Individual and Group Level Antecedents of Team-Member Exchange (TMX) and its Associated Outcomes

Abstract

In recent years, teams have become a popular and efficient way of managing and performing work tasks. The idea behind teams is that if they are structured to maximize communication density, connectivity, and minimize hierarchy, there will be greater flexibility in communicating, cooperating, and collaborating on work-related tasks. Human resources are growing concern for today’s competitive organizations. Therefore it is very essential to focus on this issue seriously. In this review paper, we have integrated empirical research regarding the antecedents and consequences of Team-Member Exchange (TMX). An exchange relationship between team members is very critical but relatively unexplored phenomenon in the field of organizational behaviour. We have proposed a theoretical model to study certain selected antecedents (or predictor) and consequences of team-member exchange (TMX) process, both at the individual and group level. The individual level antecedents included in this paper are organizational justice, emotional intelligence, workplace friendship and group level antecedents are collectivistic orientation, team similarity, team identification, team-member affect, team reflexivity and group potency. Likewise, individual level outcomes associated with high quality team-member exchange are organizational citizenship behaviour, job performance, mental health and group level outcomes associated with high quality team-member exchange are team conflict, team climate, team commitment, team performance and team innovativeness. Further, several preliminary propositions have been offered to guide future research and the role of team-member exchange (TMX) within a broad theoretical and empirical context is discussed.Finally, we have discussed the gaps in the relevant literature, major issues for future research on team-member exchange (TMX) along with implications and interventions about how management can develop good interrelationships between co-workers.