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FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

OF HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Saint Petersburg School of Economics and Management

Department of Management

In the field 38.03.02 Management

Educational programme `Management'

The influence of humorous work climate on employee innovative work behaviour: evidence from Russia

Logacheva Elizaveta Yur'evna

Supervisor

Associate professor, M.S. Plakhotnik, EdD

Saint Petersburg 2019

Abstract

Innovative work behavior (IWB) is the process of generating, developing, and implementing novel ideas that further result in innovation. To foster IWB, humorous work climate could be used as a motivation mechanism. Hence, this study aims to investigate the influence of humorous climate on employee IWB in Russian banking industry and determine the role of individual differences in this relations. An electronic survey was distributed among back-office workers of a bank. In total, 104 employees participated in the study. Collected data was analyzed in SPSS, using correlation and regression analysis. The results indicate that humorous climate explains approximately 30% of employee IWB. Moreover, employee position is significant, while gender, education, and job tenure are not significant regarding the demonstration of IWB. Therefore, organizational leaders should create and maintain a humorous climate to stimulate workers' IWB. HR managers should also adjust hiring and T&D processes to ensure the use of humor in the workplace. humorous climate employee innovative

Keywords: workplace humor; humorous climate; innovative behavior; human resource management; banking industry; Russia

Introduction

Today innovations are one of the major issues to consider for Russian social-economic development. President Putin has emphasized that to maintain its status of “the great power”, Russia has to adopt innovation as the main driver of its economic development (Tass, 2018). In 2014, the Russian government put forward the “Innovative Russia - 2020” strategy to establish desired outcomes, priorities, and approaches to propel innovation across industries and regions of the country (Analytical Center, 2014). As a result, for instance, the number of technoparks, special areas equipped to accelerate scientific research and innovation development, and engineering centers has tripled from 50 in 2009 to 125 in 2017 (AKIT, 2017) and for now they continue to grow (Channel 5, 2018; Government session, 2016). The Russian Scientific Fund (2013), the Fund of Perspective Research (2012), and the National Research Center of Zhukovskiy, all sponsored by the government, have been established to support this strategy (Government of Russia, 2015). Yet, Russia is only 46th on the Global Innovation Index (2018), one point lower compared to 2017. This statistic urges the Government, companies, and research centers to continue exploring factors that hinder and advance Russia's innovation development.

Since innovations are produced by people (Purc & Laguna, 2017), organizations should incorporate the principle of “Innovative person” (Mineconomrazvitie, 2010) that calls for formation of innovation competencies in every employee. These competencies would lead to demonstration of innovative behavior among employees in the workplace (Esaulova et al., 2015). Literature suggests that innovative work behavior (IWB) is the intention to generate, introduce as well as implement novel ideas in the context of routine work environment to produce a new product for the benefit of the organization (Carmeli et al., 2006; Janssen, 2000; Kleysen, 2001). In a broader context, innovative behavior is the foundation of any high-performance organization (Carmeli et al., 2006) because it creates the innovative climate inside the company, which, in turn, improves company's image, increases the quality of its activity (Volkova, 2016) and provides it with additional source of competitiveness (Dedahanov et al., 2017; Esaulova et al., 2015; Ettlie, 2014).

In this circumstance, managers are forced to resort to various stimulation mechanisms that may ensure above-mentioned outcomes by encouraging people to be innovative at work (Shahova & Petuhova, 2012). Previous studies have revealed some features to be leveraged for motivating workers. Those imply the reward system (Shahova & Petuhova, 2012), effect of leadership styles (Feng et al., 2016; Pundt, 2015) or organizational structure (Debahanov et al., 2017; Omri et al., 2014). Yet, Lee (2015) suggests humor to be another effective management tool, which, according to Lang & Lee (2010), is also a driver of creative and innovative thinking.

