Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Workplace humour'

xiii, 79 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
The role of humor among teachers in schools has not received much research attention. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions of the uses and effects of humor in the naturalistic setting of an elementary school. A qualitative exploratory case study was conducted. Twenty participants from one school completed a survey on uses and effects of humor, and a focus group was conducted with five of the survey participants. Results were transcribed and coded using the constant comparative coding methods, and themes were developed and compared to the scant prior research findings on the topic. Findings identified a group of teachers who used humor mostly to provide stress relief for themselves and each other and to alleviate some of the stresses associated with teaching young children. Participants also reported the use of humor in sharing stories and events that occurred in the school workplace. Findings also included consistent perceived positive effects from the use of humor in building collegial relationships, in providing rejuvenation, and in preventing burn-out. Teachers reported using humor in positive and productive ways and enjoying positive and productive results. Overall, study participants were in strong agreement in regards to uses and effects of humor in their school workplace. As this was an exploratory study, further research is needed in additional school settings to explore reliability in regards to uses and effects of humor in other schools and with other mixes of teachers. As the scant previous research has shown a correlation between positive collegial relationships and good school climate and improved student learning, it would also be beneficial to conduct additional studies on the role of humor among staff in regards to student achievement.
Adviser: Diane M. Dunlap

This research was initiated due to the novelty of the topic. Humor is a common phenomenon in the daily interaction of many people; however this study is particularly interested in humor as used by managers. As a preconception to the study it was assumed that appropriately used humor results in benefits for a leader, thus we wish to explore how managers in Swedish organizations reason about if and how humor can be used as a management tool. For this purpose we employed qualitative research with semi-structured interviewing method. The subjects for investigation reside in Umeå, northern Swedish town, and are leaders in 8 medium/big sized, private, service companies.

The findings of this research suggest that managers often do realize the benefits of using humor and even consider it as a management tool. Our findings furthermore illustrate that the utility of humor to achieve the desired organizational outcomes of reduced stress, group cohesiveness, improved communication, creativity and leadership effectiveness is in fact very situation dependent.  We could also see that our respondents tended to attribute the use of humor to their natural skills as they reason that they rarely use humor on purpose. Interestingly though, our findings showed both that managers were aware of the effects of humor and that they often utilized the benefits of humor. We therefore conclude that humor thus instead is consciously used as the managers often clearly are aware of the beneficial effects that humor brings. However, we do believe that it could be difficult to state to what extent one implements the benefits of humor in practice since humor is, as mentioned by the majority of our respondents, simply a part of their personality.

We think that one of the most important things that this study can contribute with would be to inform the reader that it is acceptable and OK to use humor also as a manager or a leader. People do not have to be less serious or effective because they have fun at work. On the contrary there are instead many benefits with humor that our research shows and if implemented, humor could contribute to make the workplace more pleasant.

This study is a qualitative, exploratory examination of the phenomena of humor in the workplace. The purpose is to derive a better understanding of how real people enact humor in the workplace by examining the humor depicted by and through fictional characters in comic art. The body of work of cartoonist, Scott Adams, was the primary source of data. The study relies on what the imaginary characters of Dilbert find absurd, funny, and ridiculous about an imaginary workplace, the employee-employer relationship, the content of the characters' jobs, or in the social relationships of fictional characters. It involves analyzing specific cultural artifacts, comic strips, as representations of human action.

Utilizing qualitative media analytical techniques, the study explores ethnographic materials (comic strips). A random sample from the universe of Dilbert strips was developed and theoretical sampling was used to discern the identities and personality traits of the main characters. Emergent groupings and themes were developed by repeatedly interacting with the data, reflection, extensive note taking and exploring patterns. The research question is answered from within a framework of comic art of the workplace using descriptive language that is informed by theories of humor.

The idea of presence in mediated communication is discussed and the significant themes of ridicule and disparagement theory are explicated. Key findings include the assertion that, in some cases comic plausibly serves as a proxy for reality as well as the implication that ridicule but plays a significant but inadequately understood role in social development. The researcher proposes that humor may be understood as mythopoeic language.

Recommendations for directions in future research include management and organizational studies of humor and communities of practice, learning and development, sensemaking and organizational culture. Further investigation into the relationship between ridicule and bullying could be fruitful. Qualitative media analysis has the potential to produce enormous gains in knowledge creation.

