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Because humor is an ageless phenomenon, “philosophers, literary critics, literary biographers and historians, sociologists, folklorists, psychologists, physicians and scholars from various other disciplines have studied humor since antiquity” (Apte, 1988: 8). Yet over the centuries, these researchers have also struggled to conceptualize a viable, well-accepted notion of humor. The challenge continues to confound us and elude clear definition. Taking diverse forms at various times and in different situations, with an all-pervasive scope, humor does not always look the same—even if a reasonable consensus indicates that it involves some “intentional verbal or nonverbal message which elicits laughter, chuckling, and other forms of spontaneous behavior taken to mean pleasure, delight and/or surprise in the targeted receiver(s)” (Booth-Butterfield and Booth-Butterfield, 1991: 206).
Beyond pleasure and amusement, people use humor for a variety of social functions. For example, it might facilitate and enhance learning processes; help reorient perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors; and facilitate social relationships (Dziegielewski, Laudadio, and Legg-Rodriguez, 2004). Graham, Papa, and Brooks (1992) emphasize two central functions of humor: facilitating communication in specific contexts and spreading aggressive messages (Bonaiuto, Castellana, and Pierro, 2003; Hay, 2000). On the one hand, humor can cause others to like the humorous source more, attract regard, ease conversations, promote expression and the exchange of ideas, introduce new topics of discussion, or smooth interactions. In business-related communications, interactions, negotiations, and public relations, being funny can draw attention, especially as a means to stand out from the massive amount of information that characterizes hyper-connected societies. In turn, it can exert strong influences on a situation and other actors. On the other hand, in aggressive forms, humor can halt verbal interactions, modify the usual rules of conversation, communicate critiques, or contribute to create subversive environments.
In this context, the mobilization of humor by individuals, groups, and businesses constitutes a research field of increasing interest. Extant research seeks to highlight why and how actors use humor within organizations and its effects on organizational members and processes (e.g., Mesmer-Magnus, Glew, and Chockalingham, 2012; Romero and Cruthirds, 2006; Sobral and Islam, 2015), as well as the utility of humor as a persuasive tool in external corporate communication or marketing campaigns, with impacts on consumers (e.g., Eisend, 2009; Mcllheran, 2006; Spielmann, 2014). However, the use of humor by business actors in interactions with external stakeholders other than consumers, and the ways external stakeholders similarly use humor to influence business actors, remain poorly addressed (cf. Kutz-Flamenbaum, 2014; Westwood and Johnston, 2013; Wolf, 2014). In particular, research that focuses on developing a constructive understanding of business and society relationships and interactions lacks specific analyses of the use of humor, even though humor is growing in popularity and use among external stakeholder groups that address corporations. The role of humor and the comic frame in criticisms targeted at the business world and in the expression of associated aspirations for systemic adaptation and corporate social change is significant, in line with the proscription that “criticism had best be comic” (Burke, 1984: 107).
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This research anthology considers different angles from which to address the use of humor by individuals, groups, and business actors in their interactions within, around, and across organizations—that is, at the interfaces of business and society. Accordingly, this research anthology is organized as follows:
• Part 1, entitled “Humor, Business and Society,” comprises two introductory chapters that delineate and critically reflect on the notion of humor, on the one hand, and the business and/in society field on the other. The goal is to provide a constructive basis and interesting routes to approach the three other sections and 15 remaining chapters contained in this research anthology.
• Part 2, “From Society to Business: Humor’s Use and Roles in Activist Movements,” addresses how external stakeholders and civil society initiatives have mobilized humor in their efforts to highlight and denounce negative corporate impacts, change the status quo from the outside, or rebalance business and society relationships. This section also evokes potential utopian or disillusioning aspects that may characterize such crusades and how humor can play a role in this context.
• Part 3 is labeled “From Business to Society: Humor’s Use and Roles in Marketing, Corporate Communications, and Public Relations.” It features chapters that aim to highlight, analyze, and synthetize the ways that companies engage in developing humor-laden signals, messages, and practices when interacting with and trying to influence their external stakeholders—particularly, their customer bases.
