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Abstract Based on social comparison theory, the current study investigated the question of how leader-member exchange (LMX) influences employee’s explicit and implicit attitude toward coworkers (Study1), and how team cohesion moderates the relationship between dissimilarity in employees’ LMX and their attitude towards each other (Study2). Through self-report and implicit association test (IAT), study 1 found that (1) the criterion employed by supervisors to differentiate in-group and out-group members will have an impact on the subordinates’ explicit attitude. When the criterion is competence, subordinates will show relatively positive explicit attitude towards in-group colleagues. When the criterion is similarity or personal relationship, subordinates will show relatively neutral explicit attitude towards in-group colleagues; (2) no matter what the criterion is, subordinates always hold more negative implicit attitude towards in-group than out-group colleagues. Through survey and social relations modeling, study 2 found that cohesion moderates the effect of dissimilarity in LMX on employee’s attitude towards coworkers. The current study enriches the research of LMX, and provides practical implications for team management.
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Received: 26 May 2016
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2017, Vol. 14 