The prevalence and importance of humor in the workplace has been well-documented over the past several decades, with research consistently revealing its significant impact on employee well-being and effectiveness. During this same time period, organizations worldwide have begun embracing team-based work designs as a means for achieving success. As a result, the degree to which employees are engaging in both frequent and intensive interactions with their coworkers is rapidly increasing. Despite these trends, little research has been dedicated to investigating the ways in which employees' well-being and effectiveness are influenced by the humor of their coworkers or the ways in which employees' own humor interacts with that of their coworkers to determine these outcomes. The current study answered the need for such research by investigating the impact of coworker-employee humor interactions on employee strain and performance using a sample of undergraduate-level students engaged in a high-fidelity work simulation. In the current study, coworker humor was experimentally manipulated by pairing each participant with a study confederate who was trained to act as either a non-humorous coworker or a humorous coworker throughout the duration of the work simulation. Results of a pilot study provided empirical evidence supporting the validity of this manipulation; showing that participants' paired with a humorous confederate coworker rated their coworker significantly higher on positive humor, but no different on negative humor, than participants' paired with a non-humorous confederate coworker. Based on theory and prior findings drawn from multiple streams of science, it was expected that positive coworker humor would have a significant impact on employees' strain and performance, but that the nature of its influence on these outcomes would be contingent upon employees' own dispositional humor. Specifically, it was hypothesized that employees paired with humorous coworkers would experience a lesser degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was high but a greater degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was low. In addition, it was expected that employees paired with humorous coworkers would demonstrate a higher level of interpersonal and task performance than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was high but a lower level of interpersonal and task performance than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was low. Finally, it was hypothesized that employees' strain would partially mediate the effects of coworker-employee humor interactions on employee performance. In support of these hypotheses, analyses revealed that several indicators of employees' perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain were in fact each significantly influenced by interactions between employees' own humor and that of their coworkers. Specifically, high sense of humor employees who worked with a humorous coworker experienced a lesser degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than did those who worked with a non-humorous coworker. This was evidenced by their lower self-reported perceived strain (an indicator of perceived strain), higher state-level positive affect and lower state-level negative affect (indicators of affective strain), higher anagram task performance and lower perceived task difficulty (indicators of cognitive strain), as well as their lower systolic blood pressure and lower state-level somatic anxiety (indicators of physical strain). In contrast, low sense of humor employees who worked with a humorous coworker experienced a greater degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than did those who worked with a non-humorous coworker. This was evidenced by their higher self-reported perceived strain, lower state-level positive affect and higher state-level negative affect, lower anagram task performance and higher perceived task difficulty, as well as their higher systolic blood pressure and higher state-level somatic anxiety. Consistent with expectations, results revealed that the degree to which employees experienced job strain typically varied based on the degree to which there was a match between employee sense of humor and coworker positive humor levels. Similar levels of coworker and employee humor generally resulted in relatively low levels of employee strain whereas dissimilar levels of coworker and employee humor most often resulted in relatively high levels of employee strain. Contrary to expectations, however, coworkers' positive humor and employees' sense of humor did not interact to predict employees' interpersonal or task performance. Instead, positive coworker humor had a significant positive main effect on both forms of employee performance. Although these findings are consistent with the study hypotheses in that positive coworker humor was expected to enhance high sense of humor employees' performance, they run counter to the expectation that positive coworker humor would hinder low sense of humor employees' performance. Because the interaction between coworker humor and employee humor was not a significant predictor of either type of employee performance, analyses were not conducted to test for mediated moderation. Findings from the current study offer a number of contributions to organizational science and, in addition, hold several implications for practice. Specifically, these results have relevance for and greatly expand the workplace humor, individual differences, PE fit, occupational health, and workgroup/team composition literatures. In addition, results contribute to the literature by elucidating the need for future research dedicated to exploring the direct and interactive effects of coworker characteristics, including humor, on employee well-being and effectiveness. Finally, results of this study serve to inform researchers and practitioners in matters related to several critical human resource functions, including matters in personnel selection, placement, and training, as well as in workgroup/team composition.
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Psychology
Sciences
Psychology; Industrial and Organizational

