Beyond formal exchange: An informal perspective on the role of leader humor on employee OCB

Abstract

Although leader humor research has investigated its benefits in a formal relationship, how leader humor, as an informal tactic, influences employee work outcomes has been neglected. Drawing on a relational perspective, we cast leader-member guanxi as a novel mechanism to explain the relationship between leader humor and employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We also theorize team structure determines the extent to which leader-member guanxi is built by leader humor. Using data from 308 employees and their leaders in 76 teams at three time points, results of multilevel path analysis indicated that after controlling for leader-member exchange, the positive effect of leader humor on leader-member guanxi was enhanced when the team operated in an organic structure as opposed to a mechanistic structure, which in turn, facilitated employee OCB. These findings provide a novel insight into understanding the informal role of leader humor and offering important practices for relationship management.