The dyadic level of conceptualization and analysis: A missing link in multilevel OB research?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2010
• Author: Neal M. Ashkanasy,Herman H. M. Tse
• Date: 01 November 2015
• Published date: 01 November 2015

The dyadic level of conceptualization and analysis:

A missing link in multilevel OB research?

HERMAN H. M. TSE

1

*AND NEAL M. ASHKANASY

2

1

Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, Nathan, QLD, Australia

2

UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, St Lucia, QLD, Australia

Summary Despite burgeoning multilevel research in organizational behavior over the past two decades, our understand-

ing of dyadic relationships at work remains underdeveloped. Focusing on leader–member exchange, we

discuss conceptual and methodological challenges that have hampered research at this level and illustrate

how and why such analysis might provide new insights. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: dyadic relationship; level of analysis; leader–member exchange (LMX)

The progressive development of multilevel theory building and testing in organizational behavior (OB) over the last

two decades has underlined the importance of such research in this field (e.g., Hitt, Beamish, Jackson, & Mathieu,

2007; Mathieu & Chen, 2011). While much of this work has focused on combinations of different levels of analysis,

including intrapersonal, individual, group, and organization levels (Ashkanasy, 2003; Gooty, Serban, Thomas,

Gavin, & Yammarino, 2012), it seems that dyads (i.e., two individuals in a one-on-one relationship—dyadic level

of analysis) are often ignored (see Gooty & Yammarino, 2011; Krasikova & LeBreton, 2012 for reviews). We attri-

bute this deficiency to conceptual and methodological challenges that have emerged in theorizing and modeling

dyads. In particular, these seem to have limited our understanding of dyadic scholarship, including leader–member

exchange (LMX), mentoring, negotiation, interpersonal trust, conflict, workplace friendship, employer–employee

relationships, and performance evaluation in OB.

To address these challenges, we identify the nature of dyadic relationships and their characteristics and discuss the

necessity of aligning levels of theory, measurement, and analysis appropriately. We focus in particular on LMX as a

means to illustrate how effective dyadic designs and analysis can provide new insights into complex, dynamic topics

and discuss how these insights can be extended to other research domains involving dyadic relationships. Our goal is

thus to review some of the challenging issues in dyadic research in OB and to use LMX studies as examples with a

view to stimulate future research ideas in other research domains.

Dyadic Relationships

One conceptualchallenge pertaining todyadic research is the lack ofan accepted and precise definitionof the notion that

one can apply across different topics in OB research. In this regard, dyadic constructs have typically been defined

within the context of research domains such as mentoring, negotiation, workplace friendship, coworker–exchange

relationships, employee–organization relationships, and employee–customer service relationships. Such context-spe-

cificdefinitions may have masked the unique features of a dyadic construct (i.e., it is a one-on-one relationship),

however, and in particular, our understanding of how the two entities in a dyad contribute to the relationship

(Gooty et al., 2012; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006; Schriesheim, Castro, Zhou, & Yammarino, 2001).

*Correspondence to: Herman H. M. Tse, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia. E-mail: h.tse@griffith.edu.au

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 23 March 2015, Accepted 23 March 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 1176–1180 (2015)

Published online 21 April 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2010

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