Supervisor vs. Subordinate Perception on Leader-Member Exchange Quality: A Malaysian Perspective

Abstract

There is considerable research evidence (e.g., Campbell, White, & Johnson, 2003; Schriesheim, Neider, & Scandura, 1998; Xin, 2004) to suggest that supervisors and subordinates do not agree about the quality of their relationships. Since these past studies were mainly found in the western countries, this study was undertaken to investigate the dimensionality of a specific leader-member exchange (LMX) measure across two different samples in the Malaysian context. Accordingly, we employed a principal components analysis on LMX data obtained from two different sources: 229 employees and their 109 immediate supervisors representing various organizations in Northern Malaysia. As expected, we found that employees’ perceptions of the quality of exchanges differ from those of their supervisors. The implications of these findings for future research on LMX are discussed.