LMX's influence on employees' affective commitment towards the organization from a social exchange perspective. The authors adopted multi‐dimensions LMX, which is different from prior studies (e.g. Wayne et al. and Zhou and Bao) to discuss the mechanism of LMX's impact on subordinates' attitudes to the organization.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is deemed important in developing interpersonal relationships. However, in the development of team-member exchange (TMX), the effect of EI on TMX and the team context have been largely ignored. For filling these gaps, this study explores the effect of employee EI on employee TMX and introduces EI-based leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation as a team context to moderate the EI-TMX relationship.

Data were drawn from 51 teams (consisting of 293 followers and 51 team leaders) selected from 30 companies (across the industries of technology, real estate, commerce and manufacturing).

Results revealed that employee EI was positively related to employee TMX. EI acted as the basis of LMX differentiation (EI was positively related to LMX, EI variety was positively associated with LMX differentiation), and EI-based LMX differentiation acted as a favorable context for high-EI employees to develop high-quality TMX.

This study contributes to the understanding of EI’s significant and complex influence on interpersonal exchange relationships between leaders, followers and coworkers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a number of limitations of the theory on leader‐member exchange (LMX). This paper aims to argue that under certain conditions high quality LMX can be dysfunctional. It proceeds to identify the antecedents and outcomes of dysfunctional LMX.

This paper examines the theory on LMX and justice to identify the conditions that lead to dysfunctional LMX and its consequences.

A review of the extant literature indicates that favouritism by the leader and the reliance on impression management by followers can lead to dysfunctional LMX. This can then lead to negative reactions from group members and undermine work group cohesiveness.

This paper points to new directions for research in LMX. It highlights the need to recognize that under certain conditions high quality LMX can be perceived as unfairness.

Managers need to recognize issues needing their attention in developing quality exchange with their subordinates. Failure to address these issues can undermine work group performance.

This study contributes to the debate on the role of LMX. Specifically, it attempts to add to the discussion in the emerging literature on dysfunctional LMX.

The paper aims to establish the relationship between leader member exchange (LMX) relationship and work role performance through the dynamic process of employee engagement. The study outlines why and how leadership is important for employee engagement and effective work role performance. Adopting a survey based research design, a sample of 198 Indian working managers at different levels including various sectors has supported our hypotheses that employee engagement mediates the relations between LMX and work role performance. It provides empirical insights about how employee engagement process influences the LMX and work role performance relationships. The results also suggest that high quality relationship of employees with their leaders is positively related to employee engagement and their work role performance.

Recent literature has focused on the outcomes associated with employee performance, but how and when it leads to work-related outcomes further is an area that has not gained due attention. Against this backdrop, this study entails investigating the effects of employee performance on their taking-charge behavior through the mediation of leader–member exchange (LMX) and the leader's task-oriented behavior's moderating role.

Using a questionnaire-based survey design, the study is based on a sample of 304 employees of pharmaceutical companies' sales departments. The two-stage lag approach has been used for data collection, where leader–follower dyads participated in the study.

The study's findings reveal that better-performing employees are considered in-group members by their leaders, and the presence of high LMX makes employees reciprocate by adopting charge behavior. Furthermore, a leader's task-oriented behavior fosters the performance – LMX and performance – taking charge relationship mediated through LMX, a moderated mediation mechanism exists.

The study offers a novel explanation by considering employee performance as a predictor instead of an outcome variable. Furthermore, recent literature has considered adverse outcomes of performance, while this study considers the positive aspects of employee performance (i.e. LMX and charge behavior). It also offers the role of both employee- and leader-specific factors in determining the LMX relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to propose the new typologies of leader–member exchange (LMX) theory.

This research conducted a thorough, targeted literature review along with a qualitative research method involving in-depth, open-ended and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with 21 managers and 70 employees of different public organizations during the two years. After interviews, data were transcribed and the qualitative research method of theory elaboration was used to extract the themes from the transcripts.

The results showed that the LMX has a dynamic nature with four different versions. Also, the results discovered the multi-level of LMX with three different types of leaders’ styles. In addition, four factors that cause damage to high-quality relationships have been identified (i.e. perceived dissimilarity, feeling of being betrayed, failure to meet the expectations and impression management). Finally, the results discovered five dark sides of LMX.

