Supervisor-subordinate agreement in perception of leader-member exchange quality: a beautiful misunderstanding

Abstract

Building on role theory, this paper examines the differences between supervisors and subordinates in their perception of their leader-member exchange relationships. More specifically, we hypothesise that (1) supervisors’ assessment of the dyadic relationships would be more favourable than the subordinates’ assessment of the same, and (2) this pattern will be more obvious in a collectivistic and high power distance society than in an individualistic and low power distance society. We test these two hypotheses by undertaking a meta-analysis on published LMX studies based on North American samples and collecting survey data from two independent samples in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Results of the LMX meta-analysis do not confirm our first hypothesis. However, we find consistent support that Chinese supervisors rated the LMX relationship more favourably than subordinates did. There is support to hypothesis 2 that the perceptual discrepancy was significantly larger in a collectivistic and high power distance society (e.g., China) than in an individualistic and low power distance society (e.g., North America). Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and future research direction are discussed.