ABSTRACT

The main subject of this paper is to investigate the leadership styles and Leader-member exchange quality (LMX) in tourism service industry in which customer satisfaction has a crucial importance. LMX is effective on the variables at individual, group and institutional level. The quality of the leader member interaction has explanatory power on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee turnover, intention to quit and absenteeism. So high quality LMX means more satisfied employees which brings customer satisfaction together. Within that context, searching the antecedents and consequences of high LMX environments is an important research area. In the literature, the impact of transformational and transactional leadership on LMX is investigated but the relationship between a culturally specific leadership model namely paternalistic leadership style and LMX is un-known. In this research model the impact of paternalistic leadership (subcomponents: benevolent, authoritarian and moral) on LMX is approved. 450 hotel managers (from three and four star hotels and boutique hotels) in İstanbul participated to the study.