Getting One’s Way vs. Maintaining Relationships with Supervisors

Isabel C. Botero is an Assistant Professor in the School of
Communication at Illinois State University. She received her
Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University in 2005.
Her research interests include: Communication processes between
employees and supervisors, communication in teams, and
communication in and about family firms.

Have you ever wondered why employees choose to say
certain things and not others when they are trying to
convince their supervisor to do something for them? I
was very curious about this and, in particular,
whether employees from different countries use
similar approaches when trying to convince their
supervisors to comply with their request. Thus, when
it came time to do my final project for my Doctoral
Degree in Communication, I created this study to
answer my question. This cross cultural study
examines how leader-member exchange (LMX) affects
message production in situations in which an employee
is trying to gain compliance from a supervisor to
obtain a personal benefit. Two hypotheses are tested:
One that focuses on relationship maintenance and a
second that centers on the idea of idiosyncrasy
credits. If you are a person interested in
influencing others, especially your supervisor, this
will be a good first step to learn about upward
influence and how our goals affect how you
communicate with others in the organization.