Critical Jokes and Moral Reflection in Interviews

Abstract

This chapter introduces a new jokes-based interview method that uses jokes to reflect on experiences with pressuring leadership in the context of consulting. It finds that the new interview method triggers junior consultants’ memories of experiences with pressuring managers, and managers’ memories on how their juniors deal with overly high leadership demands in consultancies. Some jokes introduce the topic better than others, which makes the selection of jokes an important part of the method. Especially cartoons invite open conversation on ethical transgressions. When doing jokes-based interviews, follow-up questioning is important. The interviewee also needs to get room to freely interpret, associate and elaborate. The method is very well able to create rapport, as the jokes not only introduce the topic, but also serve as an icebreaker. The jokes-based interview method helps to overcome social desirability bias by introducing the topic of a specific moral transgression in a humorous way.