Chapter 8: Examining Component Measures of Team Leadermember Exchange: Using Item Response Theory

Leader-member exchange (LMX) has developed into one of the most dominant modern theories of leadership (Graen, 2003; Liden, Sparrowe, & Wayne, 1997). Yet, the research has not taken advantage of more recently developed psychometric techniques such as item response theory (IRT). This chapter offers IRT as a set of tools for enhancing the understanding of LMX measures and provides an introduction to conducting IRT analyses. The newly developed measure of team LMX and MMX were subjected to IRT analyses and the findings indicate that this 6-item measure that includes 4 items from the classic LMX-7 measure supports Graen, Hui, and Taylor’s (2004) work on the psychometric quality of team LMX and MMX.

Results are compared to a previous IRT analysis of LMX-MDM.