This paper aims to understanding how leader humor, as a workplace information resource, influences employee creativity through information exchange based on social information processing theory and further examine the contingent roles of employee extraversion and leader interpersonal influence.
The theoretical model was tested across a field study using time-lagged, multisource data collected from 336 employees and 90 direct leaders.
Results of multilevel path analysis indicated that after controlling for subordinates' perceptions of leader dispositional affect (leader positive and negative affect) and the other related leadership style (leader teachability), the indirect effect of leader humor on subordinate creativity through information exchange was stronger toward more extraverted subordinates and among leaders high on leader interpersonal influence.
This research offers practical implications about how to maximize subordinate creativity by considering subordinates' and leaders' characteristics synergistically.
These findings advance leader humor literature by providing new insights into its theoretical underpinnings from social information processing theory and offer understandings on the boundary conditions of leader humor.
