Examining the Relationship between Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Objective Performance within Higher Education: An Exploratory Empirical Study

• Published in: Journal of leadership education Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 109 - 128
• Main Authors: Peterson, Tim O, Aikens, Shontarius D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hays Association of Leadership Educators 15.04.2017; Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Subjects: College Freshmen; Correlation; Factor Analysis; Grade Point Average; Grades (Scholastic); Higher education; Hypotheses; Hypothesis Testing; Job performance; Leader-member exchange; Leadership; Peer Relationship; Power Structure; Regression (Statistics); Social exchange theory; Statistical Significance; Student Leadership; Student Surveys; Student teacher relationship; Work environment
• DOI: 10.12806/V16/I2/R7
• ISSN: 1552-9045

While the common suggestion in leader-member exchange (LMX) research is that there is a strong relationship between LMX and performance, a closer look at these studies reveal that the performance measures in the majority of studies are primarily subjective in nature such as performance reviews. Relatively few studies examine the LMX-objective performance (OP) relationship. The findings from those studies are not consistent subjective performance studies. While most LMX studies are conducted in a work environment, this paper adds to the literature by examining this in a higher education. The findings indicated a significantly positive regression coefficient between Professional Respect and midterm grades. Based on the results, the authors introduce the idea of the "peer leader effect" and discussed the development of peer leaders.