Investigating the role of leader-member exchange for goal commitment in system implementation

Purpose: Although Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) has been studied within the domain of organizational psychology, it has not received major attention from information systems literature and researchers. Drawing on LMX theory and the theory of reasoned interaction, this study investigates the roles of LMX, individual member's attitude toward system adoption, supervisor influence and goal commitment on mandatory system implementation. Specifically, our model investigates the moderating role of LMX and how it can be interpreted for an individual member's system adoption in an organization. Design/methodology/approach: Partial least square (PLS) technique with the field survey of 148 participants was used for this analysis. Findings: The empirical test results in the field setting show that attitude and supervisor influence positively affect goal commitment in the system implementation. Furthermore, LMX is a significant moderator between attitude and goal commitment within organizations, but this moderating effect is not valid in the relationship between supervisor influence and goal commitment since it is a more complex process influenced by variables other than supervisor influence. Originality/value: The results showed that the model in this research has high explanatory and predictive power and is valuable in offering insights and guidance for implementers initiating technology-related changes within organizations.