A Study Of The Effects Of Leader Humor On Subordinate Voice

Humor is increasingly valued in the workplace as a fun and effective interpersonal communication strategy that enhances interaction among organizational members,helps relieve employee stress at work,and creates a harmonious and relaxed work atmosphere.It has been shown that leader humor can effectively enhance subordinates’ positive emotions,enhance subjective wellbeing,and promote voice behavior.Social information processing theory suggests that individuals are in a social environment made up of people,and social information from the organizational environment is incorporated into the individual’s behavioral decision-making process.At the same time,EASI(Emotion as Social Information)theory also points out that emotions have social functions,and the emotions of others become an important factor influencing individual decision making.In the process of stimulating subordinates’ voice,leaders are not only an important source of information in subordinates’ social environment,but also an object of upward voice.When employees observe leader humor in their daily interactions in the form of words and other forms,can they interpret leaders’ positive emotions from their humor behaviors and improve their judgment on the appropriateness of voice,thus positively influencing subordinates’ voice? This is the core question that this paper seeks to address.This study attempts to clarify the influence of leader humor on subordinates’ voice behavior from the perspective of subordinates’ perceptions,and to sort out the concepts,influencing factors and relationship between leader humor and voice based on existing literature.In this study,311 valid matching questionnaires were collected by distributing questionnaires at two time points,and the sample data were processed and analyzed through SPSS and AMOS.The findings show that(1)leader humor has a positive influence on subordinates’ voice;(2)leader humor has a positive influence on subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions;(3)subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions play a mediating role between leader humor and subordinates’ voice;(4)leader-subordinate gender congruence has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between leader humor and subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions,i.e.the stronger the positive effect of leader humor on subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions when leader and subordinate are of the same gender;(5)Leader-subordinate gender congruence has a positive moderating effect on the mediating role of subordinates perceived positive leader emotions between leader humor and voice,that is,the stronger the indirect effect of leader humor positively influencing voice through subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions when leader and subordinate gender are the same;(6)Leader-subordinate age similarity has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between leader humor and subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions,i.e.,the greater the age difference between leader and subordinate,the stronger the positive effect of leader humor behavior on subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions;(7)Leader-subordinate age similarity has a negative mediating effect on subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions between leader humor and voice.moderating effect,i.e.,the greater the age gap between leader and subordinate,the stronger the indirect effect of leader humor in positively influencing voice through subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions.This study enriches the research on leader humor,positive emotions,voice,and leadersubordinate similarity,and reveals the transmission path of "leader humor→subordinates’ perceived positive leader emotions → voice",and complements the research on the influence of gender congruence and age similarity between leaders and employees on employee behavior.In management practice,this study verifies the facilitative effect of leader humor on subordinates’ voice,and inspires managers to use humor management at the right time to actively express positive emotions to their subordinates and effectively enhance leader.