Beyond relationship quality: The role of leader–member exchange importance in leader–follower dyads

In this paper, we introduce a novel construct, leader–member exchange (LMX) importance, which we position as a meta‐perception indicating whether followers view their LMX relationship as personally important or valuable to them. Based on social exchange theory, we examine the extent to which the obligation followers feel towards their leader depends jointly on the quality and the importance of the LMX relationship. We examine how LMX importance...