How does leader humor facilitate organizational commitment? Roles of organizational identification and leadership

Abstract

This empirical research used a multi-time, two-sample survey design with a one-week time lag between data collections, gathering responses from 450 participants across diverse business organizations in China and South Korea. We employed quantitative analysis to test a moderated mediation model examining how leader humor, mediated by organizational identification and moderated by abusive supervision, influences followers' organizational commitment. The primary aim of this research was to explore the impact of leader humor expression on followers' organizational commitment through a moderated mediation framework. In addition, we examined how organizational identification and abusive supervision jointly shape this relationship, providing insight into both the mediating and moderating processes underlying leader humor's influence on commitment. The study's key findings include a positive relationship between leader humor expression and organizational identification. This association strengthens a follower's sense of belonging to an organization. Furthermore, organizational identification emerged as a pivotal mediator in the relationship between leader humor and organizational commitment, indicating that a leader's humor style can indirectly boost a follower's emotional attachment to the organization. Additionally, the moderated mediation analysis revealed that abusive supervision weakens the indirect effect of leader humor on commitment through organizational identification, demonstrating how negative leadership behaviors can undermine the positive pathways from humor to commitment. This research contributes to the literature by merging affect theories of humor with affective events theory, offering a novel perspective on the role of leader humor in organizational contexts. It highlights the importance of leader humor in shaping organizational identification and commitment, and the potential counteractive effects of abusive supervision.