The Dark Side of Humor in the Workplace: Aggressive Humor, Exhaustion and Intention to Leave the Organization

Abstract

Humor is inherent to social interaction and research has mainly focused on the potential benefits of using humor at work. However, different types of humor exist and this study builds on the Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R) to argue that aggressive humor in the workplace is a demand rather than a resource. Specifically, the study explores the association of aggressive humor and the intention to leave the organization manifested by the employees and the role of exhaustion as a potential explanatory mechanism. Moreover, the study explored the potential buffering role of the quality of leader-employee exchange (LMX) for the negative effects of aggressive humor. The study employed a cross-sectional design in order to test a moderated mediation model. Data were collected from 101 call-center operators and team leaders working in a multinational company. Our findings show indeed that aggressive humor in the workplace is predictive for exhaustion, which, in turn, predicts the employees’ intentions to leave the organization. Contrary to our expectation, the moderating role of LMX did not receive empirical support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Humor in Workplace Leadership: A Systematic Search Scoping Review

“…C. D. Cooper et al (2018) integrated three individual-resource-related theories: social exchange theory, conservation of resources theory, and broaden-and-build theory to argue that humor is a key interpersonal resource. However, Trif and Fodor (2019) used the Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R) to demonstrate that aggressive humor in the workplace is a demand rather than a resource. The most referenced leadership theory (14.5%) was the full range leadership model consisting of: transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles (Avolio et al, 1999;Avolio, 2011).…”

Killing the service fire: leader aggressive humour undermines hospitality employees’ proactive customer service performance

“…Previous research on LAH has relied on the social identity theory (Pundt and Herrmann, 2015), social exchange theory (Liu et al , 2019; Neves and Karagonlar, 2020; Suyasa et al , 2020) and conservation of resources theory (Gu et al , 2019; He and Li, 2019; Trif and Fodor, 2019) to explain why LAH affects employees’ attitudes and behaviours. However, little is known about how self-esteem is influenced by negative leader behaviour.…”

“…LAH occurs when leaders express humour towards their subordinates in a hostile way to boost themselves (Martin et al , 2003), such as denigrating, disparaging, teasing or ridiculing employees. These forms of LAH have been found to yield negative consequences, including increased stress, emotional exhaustion, turnover intention, addictive behaviours and deviant behaviours, as well as decreased job satisfaction, affective commitment, organisational pride, job engagement, creativity, voice and knowledge-sharing behaviours (Fayyad, 2020; Gu et al , 2019; Guenzi et al , 2019; He and Li, 2019; Huo et al , 2012; Lee, 2015; Liu et al , 2019; Mesmer-Magnus et al , 2018; Trif and Fodor, 2019).…”

The Effect of Leadership Aggressive Humor on Employee Proactive Behavior

“…Romero et al [15] argue that leadership aggressive humor involves racial, ethnic and sexist humor, but also includes sarcastic, mocking and ironic expressions of humor that can humiliate and insult employees, increasing their anxiety while reducing their perceived well-being. As a negative leadership behavior often encountered in the workplace, aggressive leadership humor has a negative impact on leader-member exchange relationships [16], employee creativity [5], employee voice [17], teamwork, organizational commitment [18], and employee psychological well-being [19], and a positive impact on employee turnover intension [20], employee deviant behavior [4].…”

“…First, the leader implements aggressive humor toward the employees that is mocking, sarcastic, and sarcastic without regard for the employees' feelings as the employees accelerate the depletion of their own resources to cope with the negative emotions evoked by the aggressive humor and eventually produce the tendency to leave [20]. At the same time, leadership aggressive humor negatively affects employee psychological well-being [19], causing them great stress and reducing job satisfaction.…”