Leader-membership exchange (LMX) impact on work home interference in a South African commuter transport engineering company
Abstract
The South African workplace, especially the manufacturing and engineering industry are confronted with many leadership challenges, specifically the value of the employment relationship between subordinates with their supervisors that remain vital for the work-family spill-overs these employees experience. Organisational psychologists have paid increased research attention to the trouble employees have in effectively reconcile their family life and work-related responsibilities. However, research focusing on the potential positive and negative consequences of being involved in Leader -Member Exchange (LMX) dyadic relationships have been limited and in order to understand the complexity of these relationships, it is vital to investigate how this social exchange relationship with the leader affects the different work to family spill-overs for the employee. This remains crucial for the manufacturing and engineering company in this study, which is often characterised by long working hours, high level of absenteeism and shift work. This study over-all objective was to examine the effect of the LMX relationship quality with unique negative work-home spill-over effect (work-home conflict) and a positive work-home spill-over effect (work-home enrichment) in a manufacturing and engineering company. More specifically, it analysed the significance of relationships between the different variables, differences between respondents' demographics and the role of work meaningfulness and role-overload as mediators in the relationship regarding LMX and these work-to-home interferences. A cross-sectional research design was compiled with an employee sample (N=120) taken inside the manufacturing and engineering company. The sample consists of employees from the different operational sections as well as from the support services. A five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) was employed with the measuring instruments used for demographic characteristics; Leader-member exchange (the LMX-7 scale); meaningfulness of work (Mottaz scale, 1981; role-overload (3-item scale of Bolino and Turnley (2005); work-home conflict (three items of the work ?-family interference dimension) and work-home enrichment (Affect dimension of work-family interference scale). Statistical analyses were carried out using the SAS statistical programme. Internal consistency reliability approach was applied for the determination of data reliability; confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilised to assess the questionnaires factorial validity; the researcher also used descriptive statistics to analyse the data with the intention to provide an over-all and rational picture of data gathered and the results were defined by using means and standard deviations. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine whether linear relationships existed amongst the different variables. Lastly, a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the proposed conceptual model by indicating whether there are correlations between the different variables. The findings from this study specified that the nature of the LMX relationship quality appears to be high and positively related to work-home enrichment, but negatively related to work-home conflict and roleoverload. Unexpectedly, no significant relationship between LMX and meaningful work could be observed. Differences were found between the respondents' demographics and their perceptions of the various constructs under research. Additionally, although it was found that role-overload does act as a mediator in the relationship between LMX and work-home conflict, the results on meaningful work unpredictably revealed a non-existent relationship with LMX and work-home enrichment. A discussion of the results, limitations, and contributions were presented and recommendations were made for future research on the topic and intended for organisations to follow up on.