This research proposes the new typologies of LMX and the approach and findings of this research contribute to the literature of leadership theories.

While studying the association between leader–member exchange (LMX) quality and employee work outcomes, the existing scholarship has generally focused on employee perspectives of LMX quality. Being more inclusive, this study utilizes role theory to incorporate the dyadic (in)congruence in LMX quality and their effects on ratee feedback seeking behavior.

Data elicited from N = 156 matched rater–ratee dyads comprising engineers working with telecommunication organizations of Pakistan. Purposive sampling was done to ensure that rater–ratee dyads were in continuous contact by their customized employee portals.

Results of polynomial regression analysis revealed that leader–member congruence in their perceptions of LMX quality enhanced member's feedback seeking behavior. Asymmetrical incongruence, i.e. the member perceived higher LMX quality than the leader, is found to predict member's feedback seeking behavior, even higher than both levels of congruence (high- and low-quality LMX).

The scope of this study was members' reactions to performance appraisal. However, other performance appraisal outcomes are plausible such as, leader performance. This study explored the objective incongruence, yet subjective congruence can be more conclusive about the results of the present study.

LMX incongruence is more detrimental to members in high interaction situations. When the member perceives lower quality LMX than the leader, expectations regarding resource exchanges and behaviors are more likely to be unfulfilled for the member. Feedback seeking behavior being a member related outcome is likely to be affected more negatively in such conditions of incongruence. Second, it is likely that when there is a high degree of incongruence among the dyads, LMX congruence may become more critical to the members which in turn may give them a sense of belongingness within the dyad. Third, the relationship between leader–member dyads is affected by the social interactions facilitating the members' opinion sharing.

The study suggests that to fully grasp the implications of LMX theory, we need to consider the viewpoints of both the dyadic members at the same time.

Although organizations expect employees to share knowledge with each other, knowledge hiding has been documented among coworker dyads. This paper aims to draw on social exchange theory to examine if and why knowledge hiding also occurs in teams.

Two studies, using experimental (115 student participants on 29 teams) and field (309 employees on 92 teams) data, explore the influence of leader-member exchange (LMX) on knowledge hiding in teams, as well as the moderating role of collective (team-level) prosocial motivation.

The results of experimental Study 1 showed that collective prosocial motivation and LMX reduce knowledge hiding in teams. Field Study 2 further examined LMX, through its distinctive economic and social facets, and revealed the interaction effect of team prosocial motivation and social LMX on knowledge hiding.

This study complements existing research on knowledge hiding by focusing specifically on the incidence of this phenomenon among members of the same team. This paper presents a multi-level model that explores collective prosocial motivation as a cross-level predictor of knowledge hiding in teams, and examines economic LMX and social LMX as two facets of LMX.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) have interactive effects on affective commitment to the organization. The utility of Social Exchange Theory for explaining workplace attitudes and behaviors in non-Western settings has been questioned. Another objective is to test the hypotheses, which are based on Social Exchange Theory, within a Chinese context.

Cross-sectional, self-report data on LMX, POS and affective commitment were obtained from 428 full-time employees in China. In-role performance ratings were provided by immediate supervisors.

LMX and POS have synergistic effects on affective commitment. Affective commitment mediates both the relationship between LMX and in-role performance and the relationship between POS and in-role performance.

The limitations include using a cross-sectional, self-report design for LMX, POS and affective commitment, and only sampling employees in organizations in China. The findings support an explanation of workplace attitudes and behaviors in a non-Western setting based on social exchange. The effects of a proximate source of social exchange (i.e. LMX) on affective commitment depend on the level of a remote source of social exchange (i.e. POS), and vice versa.

Organizations need to improve the quality of their leader-follower relationships and support their members. Organizations need to increase affective commitment because it appears to drive in-role performance.

The authors show that LMX and POS from the same source (i.e. followers) may have interactive effects on affective organizational commitment as well as that social exchange may explain workplace attitudes and behaviors in China.