• Part 4, entitled “Society within Business: Humor’s Use and Roles in the Workplace and in Organizations,” addresses the internal life of the business organization and the ways that humor, in its diverse forms, can influence activities, relationships, and the organization’s functioning in society. The chapters in this last section scrutinize the potential positive effects and impacts of humor-related attitudes and initiatives on organizational life, as well as the darker, toxic sides of humorous activity that can develop within organizational settings—just like in broader society. The related mechanisms entail asserting the superiority and dominance of some organizational members and groups over others, as well as control- and power-related dynamics in organizations.
Humor, business, and society
As Michael Billig explains, positive psychology is one of the fastest growing perspectives in psychology, and it has influenced many industrial and economic advisors. “Positive Psychology: Humour and the Virtues of Negative Thinking” takes a critical look at the way that positive psychologists view humor. According to leading positive psychologists, such as Martin Seligman and Barbara Fredrickson, humor is an essential component of the sort of positivity that prompts personal happiness and economic productivity. Although the proponents of positive psychology claim that their views are purely scientific and based on empirical evidence, this article asserts that such views are actually narrow and deeply ideological. Moreover, positive psychologists’ use of self-reported questionnaires is flawed, in that they do not reveal how people actually use humor. In contrast with the present fashion for positivity, this chapter argues for the value of negative thinking.
Yoann Bazin instead imagines that “Friedman and Tocqueville Walk into a Bar. . .: Deciphering the Business and Society Discourse.” This chapter seeks to decipher the influence of libertarian thought, as manifested in the voice of Milton Friedman, on the “business and society” perspective, as well as to offer a response. Using Alexis de Tocqueville’s writing to deconstruct Friedman’s views, Bazin notes that they appear so focused on freedom that these views cannot account for the key questions of equality and justice. This chapter thereby contributes to a shift from a business and society approach to a more inclusive and democratic business in society perspective.
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From society to business: humor’s use and roles in activist movements
Moving on to a conceptual study, located at the crossroads of humor and social movement theories, François Maon and Adam Lindgreen offer a dual integrative framework of the use and role of humor in contemporary counter-corporate social movements (CCSMs) in “How to Take the Joke: Strategic Uses and Roles of Humor in Counter-Corporate Social Movements.” To begin, the framework introduces a two-dimensional taxonomy emphasizing four distinct, movement-level strategic roles for humorous messages in CCSMs: (1) clarification and affirmation, (2) cohesion and mobilization, (3) condemnation and challenging, and (4) designation and differentiation. Then the second part of the framework pertains to the individual, psychological level, where participants in CCSMs can use humor to foster (1) mutual coping, (2) mutual stirring, (3) public mourning, and (4) public protesting. On the basis of this framework, the authors discuss the paradoxical status of humor as an expression of resistance and renunciation in CCSMs that has the potential to affect the status quo at the interface of business and society.
To provide a first-hand insight into the use of humor in activist–business engagement, “Clowning Around: A Critical Analysis of the Role of Humor in Activist–Business Engagement,” by Katharina Wolf, offers an in-depth case study, extensive secondary data analysis, and participant observations. The author challenges the notion of humor as a tool for reaching consensus and collaboration, thereby recommending a reconsideration of community activism and its drivers and aims. Humorous activism is not (necessarily) about engagement with corporate representatives or reaching a compromise. Instead, activist–business engagement may be based on irreconcilable differences. The use of humor in grassroots activism primarily seeks to build the activist community and its support network, while challenging existing distributions of power, by drawing greater attention to an issue. When business actors dismiss community activists as unprofessional, immature, or ineffective, they are relying on the assumption that organizations are the targets of the activists’ humorous actions. But humor may be a communication strategy in its own right, not as a power leveler or tool to negotiate a common ground but rather as a resistance tool that can confront power and challenge the status quo. In this view, corporate headquarters and organizational representatives represent the stage setting and props.
From business to society: humor’s use and roles in marketing, corporate communications, and public relations
The empirical study “A Typological Examination of Effective Humor for Content Marketing” by James Barry and Sandra Graça explores the effectiveness of humorous television advertisements recast on YouTube. From a sample of 2,135 advertisements screened for humorous content and high performance metrics, a typology of ten humor types is derived and analyzed for its effectiveness in terms of grabbing audience attention and stimulating engagement. The inductively derived typology details the incongruity, mockery, and arousal mechanisms used to create humorous content. Overall, social unruliness, as espoused by superiority and relief theories, performs best for attracting attention. The use of absurdity and surprise, as suggested by incongruity theory, performs well for attracting attention and engagement. More disparaging humor, such as putdowns and malicious joy, has less impact on these two outcomes.
