Leader Humor and Employee Upward Voice: The Role of Employee Relationship Quality and Traditionality

Abstract

Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on leader humor, the important issue of how and when leader humor affects employees’ interpersonal, proactive behaviors in the form of upward voice has largely been overlooked. Drawing on relational process model of humor and data from one multiwave, multisource field study and one experimental field study, we find that the positive effects of leader humor on upward voice behavior can be accounted for by both supervisor–subordinate nonwork ties (i.e., supervisor–subordinate guanxi) and supervisor–subordinate work ties (i.e., leader–member exchange). The indirect effects of both supervisor–subordinate guanxi and leader–member exchange on the relationship between leader humor and upward voice behavior are stronger when employees score low on traditionality. These results shed light on the role of leader humor in promoting the bottom–up flow of potentially critical information in organizations through high-quality relationships with followers and provide insights into who will benefit more from humor in leadership.

Does Leader Humor Influence Employee Voice? The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety and the Moderating Role of Team Humor

“…Despite the growth in leader humor research, an important outcome that has been largely neglected in the literature is employee voice (Tan et al, 2021). Voice has been described as discretionary behavior intended at conveying critical information to organizational authorities that will improve organizational functioning, despite the fact that such information may question or disrupt the organization's and its power holders' status quo (Detert & Burris, 2007).…”

“…Furthermore, our consideration of team humor responds to calls for research on contextual moderators of leader humor beyond the influence of individual differences of the follower (Pundt & Venz, 2017). Finally, we build on past research by also considering the mediating significance of the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX), which has been identified as a key underlying psychological process of leader humor effects (e.g., Pundt & Venz, 2017;Tan et al, 2021).…”

“…In the workplace, the use of humor by team leaders has also been demonstrated to be beneficial in creating positive interpersonal interactions (Pundt & Herrmann, 2015) and reducing social distance between leaders and subordinates (Romero & Cruthirds, 2006). Given their formal power and close proximity to employees on a daily basis, it has been suggested that the use of humor by leaders is a social lubricant that facilitates informal interactions, which allow employees to voice their personal concerns on matters that are important to the organization (Cooper, 2008;Romero & Cruthirds, 2006;Tan et al, 2021).…”

“…Although there are many managerial approaches to promoting employee voice (e.g., Detert & Burris, 2007;Gao et al, 2011;Janssen & Gao, 2015;Wang et al, 2018), there is a lack of research on leader humor and its influence on voice. More importantly, much less is known about the mechanisms through which leader humor influences employee voice (Tan et al, 2021).…”

“…The current research adds to the leadership literature by providing a theoretical model that explains whether, when, and why leadership humor is important to employee voice. To date, there is a lack of research that focuses on the informal aspect of the social interactions between leaders and their subordinates and its influence on voice (Tan et al, 2021). Furthermore, our consideration of team humor responds to calls for research on contextual moderators of leader humor beyond the influence of individual differences of the follower (Pundt & Venz, 2017).…”