A boa produtividade laboral é uma importante condição para as empresas e entre as possíveis causas de variação dessa medida estão as condições psicofisiológicas, que podem alterar o comportamento dos trabalhadores e influenciar seu desempenho. O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar a influência das Condições Psicofisiológicas Individuais de Trabalhadores de uma Instituição de Ensino Superior na sua produtividade laboral. Para isso foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo, aprovada pelo Comitê de Ética em Pesquisas da UTFPR, com 50 trabalhadores de um Centro Universitário em Santa Catarina e que foram submetidos a 5 avaliações em um dia de trabalho, a cada duas horas, totalizando 250 momentos de avaliação. Foram coletados dados da dor, através da Escala Visual Analógica (EVA), dos Estados de Humor, através da Escala de Humor Brasileira (BRAMS), da Pressão Arterial, a partir de medição digital e da Variabilidade da Frequência Cardíaca (VFC), através de frequencímetro. Todas os dados desses desfechos foram associados aos valores de Produtividade que foi obtido através do Instrumento Rápido para Avaliação da Produtividade de Trabalhadores (IAPT), que foi desenvolvido, validado e teve sua consistência interna aferida, para atender aos objetivos da pesquisa. Os dados foram tratados a partir da estatística descritiva e inferencial onde para identificar a influência combinada das variáveis independentes sobre a produtividade foram utilizados métodos de regressão linear múltipla e regressão logística binária no software SPSSTM v. 23.0. Os níveis de significância para a pesquisa atenderam à p0,05. Os dados demonstraram uma produtividade abaixo do que é considerado o ideal pela literatura e que houve variação significativa da mesma entre os períodos do dia e entre os dias da semana. Os dados da regressão linear múltipla mostraram que houve influência das variáveis independentes nessa variação produtividade. Por técnica stepwise obteve-se um modelo de predição onde os estados de humor combinados (vigor, raiva, fadiga e tensão) geraram um índice preditivo de 65,2% (R2=0,652) sobre a produtividade obtida. Nenhuma outra variável aferida gerou influência significativa. Além disso, foi observada no modelo de Regressão Logística uma maior razão de probabilidade para que bons índices de produtividade estejam relacionados com sujeitos com bons níveis de Vigor, ausência de Dor e baixos índices de fadiga. Por fim, observou-se que as condições psicofisiológicas, mais particularmente dor e estados de humor, influenciam de forma decisiva na produtividade dos trabalhadores e que estas devem ser consideradas por gestores empresariais e pesquisadores interessados na área.
Work productivity is an important condition for companies and one of the possible causes of variation of this measure are in psychophysiological conditions, which can alter the behavior of workers and influence their performance. The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of the Individual Psychophysiological Conditions of Workers of an University Center in their labor productivity. For this reason, this research was carried out, approved by UTFPR's Research Ethics Committee, with 50 workers from a University Center at Santa Catarina, Brazil, who were submitted to 5 evaluations in a working day, increasingly, totaling 250 moments of evaluation. Pain data were obtained through the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Mood States were carried out by the Brazilian Humor Scale (BRAMS), Blood Pressure from digital measurement and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) were obtained through of frequencimeter. All data were correlated to the Productivity components that were obtained through the Rapid Instrument for the Evaluation of Worker Productivity (IAPT), which was developed, validated and had its internal consistency ascertained, to meet the research objectives. The data are treated by descriptive and inferential statistics. To identify a combined influence of the independent variables on productivity, linear variable regression and binary logistic regression were carried out. SPSS software v. 23.0 was used for all analysis. The significance levels for the data respond to p0.05. The data showed a productivity below what is considered ideal for the literature and a variance of these index between the periods of the day and between the days of the week. The multiple linear regression data showed that there was influence of the independent variables in this productivity variation. By stepwise technique, a prediction model was obtained where the combined mood states (vigour, anger, fatigue and tension) generated a predictive index of 65.2% (R2 = 0.652) on a productivity obtained. No other measured variable generated significant influence. In addition, a greater probability ratio was observed without Logistic Regression model so that good productivity indices are related to subjects with good Vigour levels, absence of prices and low rates of fatigue. Finally, it was observed that psychophysiological conditions, more particularly, pain and mood states, have a decisive influence on worker productivity and must be considered by business managers and researchers interested in this subject.

碩士
國立體育大學
體育推廣學系
103
Nowadays, society transforms rapidly and becomes variety. The work of career organization is busy than before, and the team member’s work pressures also heavier. We need to apply “humor” on our job, to adapt our body and mind. That’s why manage organization will become the most important issue. However, the context about sport organization is complicate, if we can apply humor appropriately, then we can get great help from it. The purpose of the study is to make us understand and describe the humor of sport organization, including the meaning of humor, style, and the positive and negative impacts about work career. Hope we can clearly understand how important and influence of sport organization. This study is used in Qualitative research method. By using semi-structured interview to reach the deep interview. Also, combine the Documentary Collect Method and Participant observation, then interview six persons: three senior managers, two store managers and one clerk. After interview, we reorganize, analyze, unit and conclude, finally we got five results. First, the members of sport work organization are common to understand the word “humor” is equal to happy and interesting. “Humor” can calm the stiff and conflict fragrance down and help individuality to solve problems and reach the goal. Second, the members in sport work place need to possess the compatible style’s humor. By communication and chatting, they can convey meaningful humor to other people. Third, humor can bring the positive help in sport workplace, including working efficiency, company profit, interpersonal relationship, negotiation skill, corporative willingness, release pressures and so on. On the contrary, too much humor apply on workplace will led to bad impacts. People will feel uncomfortable and disrespectful, and the fragrance will being embarrassed and dignified. The bad or too much humor led the bad effect. Fourth, in sport workplace organization, no matter senior manager or junior staffs, all of they can accept the humor messages from workplace which accord with interest and time. These persons use an open mind and positive attitude to treat “humor”. Last one, the shape of humor of the sport workplace organization members is made by family background and career experience. But, we judge our humor subjectively; there is no standard way to determine the pros and cons. All the thing we can do is taking easy and keeping body and mind health. Key words: workplace, workplace organization, humor, humor style, qualitative research method

