Moderating Role of Gender in the Relationship between Humor Styles and Group Cohesiveness

Abstract

Humor is one of the fundamental elements used in human communication and therefore has an influence on the employees in groups and organizations from the perspective of managers. Despite the results of these observations in communication studies, in practice the impact of humor on the management and strategy of an organization is not widely addressed. Humor is more than just an amusing concept. It can be used as an administrative tool which provides many objectives to be achieved. Stress, which is the indisputable fact of the business world, is often negatively related to the operational performance. The dimension of the stress effect was measured at different levels in many scientific studies. At the same time, stress in the workplace is represented as a variable that affects the operational performance and it is suggested that the hypothesis of using humor on stress management solves problems that cause stress in workplace and creates stronger communication among managers. This study examines the effect of humor styles on the group cohesiveness of managers in terms of their gender. The originality of this study is based on the fact that no field research was previously performed using these variables. However, use of humor is commonly researched as "the use of humor in the workplace"; but the relation between the use of humor by managers and their genders has not been examined. In this context; this study analyzes the effects of humor on manager group cohesiveness as a strategic element of management.