The influence of leader humor on employee creativity: from the perspective of employee voice

Yi Cao; Keqiucheng Zhou; Yijiang Wang; Yubo Hou; Rentao Miao

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1162790

The influence of leader humor on employee creativity: from the perspective of employee voice

Front Psychol. 2023 Jun 5:14:1162790. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1162790. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yi Cao¹, Keqiucheng Zhou¹, Yijiang Wang², Yubo Hou¹, Rentao Miao³

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
² Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
³ Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Creativity is a primary factor in driving transformational change. This study explored the impact of leader humor on employee creativity (incremental and radical creativity) from the perspective of employee voice. Data were collected from 812 Chinese employees through multipoint surveys. Through the surveys, we found that (1) leader humor has a significant positive effect on employee incremental and radical creativity; (2) promotive/prohibitive voice mediates the relationship between leader humor and employee incremental/radical creativity separately; (3) contradictory thinking moderates the effect of leader humor on prohibitive voice and further moderates the indirect effect of leader humor on radical creativity; and (4) the moderated mediation model mainly applies to state-owned enterprises rather than private-owned enterprises. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords: contradiction thinking; creativity; employee voice; leader humor; ownership.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation, grant number 32271125.