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Employee Humor Can Shield Them from Abusive Supervision

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Abstract

Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we develop and test a theoretical model that specifies how and when employee humor toward leaders affects leader abusive supervision. We propose that employee humor is negatively associated with leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy. Furthermore, the negative indirect relationship between employee humor and leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy is stronger for female leaders than for male leaders. An experiment and a multi-wave, multi-source field study provide substantial support for our hypotheses. Our findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by identifying employee humor as a safe and effective bottom-up approach to prevent leader abusive supervision.

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Notes

  1. The number of women in leadership positions in China tends to be low (Sun & Li, 2017). The university where we collected data has more female alumni than male alumni (the ratio of female to male is approximately 7:3). It enables us to collect a comparable sample size of female leaders and male leaders, which contributes to testing the gender difference more accurately.

  2. Unlike the United States (Study 1), China is a rather conservative society and as such we did not include a non-binary gender option for participants.

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Funding

Funding was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72072032, 71602032, 71702175, 72002038, 71872190, and 71502179) and the “Excellent Young Scholar Foundation” of University of International Business and Economics (Grant No. 19YQ03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

    Mingpeng Huang & Guangdi Tian

  2. Business School, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Dong Ju

  3. Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Kai Chi Yam

  4. School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Shengming Liu

  5. Sun Yat-Sen Business School, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Xin Qin

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  1. Mingpeng Huang
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Correspondence to Dong Ju or Shengming Liu.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Manipulations of Employee Humor

Humor Condition

Please read the following scenario carefully and play the role of a team leader.

In your team, there are several employees, including Jess.

Jess often expresses humor with you at work. She can inject humor into many types of situations when interacting with you. For example, yesterday afternoon while on a break, you asked Jess about the progress of something that she has been doing after work, to which she replied, “I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.”

Control Condition

Please read the following scenario carefully and play the role of a team leader.

In your team, there are several employees, including Jess.

Jess often communicates with you at work over work issues. In addition, you also talk about non-work-related topics during your breaks. For example, yesterday afternoon while on a break, you asked Jess about the progress of something that she had been doing after work. She then proceeded to tell you about her recent progress.

Appendix 2: Scale Items Used in Studies 1 and 2

Employee Humor (Study 1)

  1. 1.

    Jess expressed humor with me at work.

  2. 2.

    Jess injected humor into the situation when interacting with me.

  3. 3.

    Jess joked around with me.

Leader Relational Energy (Study 1)

  1. 1.

    I feel invigorated when I interact with Jess.

  2. 2.

    After interacting with Jess, I feel more energy to do my work.

  3. 3.

    I feel increased vitality when I interact with Jess.

  4. 4.

    I would go to Jess when I need to be “pepped up.”

  5. 5.

    After an exchange with Jess, I feel more stamina to do my work.

Abusive Supervision Intention (Study 1)

  1. 1.

    Ridicule Jess.

  2. 2.

    Tell Jess her thoughts or feelings are stupid.

  3. 3.

    Make negative comments about Jess to others.

  4. 4.

    Put Jess down in front of others.

  5. 5.

    Tell Jess she was incompetent.

Employee Humor (Study 2)

  1. 1.

    This employee often expresses humor with me at work

  2. 2.

    I’ve seen this employee injects humor into many types of situations when interacting with me.

  3. 3.

    This employee jokes around with me.

Leader Relational Energy (Study 2)

  1. 1.

    I feel invigorated when I interact with this employee.

  2. 2.

    After interacting with this employee, I feel more energy to do my work.

  3. 3.

    I feel increased vitality when I interact with this employee.

  4. 4.

    I would go to this employee when I need to be “pepped up.”

  5. 5.

    After an exchange with this employee, I feel more stamina to do my work.

Abusive Supervision (Study 2)

  1. 1.

    My supervisor makes negative comments about me to others.

  2. 2.

    My supervisor ridicules me.

  3. 3.

    My supervisor is rude to me.

  4. 4.

    My supervisor does not give me credit for jobs requiring a lot of effort.

  5. 5.

    My supervisor expresses anger at me when he/she is annoyed for another reason.

  6. 6.

    My supervisor blames me to save him or herself embarrassment.

  7. 7.

    My supervisor tells me I am an incompetent employee.

  8. 8.

    My supervisor ignores or gives me the silent treatment.

  9. 9.

    My supervisor tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid.

  10. 10.

    My supervisor reminds me of my past mistakes and failures.

Appendix 3: Results of Supplementary Analyses for Study 2

See Tables 6 and 7.

Table 6 Summary of multilevel path-analytic results of hypotheses 1 and 2 (without control variables)
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Table 7 Summary of multilevel path-analytic results of hypotheses 3 and 4 (without control variables)
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Huang, M., Ju, D., Yam, K.C. et al. Employee Humor Can Shield Them from Abusive Supervision. J Bus Ethics 186, 407–424 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05208-9

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