Summary Leadership & Management - Leader–member exchange (LMX), job autonomy, and creative work involvement
6 views 0 purchase
Course
Leadership & Management (6012S0051Y)
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
An extensive summary for Leadership and Management Pre-Master course, article "Leader–member exchange (LMX), job autonomy, and creative work involvement". Final exam grade 8.3.
Leader-member exchange (LMX), job autonomy,
and creative work involvement
Volmer, J., Spurk, D., & Niessen, C. (2012)
● Global companies are rapidly changing, needing employees who search for new
opportunities and who continuously improve their work environment.
● Creativity has been considered to be a key driver for organisational effectiveness and
survival.
○ Creativity = the generation of novel and useful ideas
● Leaders are believed to be one of the most influential predictors of creativity at work.
○ Leaders need to know how to provide a context for employees' creativity
● Multiple streams of research looking into the impact of leaders on creativity:
○ Leader and follower traits
○ Transformational leadership
○ Benevolent leadership
○ Empowering leadership
○ Association between a relational concept of leadership, namely leader-member
exchange (LMX) and creativity - LMX is also the focus of this research.
● LMX theory:
○ Explicit focus on unique, dyadic relationships
○ The notion that leaders and followers negotiate their relationship over time
○ Research on the LMX-creativity association revealed heterogeneous findings,
pointing to inconsistencies in this relationship and suggesting an influence of a
third variable.
● Purpose of this research: extend existing research that connects LMX with creativity
by focusing on job autonomy as a moderator.
● Previous research focuses on employees’ creative work involvement as an important
component of creativity, together with creative performance. This research focuses
on creative work involvement:
○ Creative work involvement = the extent to which an employee engages his or
her time and effort resources in creative processes associated with work
■ Focuses on individuals' subjective assessment of their involvement in
creative tasks at work
■ Creative work involvement is regarded as an important precursor of
creative outcomes because it is strongly related to creative performance
and innovation.
○ Creative performance = supervisors' evaluation of employees' creative
problem-solving at work, or objectively (through the use of external judges)
assesses numbers and quality of suggestions or ideas.
■ Focus on outcomes of creativity: i.e. the actual idea or solution
● Reason for this research: research on how job characteristics can foster creative
work involvement is still missing
● This research examines the moderating role of job autonomy in the relationship
between LMX and creative work involvement. Job autonomy as a moderator because:
○ It is one component of the Job Characteristics Model (JCM) that has received a
lot of research attention in the job design literature.
1
, ○ It has been considered to be of special importance among job characteristics
for numerous outcomes (e.g., performance, turnover intentions, satisfaction,
role conflict, anxiety), since job autonomy enables self-determination and
meaning
● Assumptions: opportunities provided within high-quality LMX relationships are best
used in conjunction with job design features (i.e. job autonomy) which allows
employees to determine the pace, sequence, and methods when accomplishing tasks.
● Job autonomy is important for creative work involvement as it provides employees –
beyond the trust and support provided by a high-quality LMX relationship – with a
sense of responsibility for their jobs.
● Contributions to literature:
○ Examines the important role of leaders in fostering employees' creative work
involvement as an important antecedent of creative outcomes, which has yet to
be adequately examined.
○ No research was previously done that focuses on the interplay between a
relational concept of leadership (i.e. LMX) and job autonomy for creative work
involvement.
■ Identifying job autonomy as one potential moderator: job design
features influence the type or content of the social exchange process
between supervisor and subordinate.
○ The study extends earlier research by theoretically integrating the important job
design variable of job autonomy into LMX theory.
● Practical contributions: results provide important information for practitioners because
identifying job conditions that amplify leadership effects are relevant for designing
intervention tools in leadership training programs.
Theory and hypothesis
Leader-member-exchange (LMX) and creative work environment
LMX theory builds on social exchange theory and assumes that:
● A supervisor has a unique relationship with each employee
● The relationship is negotiated over time as a result of role expectations and fulfillments
between leaders and members.
A high-quality relationship = favourable reciprocal exchanges between and has numerous
positive outcomes: better performance, more commitment, job satisfaction and a higher
degree of mutual liking.
Possible reasons for positive LMX-creativity relationship include:
● Employees in high-quality relationships are more creative because they have a more
focused approach to challenging and difficult tasks, they have greater risk-taking and
receive more task-related recognition, interpersonal support and appreciation.
● A good LMX relationship is accompanied by encouraging climate perceptions.
● Employees who enjoy a high-quality LMX relationship feel obligated to reciprocate to
their supervisors by engaging in discretionary processes at work,
On average, research showed there is a positive relationship between LMX and creativity, but
there are studies that found no relationship as well. Therefore, this study is looking to examine
2
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller eeania. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $6.11. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