In business context, humor is the informal way of interaction between colleagues in the workplace although it may serve different functions establishing the particular relationships between members (Lang & Lee, 2010). Even though there are many research on relations between humor and employee attitude (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2018), employee strain (Huo et al., 2012) or follower's behavior in general (Yam et al., 2018), still it lacks the scientific studies on a matter of IWB. Recently, it has been proved that positive mood fosters innovative behavior of employees (Madrid et al., 2013). Pundt (2015) found a significant correlation between humorous leadership and innovative behavior, while Lee (2015) and Lang & Lee (2010) demonstrated the positive relations between leader's humor on employee's creativity.

However, it is important that, as a communication tool among workers, humor is indirect and quite ambiguous (Lang & Lee, 2010), thus, sometimes it might be hard to evaluate precisely its organizational impact. Hence, some researchers insisted on a more comprehensive approach of assessing the effect of humor in the workplace (Cann et al., 2014; Wood, 2007), but almost no recent studies considered it. Although only Slatten et al. (2011) resorted to this recommendation and examined innovative behavior in relation to the humorous work climate , which was previously proved by Ekwall (1996) to have a highest correlation with product innovation. The choice of humorous climate is caused by the fact that climate is “members' surface experience and perceptions of the organization” (p.273) and it reflects both forms of humor (positive and negative), characterizing the level of humorous environment in which employees are forced to exist (Cann et al., 2014). Moreover, multidimensionality of humorous climate construct lets managers influence organizational outcomes through the package of measures to use humor in the workplace (Cann et al., 2009; Isopekul', 2014; Romero & Cruthirds, 2006). Therefore, assessing humorous climate is more suitable in relation to innovative behavior as it broadens the set of influential mechanisms to be applied.

In our paper, we intend to go further with the results of Slatten et al. (2011) study and cover some limitations. Firstly, we would like to estimate the pure effect of existing humorous climate on the intention to demonstrate IWB, but without moderating role of creativity. Creativity is said to be the part of innovative behavior process and may be already included in the IWB construct (Carmeli et al., 2006; Esaulova et al., 2015; Pundt, 2015), making it reasonable to exclude it from the model. By this, we assume to avoid partial multicollinearity of these two variables. Instead, the effect of such individual differences as gender, educational level, job position and job tenure will be tested. Finally, we want to contribute by making a research in banking sphere in Russia, whilst Slatten et al. (2011) were primarily focused on the hospitality industry only.

Thus, the purpose of our research is to investigate the relationship between humorous working climate and employees' innovative behavior in banking industry in Russia and to determine the role of individual differences in this relationship. To achieve this goal, following tasks are set:

1. To observe and analyze the existing literature on innovative work behavior and humor in the workplace;

2. To develop a survey for further data collection process;

3. To collect empirical data for the research;

4. Using the data to determine the relationship between variables IWB and humorous work climate;

5. To analyze the effect of individual characteristics in relation to IWB and humorous work climate.

Once the relationship is recognized, managers would have an extra tool for motivating employees to increase their work performance, especially their intention to demonstrate IWB. They will also be able to correct their communicating strategies with subordinates to maintain the certain level of humorous climate in a working community. Moreover, our results may be practically significant for HR managers as well who may further adapt some particular recruitment principles. Together this may give a company additional source of competitive advantage.

To perform the tasks, we plan to use correlations for determining the relations between humorous climate and IWB, and regression analysis to reveal the causality. For considering employees individual characteristics the regression analysis with interactions will be used to observe the differences among groups and its effect on the above-mentioned relationship.

The structure of the paper is determined by the objectives and thus, consists of four parts. Firstly, the theoretical background with the analysis of existing literature on IWB and workplace humor is introduced. Then we come up with the methodology of our research, its results and the discussion part with the explanation of them. Finally, we are going to draw a conclusion based on our analysis, presenting the implications, limitations and potential areas for further studies in this field.

Subsequently, the research contributes to the theory on humorous work climate with regard to IWB that now deserved insufficient attention. Moreover, it sheds the light on theoretical understanding of the role of people's individual characteristics in the relationship to demonstrate whether there is a significant difference among groups or not.

