Effects of leader-follower congruence in humor on employee creativity: a broaden and build theory approach

Humour is a human being-inherent activity that occurs in all kinds of social activities and interactions. However, while leader humour is widely considered to be beneficial, the role of employee humour in humour interactions in the workplace is largely neglected in the literature. Accordingly, the present study examines the effect of congruence in the humour behaviour of leaders and employees on employees’ psychological and behavioural reactions. The complex effects of humour interactions on employee creativity are empirically examined within the context of the broaden and build theory. In particular, the study clarifies the mechanism by which humour benefits employees by proposing that the experienced positive events arising from congruence in the leader-follower humour behaviour enhance the employee PsyCap building process and hence increase employee creativity. Data collection is performed through a three-wave survey of 220 leader-follower dyads in Taiwan. The results confirm the proposed hypotheses. Notably, support is found for the indirect effect of congruence in the leader and employee humour behaviour on employee creativity via employee PsyCap. The present results have important implications for both theory and practitioners.