Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Leader Humor Style On Employee Job Crafting

In recent years,with the increasingly complex work environment,organizational change is no longer an accidental phenomenon,but gradually tending to become normal.In order to adapt to the rapid development of the organization and reduce the resistance to change,the initiative and innovation of employees are critical as key drivers of organizational development.In this context,employees’ job crafting,a bottom-up proactive behavior that breaks the work routine,plays a vital role.Employees can actively change tasks,relationships and roles at work,redefine work,achieve a personjob fit,and gain meaning from work.Job crafting breaks the routine to actively achieve a person-job fit,which requires an inclusive,developmental and supportive organizational climate.As an important way to regulate the organizational climate,leader humor style can provide necessary conditions for job crafting.Leader humor style represents a behavioral tendency to create a relaxing and pleasant organizational atmosphere by breaking away from convention,which helps employees feel the affinity of leaders and the inclusiveness and openness of the organizational atmosphere.Based on cognitive-affective system theory of personality,this study explored the mediating role of perceived insider status and joy at work in the relationship between leader humor style and employees’ job crafting,as well as the moderating role of chaxu climate.As an important contextual factor,leader humor style can trigger the processing of employees’ cognitive and affective units,which may bring behavioral responses related to the context.At the same time,the difference in intimacy and proximity of inter-organizational relationships might be another key contextual factor that affects employees’ cognition and emotion.This study also examined whether chaxu climate moderates leader humor style’s effect on perceived insider status and joy at work.This study adopted three-wave questionnaires and collected a sample of 306 employees to test hypotheses.The empirical results showed that the leader humor style positively influences employees’ promotion-focused job crafting,while the leader humor style has no significant effect on employees’ prevention-focused job crafting.Perceived insider status and joy at work mediates the relationship between leader humor style and employees’ promotion-focused job crafting,and the relationship between leader humor style and employees’ prevention-focused job crafting as well.Chaxu climate negatively moderates leader humor style’s effect on joy at work,but it has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between leader humor style and perceived insider status.The main contributions of this study are as follows: First,it reveals the mediating mechanism that leader humor style could influence employees’ job crafting through perceived insider status and joy at work,and provides unique insights about employees’ motives for promotion-focused and prevention-focused job crafting.Second,this study deepens the understanding of the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of leader humor style,and uncovers how chaxu climate affects the effectiveness of leader humor style.Third,this study helps raise enterprises’ awareness to cultivate leader humor style and build a harmonious organizational atmosphere.