1. Literature review

1.1 Innovative work behavior.

Today for organizations to compete in conditions of severe rivalry, flexibility and ability to produce, develop and apply product innovations become critical factors for its sustainable growth. Since product competition is an integral part of company's survival, it is essential for them to fight for speeding-up the development of high-quality products (Carmeli, 2006; Esaulova et al., 2015). In this sense, employees' abilities to innovative activity have become crucial as workers are actually those who increase the company's performance by generating new ideas and put them into action. Innovative activity further boosts the production of high-quality products and professional services. Thus, nowadays organizations more and more concern about promoting employees' innovative behavior in order to reach full competitiveness (Jong & Hartog, 2007; Volkova, 2016).

In academic literature IWB is usually perceived as the multidisciplinary term, which may be viewed from different perspectives. In psychology, IWB is viewed as the people's response to conditions in which they are forced to introduce novel ideas (Ekvall, 1996). Kleysen (2001) emphasized the multi-dimensional environment of the IWB concept that was generally focused on five factors, including opportunity exploration (to identify the problem), generativity (to create idea), formative investigation (to understand the need), championing (to find support) and application (to put idea into action), that categorize the individual behaviors itself.

Esaulova et al. (2015) argued that viewing innovative behavior as the way employees express their creativity or entrepreneurship intentions is appropriate, but this approach does not provide a leverage to boost employees' innovative activity. That is why in business context IWB is considered as the stage-by-stage innovation process (Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2016) rather than just an intention of being creative. The process starts with the recognition of the problem that leads to generating and suggesting new ideas and to, lastly, implementing them in order to benefit and contribute to individual or organizational development (Janssen, 2000; Kleysen, 2001). Having recognized these stages, it becomes easier to apply some instruments to foster IWB.

There are two approaches to study IWB - socio-political and success-oriented. The latter has gained more popularity in the scientific society as it assumes employees being innovative to increase the effectiveness of their work rather than just a passing trend, which is the basic idea of socio-political approach. Successful ideas result in increased work performance, contributing to personal achievement of an employee and benefitting the whole organization (Volkova, 2016). These benefits may include improvement of daily working processes (Kamp, 2016), strengthening company's image, increasing quality of products and services (Volkova, 2016), gaining competitive advantage (Ettlie, 2014), or increasing a company's flexibility in changing environment (Debahanov et al., 2017). Consequently, understanding of IWB and its mechanisms is crucial for the managers to increase the company's competitiveness.

Three stages of IWB are idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization (Kamp, 2016). During the idea generation stage, employee comes up with new ideas and solutions to solve the identified problem. The idea should be useful, not senseless, to contribute to covering the gap. The idea promotion stage implies the process of encouraging others (both inside and outside the organization) to support the idea and motivate them participate in the final stage - idea realization (Pundt, 2015). This final stage is not only about an application of the idea but also about creating a prototype or model of innovation to be developed further (Carmeli et al., 2006).

Innovation is the personality characteristic that includes a creativity component (Esaulova et al., 2015). To stimulate IWB means to stimulate creative thinking of employees. The more frequently employees are engaged in creative work, the more likely they are to produce new ideas. Then, it makes sense assuming that creativity helps employees to be innovative (Lee, 2015). Previously some researchers (such as Ford, 1996; Lang & Lee, 2010) used terms “creativity” and “innovation” interchangeably although today creativity is considered as separate but closely related to the innovation (Madrid, 2013). Being a cognitive construct, creativity refers to the production of ideas (Slatten et al., 2011; Lee, 2015) based on subjective perception of the task (Pundt, 2015). This subjective perception concerns only the first stage of IWB process (i.e. idea generation). Creativity has its own three stages: identification of the problem, information research and idea generation (Slatten et al., 2011). Therefore, creativity as an integral part of IWB.

