Chapter 3: Lmx Differentiation: Key Concepts and Related Empirical Findings

Once a newly embraced concept in leadership research, differential treatment and different quality relationships between managers and subordinates within work groups is again an area of interest for leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. Current interest, however, draws from the recognition that work groups today are less a combination of independent manager-subordinate dyads, and more a network of these dyads with ties to one another and having effects on one another. This chapter reviews the work in this area, and then presents a research study that explores perceptions of a high LMX and a low LMX coworker’s use of ingratiation toward the manager. The study finds that the extent to which respondents perceived that their high LMX coworker ingratiates varies depending on the LMX status of the respondent. These effects were not found for judgments of low LMX coworkers. Based on the results of our empirical investigation and a review of recent literature on differentiation, we conclude that current theorizing in LMX argues against differentiation and toward all higher LMXs, and that empirical findings support this premise.