The Impact of Leader Humor on Team Creativity

Abstract

Abstract: Leader humor (LH), a new leadership style, is one of the frontier subjects in the field of organization behavior study. Although researches on LH have yielded great insights into the effects of leaders on followers' attitudes and behaviors, the existing knowledge on LH's role in team creativity remains incomplete. Taking as the theoretical basis the theory of the social information process theory, this paper probes the mechanism of how LH influences team creativity. Results from a 2-phase analysis of 62 working teams show that LH is positively related to team creativity, and team playfulness climate mediates the relationship between LH and team creativity. In addition, group traditionality negatively moderated the relationship between LH and team playfulness climate, leader social astuteness positively moderates the relationship between LH and team playfulness climate. Furthermore, the indirect effect of LH on team creativity via team playfulness climate is stronger when leader social astuteness is much higher.

Key words: leader humor, team playfulness climate, team creativity, leader social astuteness, group traditionality

Yang Chen. The Impact of Leader Humor on Team Creativity[J]. Management Review, 2022, 34(7): 268-279.

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