碩士
輔仁大學
企業管理學系管理學碩士在職專班
101
According to empirical studies, the cynicism has a negative effect in organization. The cynicism considers that the issues occurred in the organization can not be solved, due to the egoism exist and the organization lack of justice in it. The nature of cynicism is typically indicates an unhappy staff with cynic attitude to express that they are discontented with colleague and the company. Their attitude will make interpersonal relationship worsen and destroyed the harmony of organization. There are four types humor style of cynicism including positive of humor style and negative of humor style. Positive of humor style can be further divided into affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor and the negative of humor style also can be self-defeating humor and aggressive humor. Above four scopes can make different extent of influence on interpersonal relationship in organization. Furthermore, it might occur workplace bullying. This research is to focus on the positive and negative humor style of cynicism on workplace bullying. This research employes LISREL computer program and uses full time worker as research object samples. There are total 428 vaild samples. The result is shown as following: (1) Cynicism and positive of humor style has no significant correlation; (2) Cynicism has a high impact on negative of humor style; (3) Cynicism has a high impact on the worker who suffers workplace bullying; (4) Positive of humor style and workplace bullying has no significant correlation; (5) Negative of humor style has a high impact on the worker who suffers workplace bullying. Finally, cynicism will bring workplace bullying in different extent of positive or negative humor style.

碩士
輔仁大學
企業管理學系管理學碩士在職專班
100
Humor styles means an individual expresses himself in a relaxing way of humor in the society. Therefore, humor styles assuage the tension in the working places and reduce pressure resulting from work. However, humor styles also cause some arguments and irritate others. Besides, a higher level of communicative satisfaction will shorten the gap between the goal of the communication and personal cognition. There are many studies about workplace bullying in foreign countries, but they are seldom discussed in Taiwan. It is still a problem that the foreign study is hardly applied to the workplace in Taiwan. Therefore, my study is trying to discuss about the impact of humor styles on communication satisfaction and workplace bullying from different angles. This study focuses on the impact of humor styles on communication satisfaction and workplace bullying. With LISREL computer program, the valid sample is 411 people working full time in Taipei in my study. My study explicates the impact of humor styles on communication satisfaction and workplace bullying as follows: (1) Affiliative humor styles influence workplace bullying negatively, and there is no obvious connection between humor styles and communication satisfaction. (2) Self-enhancing humor styles influence workplace bullying positively, and influence communication satisfaction positively. (3) Self-defeating humor styles have no significantly influences on workplace bullying, and humor styles influence communication satisfaction negatively. (4) Aggressive humor styles influence workplace bullying positively but influence communication satisfaction negatively. (5) Communication satisfaction influence workplace bullying negatively. In conclusion, the research found that different humor styles and communication satisfaction actually have significantly influences on workplace bullying.

碩士
輔仁大學
國際創業與經營管理學程碩士在職專班
106
The purpose of this paper is to explore the difference between Western and Eastern humor styles and how it could possibly affect the workplace. “Humor” refers to people that use amusing or interesting ways to express themselves in the social environment. On a global scale there are four main styles of humor used: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. It is proven that those that have a sense of humor are better at coping with stress and have healthier relationships. In this thesis, it was predicted that Western culture uses more aggressive humor more than Eastern culture. Mainly because Western culture is an individualistic society that is predominantly masculine it appears to be more likely to use aggressive humor style the most. However, the results indicated that Western Culture actually uses self-enhancing humor style the most. Generally Eastern style culture is as likely to engage in humor styles as much as people in Western culture.

