A Social Hierarchy Perspective on the Detrimental Effects of Leader–Member Exchange Differentiation on Team Functioning: Leader‐Conferred Status Versus Member‐Conferred Status
研究区分了领导赋予和成员赋予两种社会等级，发现只有当两种地位感知不一致时，领导-成员交换差异化才会引发地位冲突并损害团队绩效。
ABSTRACT Leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation is often found to undermine team functioning. In this paper, we employ theoretical work on social hierarchy to investigate when and why LMX differentiation may not hinder team functioning. We differentiate two sources of members’ social hierarchy in teams: the leader‐conferred hierarchy based on leaders’ actions and the member‐conferred hierarchy based on respect, admiration, and informal influence that members possess. The leader‐conferred hierarchy provides information about members’ within‐team status conferred by the leader, while the member‐conferred hierarchy informs members’ within‐team status conferred by team members collectively. We propose that the detrimental effects of LMX differentiation on team functioning are influenced by the degree of perceived alignment of members’ within‐team status between these two hierarchies (i.e., perceived status alignment). Only when perceived status alignment is low does LMX differentiation induce members’ status conflict and thus hinder team performance. The results of our two independent field studies lend support to our propositions.