Employees’ Perception of Leader’s Humor Style and Pleasant Climate as Moderated by Social Conformity

Abstract

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A pleasant organizational climate has become a source of an enterprise’s sustainable competitive advantage, because of its effect to retain important human capital. This study examines the pleasant climate created by workers’ humorous interaction under the influence of leaders’ humor styles, while social conformity acts as a moderator to the abovementioned relationship. Extending from the popular leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, this study offers another aspect by testing the link between leaders’ humor behavior and subordinates’ perception of organizational climate. The research adopts a quantitative approach using survey questionnaire to collect data. The target sample is Taiwanese employees in workplaces and a total of 448 responses were collected. SPSS and AMOS statistical packages were used to conduct the analysis. The results showed that perceived jovial leader humor style positively affects pleasant climate, but perceived aggressive leader humor style negatively impacts pleasant climate. Social conformity has no moderating effect on the relationship between jovial or aggressive leader humor style and pleasant climate. Instead, it has a direct effect on pleasant climate. Additionally, the research finds that age negatively affects pleasant climate; service work nature positively affects pleasant climate; finally, age and perceived aggressive leader humor style are negatively correlated with social conformity.