Make Me Laugh and I’m Yours: A qualitative case study on how managerial humor influences organizational commitment

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this master thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of managerial humor in the workplace and find out how it influences employees' commitment in contemporary organizations. This report contains qualitative research in the interpretivist tradition in the form of a single case study. Ten in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather the empirical data and learn about employees’ perceptions. Using an abductive approach allowed us to go back and forth between theory and empirical findings. Our literature review outlines existing research about humor, its theories and styles, and both the positive and negative effects of managerial humor in the workplace. Additionally, we explore existing research about different types of commitment and the Leader-Member Exchange theory. Finally, we examine how the concepts interplay. As both humor and commitment involve an affective component related to feelings and emotions, our findings indicate that managerial humor can positively influence affective commitment, meaning the emotional attachment, to the organization through the increased quality of the leader-member relationship, that is, the affection between managers and their employees, and the positive perception of employees’ work environment and organizational support.