关键词: 领导, 幽默风格, 领导成员交换, 团队内部学习

Abstract: Humor divides into four styles according whether the humor is positive and whether the humor aims to oneself: affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor, self-defeating humor (Martin, 2003). Local learning means learning behaviors happen in the group, the group members would like to discuss and help each other (Wong, 2004). It shows that leader’s humor have effect on sharing behavior in group (Robert & Wilbanks, 2012), but the studies about leader’s humor and local learning is limited. Besides, there are a lot of papers explore the relationship between leader’s humor and organizational variables, but there is no paper in China explore it. This study investigates the relationship between leader’s humor and local learning, the mediate effect of LMX between them, and the difference between four different humor styles.. Based on Humor Style Model and LMX Model, four comparing mediate models was established, 325 employees from different companies finished Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ) , Leader-Member Exchange Questionnaire (LMX-16) and Local Learning Questionnaire. The data was analysed with SPSS and Mplus to confirm the assumption. The results show that LMX completely mediates the relationship between Leader’s Affiliative humor and Local learning (a1b=0.070, p<0.01; c1’=-0.043,p=0.438 ); LMX partly mediates the relationship between Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Local learning (a2b=0.070, p<0.001; c2’=-0.043,p<0.01 ); LMX completely mediates the relationship between Leader’s Aggressive humor and Local learning (a3b=0.070, p<0.001; c3’=-0.043,p=0.788 ); LMX partly mediates the relationship between Leader’s Self-defeating humor and Local learning (a4b=0.070, p=0.523; c4’=-0.043,p=0.085 ). The mediate effect between Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Local learning is more than the one between Leader’s Affiliative humor and Local learning (∣a1b∣-∣a2b∣=-0.134, p<0.01); the mediate effect between Leader’s Aggressive humor and Local learning is more than the one between Leader’s Affiliative humor and Local learning (∣a1b∣-∣a3b∣=-0.095, p<0.05). The direct effect between Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Local learning is more than the one between Leader’s Self-defeating humor and Local learning(∣c2’∣-∣c4’∣=0.340, p<0.01). The outcomes demonstrate that: (1) Leader’s Affiliative humor and leader’s Self-enhancing humor have positive effect on Local learning, Leader’s Aggressive humor and Leader’s Self-defeating humor have negative effect on Local learning; (2) LMX completely mediates the relationship between Leader’s Affiliative humor and Local learning, the same as Leader’s Aggressive humor. On the contrary, LMX partly mediates the relationship between Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Local learning; (3) Both Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Leader’s Aggressive humor have a higher mediate effect on Local learning than Leader’s Affiliative humor, and the direct effect between Leader’s Self-enhancing humor and Local learning is more than the direct effect between Leader’s Self-defeating humor and Local learning. This article is a start of exploring the effect of Leader’s humor in China, Leader’s humor have effect on Local learning, and LMX act as the mediator. While, Leader’s humor styles make difference in the four mediate model. Beside, the conclusion of this article shows a lot of suggestions for company and leader, such as leader should learn to use positive humor to enhance group learning, self-enhancing humor is the most effective humor than the others, which can also be a part of training for leader.

Key words: Leader, Humor style, LMX, Local learning