IWB has some additional attributes that explain and describe its complexity and multilateral nature. These attributes are the following:

a) Open experience and knowledge sharing

b) Initiative to promote ideas

c) Teamwork participation

d) Desire to support and initiate some changes in the company. (Esaulova et al., 2014)

Each of these attributes may be considered in terms of employee's competency to be developed. Competency itself is the combination of essential knowledge and skills as well as values and particular behavior to be demonstrated while performing a specific role in the workplace (Volkova, 2016). Therefore, IWB is the realization of a particular behavioral model that implies competencies necessary for innovation process in the organization, in other words innovative competencies. They also characterize the intention and ability to participate individually or collectively in the improvement of company's performance (Esaulova et al., 2014).

The formation of innovative competencies is a stage-by-stage process, which may establish a base for employees to become innovative at work. The structural background includes development of basic competencies (gained through the educational process), then functional competencies (gained through practice in the workplace), which further form the innovative competencies. Esaulova et al. (2015) emphasized five clusters that determine innovative competencies in employees' workplace activity: creativity, willingness to training and development, entrepreneurship, cooperation, and positive attitude towards innovations. Unique characteristics of each cluster may serve as an instrument for managers to implement HR-policies to foster employee full potential to producing innovation. The model is also applicable for formation of innovation climate, enhancing the working environment, which is the part of organizational culture (Pundt, 2015).

1.2 Innovative behavior and innovation climate

If we consider organization as a complex system, where changes of one element might cause disruption in the whole system functioning, we can predict the connection between IWB and innovation climate (Volkova, 2016). Generally, innovation climate describes to what extent employees feel motivated and encouraged to generate novel ideas at work and supported to pursue them (Pundt, 2015). Some studies revealed that high level of innovation climate in the organization ensures high appreciation of suggested ideas (James et al., 2008). Also, employees' perception of innovative climate leads to a certain expectation level of being innovative at work. In turn, it causes the intrinsic desire to create something new, which then results in demonstration of IWB (Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2017).

Innovation climate is not the only feature that influences employees' intention to demonstrate IWB. Previous studies have already found the link between IWB and organizational structure, revealing that centralization, formalization, and organizational innovation performance are mediated by the IWB (Dedahanov et al., 2017; Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2017). Additionally, the role of leadership styles is also highly investigated. Jong and Hartog (2007) found that leaders influence their subordinates' IWB through their deliberate actions or daily behavior. Further, Pundt et al. (2015) suggested that humorous leadership increases frequency of employees being innovative. Moreover, innovation climate moderates this relationship. Feng et al. (2016) claimed that transformational leadership is positively correlated with group IWB moderated by the radical change. Concerning other indicators, researchers emphasized the role of self-leadership (Carmeli et al., 2006), employees' thinking style (Ettlie, 2014), the reward system (Shahova & Petuhova, 2012), work engagement (Kim & Koo, 2017), or organizational tenure (Liu et al., 2016) in demonstration of IWB.

A relatively large number of studies is dedicated to the relationship between IWB and humor as another tool for stimulating creative and innovative thinking (Lang & Lee, 2010). Madrid et al. (2013) found positive mood to be the driver of employee's innovative behavior, whereas others noticed a significant relation between humor and creativity (Lang & Lee, 2010; Lee, 2015). All these findings reveal the additional field to be observed on order to better understand IWB and enhance it.

1.3 Humor in the workplace

Since 1970s researchers in a management field has been paying a great attention to the organizational humor (Cann et al., 2009). Earlier, there were many studies dedicated to the effect of humor on employees' commitment and group cohesiveness, tension in teams (Huo et al., 2012), or establishment of effective working relations (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). Today the scientific research goes far beyond. An International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) was established to advance the humor research in a variety of fields, including management, nursing, education, or psychology. The society publishes a quarterly journal Humor: International Journal of Humor Research and organizes international annual conferences (ISHS, 2019). Obviously, the interest to the humor research continues to grow until present days (Lee, 2015). The focus of scientific studies now shifted to the individual level, or an employee himself. Researchers are more interested in supervisor-subordinate relations, namely how leader's humor affects employee attitude (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2018), expression of cynicism (Gkorezis et al., 2014), employee strain (Huo et al., 2012), engagement, or job performance (Kim & Koo, 2017). Relatively few studies address the issue of humor usage and employee's creativity and IWB (Lee, 2015).

