Chapter 7: Leader-Member Exchange in the People’s Republic of China: Preliminary Research on the Contents and Dimensions

Two data sets were used to generate measures of the domain of leader-member exchange in the Chinese organization context. In the first part, an inductive research method was employed to investigate the contents and categories of Chinese leader-member exchange quality. Based on 11 categories developed in the first part, a Chinese measure of LMX was developed and tested. Of the 5 dimensions in the new measure, 2 of them, loyalty and personal interaction, are emic dimensions which are rooted in Chinese culture, but are not predictive of leadership outcomes. The remaining 3 dimensions appear to be similar to Graen’s dimensions (2003) underlying the American LMX-7: Contribution (commitment), Closeness (trust and respect), and Liking (liking). We also provided the reliability and validity information on the new measure.