IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ausman/v41y2016i3p563-584.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why did the emu cross the road? Exploring employees’ perception and expectations of humor in the Australian workplace

Author

Listed:
  • Nilupama Wijewardena
  • Ramanie Samaratunge

    (Department of Management, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia)

  • Charmine Härtel

    (UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia)

  • Andrea Kirk-Brown

    (Department of Management, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia)

Abstract

Workplace humor is currently an emerging area of study in management research. While studies on the functions and outcomes of workplace humor in the United States abound, there is little research on humor in Australian workplaces. This limits Australian organizations from tapping the rich potential of humor to achieve positive employee and organizational outcomes. This study aims to start a research agenda on workplace humor in Australia by conducting a survey study of Australian employees’ perception of the occurrence and acceptability of humor behavior in their workplaces and by analyzing humor events at work. To achieve the latter objective, first, the scattered workplace humor literature is reviewed to develop a single framework that can effectively situate and capture humor events. Findings from 433 respondents indicate that humor occurs across a variety of organizations in Australia and that employees report positive views toward workplace humor. A surprising finding was that employees reported they expect their managers to use humor with them. Implications for managers and future research directions are developed.

Suggested Citation

  • Nilupama Wijewardena & Ramanie Samaratunge & Charmine Härtel & Andrea Kirk-Brown, 2016. "Why did the emu cross the road? Exploring employees’ perception and expectations of humor in the Australian workplace," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(3), pages 563-584, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ausman:v:41:y:2016:i:3:p:563-584
    DOI: 10.1177/0312896215626231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0312896215626231
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0312896215626231?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Härtel, Charmine E J, 2014. "Advancing organizational behavior through context considerations," Journal of Management & Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(04), pages 415-416, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ausman:v:41:y:2016:i:3:p:563-584. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.agsm.edu.au .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.