Can participative leadership and LMX congruence promote collective organizational engagement?

Mozhi Li, Jinying Cao and Qiheng Sun

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: Employee engagement has been widely recognized as an important indicator of organizational functioning and performance. While prior research has primarily examined engagement at the individual level, emerging studies suggest that engagement may spread through social interactions, leading to a shared, collective form of organizational engagement. Building on social contagion theory, this study examines the relationships between participative leadership, leader–member exchange (LMX) congruence (i.e., the degree of agreement between leaders’ and employees’ LMX ratings), and collective organizational engagement. Using matched survey data from 243 respondents nested within 54 commercial organizations operating in mainland China across manufacturing, information technology, services, real estate, and fast-moving consumer goods sectors, we employed polynomial regression and response surface analysis to examine patterns of congruence and incongruence in LMX ratings. The results indicate that participative leadership is positively associated with collective organizational engagement. When leaders’ and employees’ LMX ratings are congruent, the High–High profile is associated with higher levels of collective organizational engagement than the Low–Low profile. Under incongruent conditions, the Low–High profile is associated with higher collective organizational engagement than the High–Low profile. Furthermore, the interaction between participative leadership and specific LMX congruence profiles shows differential predictive relationships with collective organizational engagement. These findings contribute to the literature by extending engagement research to the collective level and by clarifying how leadership practices and leader–employee perceptual alignment relate to collective organizational engagement.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0346702

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0346702

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