Sari Alatalo, Eeva-Liisa Oikarinen, Helena Ahola, and Marc Järvinen next offer a case study of a Finnish online army store to describe the use of humor and its role in ethical brand building for digital content marketing, in “SMEs’ Ethical Branding with Humor on Facebook: A Case Study of a Finnish Online Army Store.” The case company’s online narratives reveal how humor, even in its disparagement form, can build and communicate corporate brand images, based on ethical values. The preliminary three-dimensional framework contributes to an understanding of how ethical values and meaningful topics in society can be communicated through different types of humor in social media. In particular, the ethical brand of the case company currently highlights ethical values such as responsibility and quality, which the company attempts to convey through its use of humor in its Facebook communication. Among the humor types, this company favors wit and satire. This research thus combines considerations of humor and ethical branding, which is a novel contribution to branding literature.
In “With a Genuine Smile? The Relevance of Time Pressure and Emotion Work Strategies for the Adoption of Humor in Customer Contact,” Daniel Putz and Tabea Scheel argue that in modern service societies, employees must display organizationally desired emotions, which in turn can increase customer satisfaction and help local retail stores gain and secure customers and sales, especially relative to mobile and e-commerce. Employees might create pleasant customer interactions through the deliberate use of humor, which involves self-regulatory activities. However, the consumption of self-regulatory resources caused by stressful job demands can impair these efforts, as well as employee well-being and mood. This chapter therefore investigates the relationship between time pressure, as a typical demand factor, and the use of positive and negative humor, as mediated by employees’ emotion work strategies (i.e., deep and surface acting). This cross-sectional, quantitative study across four German retail stores relies on a regression-based mediation-analysis with bootstrapping. Time pressure is not related to positive humor use or deep acting but relates directly to negative humor use, in an association partially mediated by surface acting. Deep acting also relates positively to positive humor use, and surface acting is positively associated with negative humor use. These results indicate the beneficial effects of deep acting and the undesirable effects of surface acting (and time pressure) for interpersonal customer service performance. Encouraging employees to engage in deep acting thus may prove beneficial, especially for stressful work situations.
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Robert J. Angell, Matthew Gorton, and Juliet Memery address the notion of newsjacking—referencing of news stories in paid-for communication—in “Did You Get It? Newsjacking: What It Is and How to Do It Well.” Humor may play a key role in its successful application, but its effectiveness as a marketing tool also might rely on people recognizing the related news story to understand the advertising. This empirical study investigates whether newsjacking might only be as beneficial as the number of people who understand its underlying reference to a news story. With stimuli from a real-life newsjacking advertisement, a survey of 126 people reveals that people with greater news involvement are more likely to recognize the related news story, and then display better attitudes toward the advertisement, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. Various factors have notable influences, but the findings of this study indicate that the ability to decode the newsjacking message is a critical antecedent of building brand affect. People do need to understand and decode the underlying message for newsjacking advertising to work.
Another use of humor in advertising entails “Promoting, Informing, and Identifying: The Case of Foody, the Humorous Mascot of Expo Milan 2015.” Carla Canestrari and Valerio Cori focus on the humorous portrayal of Foody, the mascot of Expo Milan 2015, an impressive business event with a global impact. The Arcimboldesque mascot Foody aims to express the values of the global event it represents. This chapter analyzes these humorous communicative strategies and their functions, in terms of the communicative actions in a corpus of 11 animated cartoons produced by Disney Italia, each starring one of the fruits and vegetables that make up Foody’s face (i.e., his friends). Cognitive linguistic and perceptual perspectives of humor have been used to single out the humorous occurrences, and a further analysis based in multimodal discourse highlights their discursive dynamics. Humor can be used in association with an anthropomorphic mascot to promote values and information related to the represented event, as well as to build the identity of the mascot and amuse for the sake of entertaining.