As a social phenomenon, humor is complex and multifaceted, being expressed in a variety of forms: jokes, anecdotes, funny stories, laughter, wit or satire, ironic phrases, or sarcasm. Presence of these aspects in somebody's behavior and the quality of its use indicates that he/she has sense of humor (Lang & Lee, 2015). However, isolating “sense of humor” from “humor” construct seems almost impossible. These two terms usually are used interchangeably, although they refer to different aspects, thus, humor sometimes is perceived unworthy to consider seriously. Still, as a form of communication in the workplace, it has received a significant scientific attention (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012).

In the literature, humor is defined as a communicative tool that produces some positive emotions (Heintz & Ruch, 2019; Romero & Cruthirds, 2006) or intentional form of communication characterized by appropriate usage of sense of humor (Robert & Yan, 2007). It can be also seen as a form of in-group interaction that helps sustain a positive atmosphere among its members (Unal, 2014). Some researchers notice the dual nature of this construct. Despite its generally perceived positive outcome, usage of humor may lead to some negative consequences as well (Isopekul, 2014). For instance, supervisor's humor can either strengthen or weaken relations with subordinate depending on how humor is produced and perceived by both sides (Cruthirds et al., 2013). Consequently, ambiguity of humor forces scientists to stick to more comprehensive approach of assessing humor in the workplace (Wood et al., 2007). Hence, in our research humor would be understood as the form of communication between workers that establishes certain relationship between its members, aiming at creating a positive working atmosphere through the use of jokes, anecdotes or other tools.

The most prominent approach towards defining humor styles, that gained the popularity in the scientific society, was developed by Martin et al. (2003). He emphasized the multi-dimensional nature of humor and based on this assumption, he suggested a model of four individual humor styles used by employees and their supervisors - affiliative, aggressive, self-enhancing and self-defeating. Affiliative humor is a positive form of interpersonal humor that is used to enhance relationships between people or reduce the probability of arising conflicts. It characterized by the usage of kind jokes or funny stories to amuse others for creating a positive atmosphere (Heintz & Ruch, 2019). This style is non-hostile and can be associated with self-esteem, cheerfulness, extraversion and positive mood as it aims at improving relationships with others (Cann & Matson, 2014). Opposite to it, aggressive humor is usually about teasing and belittling others by usage of sarcasm or derision, which sometimes may include different forms of manipulating others by threats. This style is associated with aggression, anger or hostility and includes impulsive expressions of inappropriate humor without a thought that somebody may be hurt by those expressions (Martin et al., 2003). Usually, people who use aggressive style tries to enhance their self in expense to others (Heintz & Ruch, 2019).

Self-enhancing humor, in turn, is aimed at enhancing self without any harm for colleagues and may be also viewed as a coping strategy. It implies being frequently amused by life difficulties and having a positive outlook even in case of stress (Martin et al., 2003). This is some kind of a defense mechanism when person uses humor to avoid negative emotions through humorous perspective of life (Cann & Matson, 2014). Compared to affiliative style, this one is more about intrapsychic when humor is used mostly for our own benefit rather than amusing others (Heintz & Ruch, 2019). Finally, self-defeating humor is about establishing good relations with others at the expense of oneself. This includes allowing others to use oneself as a target for jokes and ridicules, but at the same time laughing along with others when this happens, in other words, when a person laughs with others on a joke of himself. This can be interpreted as the form of defensive denial for those who feel emotional neediness and have las self-esteem (Martin et al., 2003).

Romero and Cruthirds (2006) later on added one more style called mild-aggressive. This style is about reprimanding or teasing, but with the humorous undertone that is not aimed at offending others rather than scolding. It softens the tension in conflict situations or some working moments between the manager and his/her subordinate.

Dimensions of humor are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One may use to the aggressive humor in response to being a target for jokes and self-defeating humor for maintaining good relations with others (Heintz & Ruch, 2019). Similarly, while determining the connections with other complex structures, such as organizational culture or commitment, different humor styles maybe reflected simultaneously (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012).

