Exploring the interplay between frontline employees’ humour styles in service encounters

Abstract

ABSTRACT One question that needs to be asked in understanding the consequences of humour in service encounters is whether the prevalent bivariate approaches capture the full range of humour consequences. Therefore, this study examines the influence of frontline employees’ (FLEs) combined use of affiliative and self-defeating humour on customers’ perceptions of service quality in 268 service encounters. Bivariate results show that the positive effect of affiliative humour is much stronger than the negative effect of self-defeating humour. On the contrary, response surface analyses show that bad may be stronger than good. FLEs’ humour use is particularly advantageous with customers who appreciate humour, while for those who do not, there is an optimal margin effect when affiliative humour exceeds self-defeating humour.