According to Margherita Dore, humor can be used to enhance or challenge interpersonal and social relations in naturally occurring conversations or scripted texts such as jokes or comedy. In advertising, humor promotes products or services (and thus the brand or company that provides them) while seeking audience involvement. However, humor is an idiosyncratic phenomenon, which also varies according to individual cultures and historical time. Using humor in advertising thus can be risky, especially due to its potential offensiveness, which may be inadvertent or intentional. In modern hyper-sensitive settings, such campaigns set out to address their target clientele, so any (unexpected) reaction is worth exploring. Therefore, “Controversial Humor in Advertising: Social and Cultural Implications” focuses on the use of controversial humor in advertising and, in particular, a series of advertisements considered offensive by their receivers at local, national, or global levels, in relation to their themes, language, and culture-specific references. This analysis shows that controversial humor involves a great deal of surprise, but it may not result in a positive customer response to the product or a trade-off effect for the brand itself.
Society within business: humor’s use and roles in the workplace and in organizations
Moving to an organizational perspective, “Humor styles in the workplace,” by Nicholas A. Kuiper and Nadia B. Maiolino, provides a theoretical–empirical examination of the application of a humor styles model in the workplace. This model reflects a multidimensional approach that specifies both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles, whether self- or other-focused. The use of these humor styles can lead to very different outcomes, ranging from beneficial to detrimental. This model has been used as a theoretical framework to guide empirical investigations of several workplace topics, including job-related stress reduction, organizational commitment, satisfaction with co-workers, work persistence, and effective leadership. Building on such research, this chapter seeks to expand the humor styles model to include consideration of the broader humor climate in the workplace. A further extension of this model details the use of derogatory humor in the workplace. This expanded model can be employed to further understanding of broader societal issues that are of particular relevance to the workplace, such as diversity, sexism, prejudice, racism, and discrimination.
Daryl Peebles, Angela Martin, and Rob Hecker focus on “The Value of Positive Humor in the Workplace: Enhancing Work Attitudes and Performance,” noting that the use of humor in workplaces remains a contentious issue in management theory. Some academics and philosophers praise humor and encourage its use; others see it as a frivolous distraction from the job at hand. This chapter reviews literature pertaining to the intersection between humor as a positive human attribute and its possible impact on contemporary workplace management practices. Contributions to arguments that support the benefits of workplace humor come from a clarification about preferred humor styles and the potential of humor as psychological capital (PsyCap). The PsyCap construct emerges from the field of positive psychology and is based on capacities of self-efficacy, resilience, hope, and optimism associated with improved organizational productivity. Researchers can look specifically at workplace humor that is predominantly affiliative, inclusive, and uplifting, to determine if this specific style is valuable for improving workers’ attitudes and performance, which would lead to improvements in productivity. The chapter explores the relationship between PsyCap and positive humor, as well as indicators of employee work attitudes and performance, and the potential organizational issues that arise from the use of inappropriate (negative) humor.
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Innovation processes also increasingly rely on the collaboration between different stakeholders across various boundaries (e.g., functional, hierarchical, organizational). Such boundary-crossing interactions rely on different mechanisms, activities, and boundary objects. Therefore, in “Laughing Out Loud: How Humor Shapes Innovation Processes within and across Organizations,” Marcel Bogers, Alexander Brem, Trine Heinemann, and Elena Tavella consider how humor might act as an appropriate managerial tool to shape these objects, because it affects the social positions of and relationships among individuals. This chapter presents a case study of the use of humor at the micro-level of collaborative innovation processes. With data from workshops, in which participants work together to construct new business models for a particular company, the authors apply conversation analysis to determine that humor (and laughter in particular) can be an important condition for the acceptance of proposals at the interactional micro-level of innovation processes. Company-internal representatives’ use of humor differs from that of company-external participants, in terms of their orientation toward different rights and responsibilities in the innovation process.
In contrast, Danielle J. Deveau and Rebecca Scott Yoshizawa challenge the notion of humor as a positive tool for business management in “Laughing Apart: Humor and the Reproduction of Exclusionary Workplace Cultures,” by considering the often problematic role of humor in workplace culture. Humor frequently acts as an index of other systemic issues; furthermore, it plays a gatekeeping function for reinforcing workplace cultures and compositions. Scholars tend to emphasize subjective joke perceptions when considering conflicts that arise over workplace humor, thereby overlooking the role of humor for creating inequality, producing in- and out-groups, and reinforcing systemic biases or exclusions (e.g., sexism, racism). To illustrate these points, this chapter considers three recent Canadian discussions of workplace humor as gender harassment: a controversial “humorous” video promoted by Simon Fraser University; the use of pornographic material as a “joke” during a firefighter training course; and the release of the Deschamps Report, which showed that sexual harassment is rampant in the Canadian Armed Forces. In turn, this chapter reveals that humor (1) reinforces social hierarchies, (2) is intimately related to gender harassment in the workplace, and (3) can contribute to a hostile environment in the workplace.
