The effects of supervisor humour on employee attitudes

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employees’ perceptions of their supervisor’s use of four types of humour relate to employee job satisfaction, organisational pride, organisational commitment and self-esteem. Supervisor favourability is also examined as a mediating variable in these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey of 216 working individuals provided data on the effect of supervisor use of humour on employee attitudes.

Findings

Perceptions of positive forms of humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) positively related to employee various attitudes, while aggressive humour was negatively associated with those attitudes. Results also support the intervening role of supervisor favourability in the relationship between supervisors’ positive use of humour and employees’ job satisfaction, affective commitment and organisational pride.

Research limitations/implications

Studies of the effects of workplace humour can benefit from using more fine-grained operationalisation of positive and negative humour. Research can also benefit from considerations of intervening mechanisms to the humour–work outcome relationship.

Practical implications

The results underscore the benefits of affiliative and self-enhancing humour on employee attitudes in the workplace. While negative humour can have an undesirable effect, there may be circumstances under which self-defeating humour is not negatively received.

Originality/value

This paper fulfils an identified need to better understand supervisors’ use of different, more discriminating forms of humour on employee attitudes.

Citation

Mesmer-Magnus, J., Guidice, R., Andrews, M. and Oechslin, R. (2018), "The effects of supervisor humour on employee attitudes", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 37 No. 9/10, pp. 697-710. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-01-2018-0034