This may be demonstrated in a variety of situations at work. The unity of a team may be achieved, for instance, by usage of aggressive humor that is aimed at the “common enemy” defeat and the usage of mild-aggressive humor to force group members in a friendly manner to follow the group rules (Isopekul', 2014). Management position may be strengthened by affiliative humor that establishes good relationships with subordinates and self-defeating humor that, thus, may cut the distance between the director and the working group (Heintz & Ruch, 2019). One more essential aspect is the establishment of organizational culture that creates the environment in the whole company. The usage of affiliative humor may unite employees by its positive dimension, which further reflects the group mentality and values shared by workers. Self-enhancing humor in this context makes every group member even more socially important, building strong connections among colleagues (Isopekul', 2014). Hence, every organizational outcome may be improved by the usage of different humor styles combinations. These may be either socialization process, communication among workers (Unal, 2014) or creativity and stress resistance (Cann & Matson, 2014).

Humor can simply be divided into positive, which provokes positive emotions, and negative, which leads to negative interpersonal outcomes (Lussier et al., 2017). Inappropriate use of humor may lead to worsening relationships between group members because it could be perceived as assaults and insults. This, in turn, decreases productivity and company's effectiveness in general (Cruthirds et al., 2013). For a single employee aggressive jokes or ridicules causes burnout and emotional stress that might lead to the physical instability (Huo et al., 2012). Additionally, special type of negative humor - harassment in its various forms - may even result in legal procedures and goodwill losses (Cruthirds et al., 2013).

Many researchers have emphasized the role of positive humor in burnout, health, stress, or coping (Wisse & Rietzschel, 2014), which is summarized in common sayings like “laughter is the best medicine” and “laughter prolongs one's life”. Laughter impacts employees psychological and physical health by stimulating people's immune system and cardiovascular functioning (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). The probability of burnout or stress can be reduced by means of positive humor that brings joy, optimistic views, or distractions from problems. For example, some companies implement employee support networks that serve as a place for employees to communicate some stressful thoughts in a humorous way to release tension and encourage (Cann & Matson, 2014; Martin et al., 2003). Consequently, an employee is not the only one who benefits, but the organizational culture as well. These support networks ensure stronger relations among group members, thus establishing better communication in the workplace (Lussier et al., 2017). Humor may also contribute to increased engagement, job satisfaction (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012), productivity levels, and job performance (Cann & Matson, 2014) and decreased turnover (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012), which could influence organizational outcomes.

In practice, HR managers more and more pay attention to humor as an instrument to create a pleasant working environment. Some companies such as IBM, AT&T, Macdonald's or General Electric once have hired a humor consultant (or “concoach”), Phil Sorentino, who established Humor Consultants Inc. in 1981 for “assisting in the enjoyment of everything.” (Humor Consultants, 2019). The company suggests customized solutions to make the workplace creative and enjoyable, which may improve company's performance and retain employees. Such companies as Kodak and Eastman established special humor rooms to foster positive behavior (Wood et al., 2007). Another example of taking “a humor advantage” is the Southwest Airlines, which is famous for their humorous organizational culture. Through training programs and reward system they encourage employees to be creative and funny, look for the opportunities to use laughter whenever it is possible (Forbes, 2014). Moreover, their HR policy applies the principle of hiring people with sense of humor, who are good team players, ready to perform well. (Southwest Airlines, 2010; Nykiel, 2007). It really helps them to reduce the turnover rate and improve customers' experience. Additional example is Zappos, video content producer, which has one of its core values - “create fun & a little weirdness”. They promote it through some special corporate events (such as Nerf gun battles or Tutu Tuesdays) and try to hire people suitable for their established corporate culture (Zappos, 2017).

