The Impact of Leader Humor on Employee Creativity during the COVID-19 Period: The Roles of Perceived Workload and Occupational Coping Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Based on the relief theory and similarity attraction theory, this study investigates the influence of leader humor on employee creativity through the mediate impact of employees’ perceived workload, occupational coping self-efficacy, and employee similarity perception with a leader as a potential moderator. The data were collected through an online survey that included matched questionnaire data from 351 employees and their direct leaders in China. This study used SPSS 26 software and Mplus 7.0 software to analyze the data and found that (1) leader humor has a significant positive impact on employees’ creativity; (2) employees’ perceived workload and occupational coping self-efficacy mediated the positive relationship between leader humor and employee creativity; (3) similarity perception negatively moderated the influence of leader humor on perceived workload, and it also positively moderated the influence of leader humor on occupational coping self-efficacy. In addition to corroborating and expanding on previous findings regarding the relationship between leader humor and employee creativity during the COVID-19 period, the aforementioned conclusions also derive management implications for fostering employee creativity and reducing employee workload from the perspective of leader humor.

Energizing Workplace Dynamics: Exploring the Nexus of Relational Energy, Humor, and PsyCap for Enhanced Engagement and Performance

“…Examples of such positive impacts are related to, for instance, blood pressure [37], stress [38], effectiveness [39,40], innovation [41,42], trust [43], burnout, work withdrawal [44], persistent behavior [45], job satisfaction, organizational pride, affective commitment [46], engagement [47], social cohesion [41], creativity communication, enthusiasm, and brightened and more enduring workplace [48]. Humor too seems to be helpful for employees and organizations during the COVID-19 setbacks and aftermaths [49][50][51].…”

The effect of self-related humor on convergent and divergent thinking

“…Inversely, Amjed and Tirmzi (2016) found a negative relationship of self-defeating humour with employee creativity. Moreover, Hu et al (2023) found that leader humour influenced employee creativity positively. Thus, self-enhancing humour was not only positively related to individual creative performance but also positively related with subordinate creative performance, whereas self-defeating humour was negatively related with employee creativity.…”