碩士
台南應用科技大學
生活應用科學研究所
100
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between workplace humor and work stress of 536 elementary school teachers in Tainan city. The sample data are collected by two instruments, Elementary School Teacher Workplace Humor Checklist and Elementary School Teacher Work Stress Checklist, and analyzed by utilizing a variety of statistical methods such as descriptive analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, product-moment correlation and canonical correlation. The findings were as follows. 1.The perception of workplace humor is above the middle-level, where the “humorous attitudes” aspect has the highest score. 2.The perceptions of work stress were between middle to low degree, when the highest score was in “work loadings”. 3.It is showed that perceptions of workplace humor have significant differences among elementary school teachers in genders, educational background, job position and teaching grade. 4.It is showed that perceptions of work stress have significant differences among elementary school teachers in job position, teaching grade, school scale and school district. 5.There is a significant negative correlation between workplace humor and work stress of elementary school teachers. It is indicated that the elementary teachers have more workplace humor, and they will perceive less work stress. Finally, implications for elementary school teachers, elementary schools and future researcher were discussed. Keywords: work stress, workplace humor, elementary school teachers

碩士
國立臺灣師範大學
創造力發展碩士在職專班
96
The purposes of this study were to investigate different workplace humor style. Participants may perform different workplace humor style when in the different interpersonal relationship. Besides, the main purpose of this research was to understand the prediction between organizational playfulness climate perception and employee’s innovative behavior, workplace humor style and between organizational playfulness climate perception, workplace humor style and employee’s innovative behavior. Perceived organizational playfulness climate perception has mediating effect among workplace humor style and employee’s innovative behavior. Using the survey method and the participants were Full-time employees in Taipei. Research tools were including Workplace Humor Style Scale, Organizational Playfulness Climate scale and Employee’s Innovative Behavior scale. The results are summarized as the following：1.Participants may perform different workplace humor style in the different interpersonal relationship.2.Organizational playfulness climate perception has positive effect on employee’s innovative behavior. 3.When facing very initmate people：(1)Affiliative humor and Self-enhancing humor has positive effect on employee’s innovative behavior.(2)Affiliative humor and Self-enhancing humor has positive effect on organizational playfulness climate perception. Self-defeating humor has negative effect on organizational playfulness climate perception. Especially attention to Aggressive humor style has positive effect on organizational playfulness climate perception.(3)Affiliative humor, Self-enhancing humor, and Aggressive humor style has positive effect on employee’s innovative behavior through organizational playfulness climate perception. And aggressive humor style has negative effect on employee’s innovative behavior through organizational playfulness climate perception. 4.When facing acquaintances：(1)Affiliative humor and Self-enhancing humor has positive effect on employee’s innovative behavior.(2)Only Affiliative humor has positive effect on organizational playfulness climate perception. Through the mediating effect of organizational playfulness climate perception has positive effect on employee’s innovative behavior.

碩士
靜宜大學
觀光事業學系
103
The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between the needs of workplace and happiness in Taiwanese tourism industry of the employee, and by means of self-efficacy and humor style as moderators. The objects were sampled from the staffs, supervisors’ managers, and executive officers who working at tourism industry and totally 317 valid samples adopted, and the research followed quantitative research method, and adopted SPSS 22.0 to count and analyze the data processing. The findings showed that workplace needs does direct effect happiness positively, especially the needs of workplace shows the positive significant to the “contentment of happiness”. Second, the moderating effects of self-efficacy were confirmed between self-efficacy and the needs of workplace. Third, the moderating effects of humor style were confirmed between happiness and the needs of workplace. Furthermore, the conclusions show some suggestions for further studies and also for the companies as operational guidelines.

碩士
亞洲大學
心理學系碩士班
98
Since nurse services have to consider patient’s thoughts and feelings, so nurses often play multiple roles. Because of that, it creates role conflict and ambiguity. We call that “Cynicism”, it will cause negative impact for organization. If we can prevent it, it will decrease the negative impact and increase effective management. In this paper we aim to explain the relationship of nurse cynicism between workplace deviance behavior and turnover intention. And humorous style regulate whether the relationship between it or not. This study use questionnaires and convenience sampling method to collect information from nurses and practitioners that total are 359 subjects in Taiwan. We use hierarchical regression analysis to test research hypotheses in this research. The results are as follows. First, this has a positive correlation between workplace deviance behavior and turnover intention in employee cynicism. Second, this has a major effect in aggressive humor for overall workplace deviance behavior. Third, this has a major effect in aggressive humor for interpersonal deviance behavior. Fourth, this has a major effect in self-enhancing humor for turnover intention. Finally, four types of humorous style have no effect of adjustment in employee cynicism between relationship of workplace deviance behavior and turnover intention.

Mak, Chun Nam.
Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-322).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on 08, November, 2016).
Mak, Chun Nam.