An examination of the relationship between Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) agreement and the work outcomes of hospitality employees

Both Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) and employee work outcomes, such as organisational commitment and turnover intent, have already been considered by organisational researchers to be firmly established constructs. Few studies, however, have examined a new and emerging concept called LMX agreement. Minsky (2002) observes LMX agreement as the level of similarity in perceptions between supervisors and subordinates. The present study investigates the relationship of this LMX agreement to employee’s organisational commitment and turnover intent in the hospitality industry context. This study was undertaken with hospitality workers in India. The final sample consisted of 350 frontline employees and their 43 supervisors respectively, resulting in 315 meaningful supervisor-subordinate dyads. The characteristics of participants were analysed using descriptive statistics, while LMX agreement was measured by computing the absolute differences between supervisor and subordinate LMX perceptions. A factor structure of all the study variables was examined using a principal component factor analysis, and a series of bivariate correlation analyses was employed to test the research hypotheses. The findings show that LMX agreement had a positive relationship with subordinates’ organisational commitment and a negative relationship with subordinates’ turnover intentions. In addition, this relationship was significant across all sub-groups in terms of their demographic characteristics. Hospitality managers can use the findings of this study to understand work relationships between supervisory and non-supervisory employees and help human resource departments as they plan training sessions for supervisors and their subordinates. Furthermore, this research, being the first of this kind of study in the hospitality context, adds weight to the growing LMX agreement literature