Personal need for structure as a boundary condition for humor in leadership

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2112
• Author: Laura Venz,Alexander Pundt
• Date: 01 January 2017
• Published date: 01 January 2017

Personal need for structure as a boundary

condition for humor in leadership

ALEXANDER PUNDT*AND LAURA VENZ

University of Mannheim, Department of Psychology, Mannheim, Germany

Summary Recent research has established a positive relationship between humor in leadership and organizational behav-

ior variables. However, neither the mechanisms nor the boundary conditions of the positive effects of humor

in leadership are completely understood. In this study, we contribute to these questions by investigating the

relationship between humor in leadership and follower commitment and burnout in more detail. We propose

that these relationships unfold via a relational process and specified this relational process in terms of leader–

member exchange. Moreover, we assume that these relationships depend on followers’personal need for

structure. We tested the hypothesized moderated-mediation model in a two-wave survey study with 142 em-

ployees. Our results support the proposed model. We found the predicted indirect effect of humor on commit-

ment and disengagement to be stronger for followers low in need for structure. However, we did not find the

proposed effects for emotional exhaustion. We discuss implications for leadership theory, humor theory, and

for leadership training and practice. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: humor; leadership; personal need for structure; relational mechanism; moderated mediation

When it comes to humor in organizations, researchers as well as practitioners have noted the manifold benefits and

advantages of humor (Cooper & Sosik, 2012). Humor can reduce conflicts and tensions, benefit creative problem

solving as well as health and well-being, and help create a positive organizational culture (Westwood & Johnston,

2013). One particularly important aspect in this regard is the potential for humor to create a sense of social equality

even in formally hierarchical relationships between leaders and followers (Romero & Cruthirds, 2006), possibly

leading to a positive relationship between the sender and the recipient of humor—a proposition based on the

relational process model of humor (Cooper, 2008). Therefore, humor seems to fit the current trend toward status

leveling and the attenuation of hierarchy in organizations (Accard, 2015) that takes place in many organizations

despite the well-established notion of organizational hierarchies and status differences (Maggee & Galinsky, 2008).

In this study, we build upon the relational process model of humor and investigate humor in leadership as one

aspect of humor in organizations. Specifically and in line with previous research, we conceptualize leader–member

exchange (LMX, e.g., Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) as the relational mechanism proposed in the model and investigate

the relationship between humor in leadership and follower commitment and burnout as mediated by LMX. Both

commitment and burnout are important outcome variables, which help evaluate the success of status-leveling initia-

tives, such as humor. Such initiatives often aim at creating an attractive place to work and at fostering employee

well-being (Morand, 2010). While commitment represents the followers’desire to stay in the organization and

constitutes an indicator of how attractive the organization is for the followers (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001), burnout

is an indicator of follower well-being (Wright, 2014). We chose LMX as the mediating mechanism because, on the

one hand, it represents the quality of the individualized leader–follower relationship, which develops via a series of

positive exchanges and interactions between leader and follower (Van Breukelen, Schyns, & Le Blanc, 2006) that

may be influenced by humor in leadership. On the other hand, LMX is theorized to provide positive identity-relevant

*Correspondence to: Dr. Alexander Pundt, University of Mannheim, Department of Psychology, Work and Organizational Psychology, Schloss

EO 233, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany. E-mail: alexander.pundt@uni-mannheim.de

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 10 March 2015

Accepted 19 May 2016

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 38,87–107 (2017)

Published online 20 June 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2112

Research Article

information and energy and to satisfy the employees’need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (e.g., Atwater

& Carmeli, 2009; Graves & Luciano, 2013)—all of which may contribute to commitment and well-being.

Although empirical research on humor in leadership generally supports the relational process model (Gkorezis,

Petridou, & Xanthiakos, 2014; Kim, Lee, & Wong, 2016; Pundt & Herrmann, 2015; see also Mesmer-Magnus,

Glew, & Viswesvaran, 2012 for a meta-analysis), recent research has identified the need for investigating potential

boundary conditions (Kim et al., 2016; Robert, Dunne, & Iun, 2016). Given that humor in leadership is used to de-

crease the salience of hierarchical differences between leader and follower (Romero & Cruthirds, 2006), followers’

attitudes toward such differences and clear social structures depict important boundary conditions. Employees differ

in their attitudes toward structure and hierarchy, and some employees may not appreciate informal communication or

status leveling. Rather, some employees may prefer clear structures and hierarchies (Friesen, Kay, Eibach, &

Galinsky, 2014). Thus, it is conceivable that such preferences act as a moderator of the relational process model

of humor, eliciting differential employee reactions to leader humor. In this study, our primary research question

is: Would humor in leadership still have positive effects for followers who prefer formal communication and struc-

ture in their environment?

According to lay epistemic theory (Kruglanski, Orehek, Dechesne, & Pierro, 2010), personal need for structure is

a dispositional variable that captures peoples’attitudes toward structures and hierarchy, describing “the extent to

which they are dispositionally motivated to cognitively structure their worlds in simple, unambiguous ways”

(Neuberg & Newsom, 1993, p. 114). In the context of organizations, employees high in need for structure prefer hi-

erarchically structured organizations (Friesen et al., 2014) and task-oriented leadership (Ehrhart & Klein, 2001).

Based on these findings, we argue that employees low in need for structure are more likely to benefit from the

relational processes induced by humor in leadership (Cooper, 2008). Hence, for followers relatively low in need

for structure, we expect humor in leadership to more strongly contribute to the quality of their leader–follower rela-

tionships and to follower commitment and well-being. In other words, we expect need for structure to attenuate the

effects of humor in leadership. Figure 1 shows our research model.

Our study extends research on humor in leadership and the relational process model by introducing personal need

for structure as a boundary condition of humor as an effective leadership tool (Malone, 1980). In so doing, we chal-

lenge the rather dominant functionalist perspective on humor in leadership, which strongly emphasizes the benefits

of humor in organizations (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012; Westwood & Johnston, 2013), but neglects conditions

(e.g., individual differences of followers as humor recipients) under which humor in leadership might have detrimen-

tal or null effects on desirable outcomes. A basic notion of the relational process model (Cooper, 2008) is that humor

in leadership first and foremost works at the level of the individual follower, who is the recipient of humorous at-

tempts by the leader. Therefore, the most proximal boundary conditions of humor in leadership can be found at

the individual level. Although the organizational context and higher-level moderators such as cultural values (e.g.,

Figure 1. Research model

88 A. PUNDT AND L. VENZ

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 87–107 (2017)

DOI: 10.1002/job