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Extant research demonstrates the pervasive negative effect of organizational cynicism on workplace relationships and workplace attitudes (e.g., Chiaburu et al., 2013; Johnson and O'Leary-Kelly, 2003; Wanous et al., 2000); however, little research has explored how organizational cynicism can sour the relationship between employees and their leaders. For leaders, organizational cynicism can represent a wall of negativity that can thwart their efforts to develop effective relationships and initiate positive change. For employees with cynical attitudes, this negative lens represents protection against what might be seen as efforts from leaders to get more for less. Accordingly, we suggest that organizational cynicism may interfere with or even impair the central belief of reciprocity required for social exchange (Blau, 1964) because those high in organizational cynicism believe that organizational practices and organizational agents are unfair, insincere, and may possess hidden agendas (e.g., Dean et al., 1998). In fact, one of the primary determinants of organizational cynicism is the extent to which employees perceive their organization (and their agents) violate principles of social exchange and fail to meet expected standards of behavior (e.g., fairness, honesty; Dean et al., 1998; Johnson & O'Leary-Kelly, 2003). Thus, it is likely that a cynic will question the sincerity of supervisory attempts to engage in relationship-building or organizational efforts to demonstrate concern or support. This, in turn, is likely to thwart supervisory efforts to engage in positive exchanges with cynics and impact the creation of high-quality exchange relationships between subordinates and their supervisors. As the basic principles of exchange are built on a sense of loyalty, or a sense of attachment and willingness to follow a leader or organization faithfully (Adler and Adler, 1988), we propose that employee loyalty might be responsible for the negative impact of organizational cynicism on the social exchange process. Thus, cynicism may impair loyalty to organizational agents, resulting in poor-quality relationships.
The purpose of this article is twofold. First, using social exchange theory as a framework, we examine leader–member exchange (LMX) and organizational cynicism longitudinally, to better ascertain the nature and direction of these relationships (see Figure 1). We argue that over time, organizational cynicism exerts a strong impact on the social exchange process and detracts from the development of high-quality LMX relationships. Second, we explore...