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agreement with the organisational commitment and turnover intent across these
groups.
The results show that, though the staff and their supervisors have presented moderately
high scores for their LMX (mean staff LMX = 5.8 and mean supervisor LMX = 5.34),
the level of agreement is low (r = 0.154, p < 0.01).This may indicate a communication
gap between staff and supervisors. Due to a lack of communication, staff may perceive
that the supervisors rate their LMX similar to their rating. Similarly, supervisors may
also perceive that their staff rate their LMX similar to their rating. The findings are
similar to those of other LMX agreement studies where the importance of
communication is highlighted. For example, Minsky (2002) suggested that
communication feedback in LMX agreement is similar to same-way rating standards
established in performance appraisal. The study further suggests that structured
feedback would provide specific information to subordinates and supervisors regarding
their expectation in the supervisor-subordinate relationship.
Furthermore, the poor level of agreement may be attributed to supervisors and
subordinates’ assumptions created by their previous experiences. These findings are
similar to studies into cognitive leaderships and relationship schemas. For example,
Ritter and Lord (2007) found that subordinates’ previous incidents and experiences
play an important role in characterising their assumptions of present supervisors.
Further. Huang et al. (2008) found higher LMX agreement, when similar levels of
schematic assessments between supervisors and subordinates were established.
Therefore, it can be perceived that low levels of LMX agreement may be due to lower
levels of schematic assessments between supervisors and subordinates.
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