Asking, “Does Verbal Irony Have a Place in the Workplace?” Roger J. Kreuz notes that though people frequently employ verbal irony and sarcasm, there is little consensus about whether the use of such nonliteral language is beneficial or harmful for social relationships. Typically, irony and sarcasm involve saying the opposite of what is literally true, and such statements can be used to mock and disparage others. However, this form of language serves many other purposes too. Irony and sarcasm are also strongly associated with humor and expressions of negative emotion in socially acceptable ways. These forms of language tend to be used by intimates, as a means to foster or invite intimacy. Sarcasm can even facilitate abstract thinking, which may be a requirement for creativity. Face-to-face interactions tend to make ironic communication more successful, because ironists can employ a variety of vocal and visual cues to mark their nonliteral intent. However, these cues are not available in computer-mediated communication, where the successful interpretation of nonliteral language can be particularly challenging. Some aspects of irony and sarcasm are relatively formulaic, and machine classifiers can exploit them to identify such language online. Emoticons also have evolved as a way to signal nonliteral intent, but the effectiveness of such cues has been debated. Verbal irony defies easy categorization, in that it is a pragmatically complex form of language that can be used in the workplace for good or for ill—in some cases, at the same time.
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Linda Weiser Friedman and Hershey H. Friedman acknowledge that humor can be a useful tool in the workplace. It helps create a sense of belonging and contributes to group solidarity. Humor can facilitate team building and strengthen relationships; it can help remove barriers that separate management from employees; it can enhance trust and improve morale; it can reduce job stress; and it can help increase creativity. But in “Just Kidding: When Workplace Humor Is Toxic,” they also highlight the dark side of humor, such that it can cause great harm in the workplace and be used as a tool to hurt, bully, or exclude others. This chapter reviews the many ramifications of humor and how it can be used in both positive and negative manners.
In “Just a Joke! A Critical Analysis of Organizational Humor,” Barbara Plester identifies humor as ubiquitous in modern Western organizations but also argues that because workplace humor occurs within contexts of power, control, resistance, and authority, some complex and ambiguous dynamics are involved. Drawing on a variety of empirical research, this critical analysis considers the ways that humor might be used at work and the implications of humor use by managers and workers in everyday interactions and activities. Specifically, this chapter reveals managerial attempts to control workplace humor, as well as outlining an idiosyncratic organizational context in which humor is the primary method for dominating and controlling subordinate workers. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the use of humor by workers who resist or challenge managerial power. Using humor in this latter way does not significantly change organizational power and control but can temporarily disrupt managerial discourse and domination. Humorous disruption can provide workers with some relief from tension and pressure that may even restore some goodwill in adversarial management–worker interactions. Workplace humor thus ranges from fun, pleasurable interactions to dark, biting, confrontational events disguised by being framed as “just a joke.” Considering the critical effects of workplace humor may help organizational members negotiate the complexity of workplace relationships conducted within contexts of tension, status, patriarchy, and power.
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Closing remarks
We extend a special thanks to Routledge and its staff, who have been most helpful throughout this entire process. Equally, we warmly thank all the authors who submitted their manuscripts for consideration. They have exhibited the desire to share their knowledge and experience with the book’s readers—and a willingness to put forward their views for possible challenge by their peers. We also thank the reviewers, who provided excellent, independent, and incisive consideration of the anonymous submissions.
We hope that this compendium of chapters and themes stimulates and contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding humor’s use and roles in business and society. The chapters in this book can help fill some knowledge gaps, while also stimulating further thought and action pertaining to the multiple aspects that surround humor’s use and its roles: in activist movements, in marketing, in corporate communications, in public relations, in the workplace, and in organizations.
François Maon, PhD
Lille, France
Adam Lindgreen, PhD
Copenhagen, Denmark
Joëlle Vanhamme, PhD
Lille, France
Robert J. Angell, PhD
Cardiff, Wales
Juliet Memery, PhD
Bournemouth, England
January 31, 2018
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