1.4 Humor and Innovative work behavior

Importantly, some studies confirmed a significant relationship between humor and employee's creativity where humor fosters employee creative thinking and openness to innovative ideas (Lee, 2015). Being a personality trait, creativity describes employee's internal ability to look at things from an unusual perspective (Chaing et al., 2014) and to generate original ideas that are not commonly suggested (Lussier et al., 2017). This partly defines the environment where novel ideas are likely to be produced. Ekvall (1996) introduced the term “creative climate” that refers to an organizational culture that supports production of creative products. He suggested the following ten factors influencing creative climate, namely idea time, idea support, risk-taking, challenge, conflicts, freedom, debates, trust, dynamism, and humor.

Humor interacts with creativity in several ways. For example, liberating humor creates an environment, where no one is accused of being bizarre or extravagant and limited in his/her expressions. This breaks the barriers of shyness and misunderstanding when suggesting something original. Stress-relieving humor, in turn, affords an emotional release and increases self-control, stimulating positive thinking and opening the space for new ideas. On the contrary, controlling humor is negatively relates with the creative thinking since it frames the behavior of those who are the target of control. It also puts employees in a situation where they are expected to express what is appropriate for their leaders. This does not give an opportunity to suggest innovations (Cann & Matson, 2014; Lang & Lee, 2010). This tendency is true for leader's use of humor where communication with managers shapes the behavior of workers tremendously (Lee, 2015), and this relationship was proved by many scientific studies (Feng et al., 2016; Gkorezis et al., 2014; Huo et al., 2012; Pundt, 2015; Slatten et al., 2011; Unal, 2014).

Given that creativity is the part of IWB construct, it is logical to assume that humor is positively related to the employee's intention to demonstrate IWB. Firstly, because creativity refers to the first stage of this process, this may be the basis for workers to start thinking innovatively. Speaking of idea promotion stage, humor affects the level of encouragement to share the ideas with other co-workers to promote the innovation. Positive climate, formed by the usage of humor in the workgroup, makes this process much easier due to no fear of being criticized for something extraordinary (Kamp, 2016). Humor also affiliates the relationships with the director making it simple to achieve his approval (Feng et al., 2016). During the final stage, idea realization, humorous environment makes the process smother and quicker (Yam et al., 2018) and increases the probability of product innovation being applied. It happens because jokes or other humorous expressions strengthens group cohesiveness, ensures the support network, which further helps the innovator to implement the idea (Ekvall, 1996; Lussier et al., 2017).

As a communicative strategy, humor seems to be positively correlated to demonstration of IWB. For instance, humorous leadership triggers risk-taking and desire to be more innovative due to the motivation coming from a manager. Employee feels himself more relaxed and ready to suggest new ideas (Pundt, 2015). Moreover, Madrid et al. (2013) proved that positive mood fosters IWB. Such internal state ensures the mental flexibility, which is the component of successful idea generation process.

1.5 Humorous work climate

Sometimes it might be hard to assess workplace humor due to the difficulties to distinguish its positive and negative forms. From time to time, each worker may use either a funny joke or something more abusing, depending on his/her mood, work situation, or level of stress, which demonstrates changing working environment (Cann et al., 2014). Moreover, humor as a multidimensional construct can be associated with both gains and losses (Lee, 2015). In this circumstance, while assessing humor effect on the IWB, it makes sense to use a more comprehensive concept (Wood et al., 2007) that could eliminate these short-term changes in a humor usage and be a reflection of how humor is perceived by group members.

Ekvall (1996) was first to suggest exploring humorous climate as a part of organizational culture to evaluate its role within the working team. However, until now the only one research concentrates on this particular construct in relation to IWB (Slatten et al., 2011) even though humorous climate has been shown to have the highest correlation with product innovation (Ekvall, 1996). Therefore, in our study we consider humorous climate as the most suitable variable to be included.

Blanchart et al. (2014) defines humor climate as “shared perception of how humor is used and expressed within an employee group” (p. 54). It can have both positive and negative expressions, be rather direct or indirect and aimed at inside or outside members. Furthermore, this may include peculiarities of leader's humor as well. Thus, any combination is appropriate for understanding and maintaining the humor climate in a team. Cann et al. (2014) developed Humor Climate Questionnaire, which includes items for positive and negative humor, outgroup humor, and supervisor support. Obviously, given that humor is positively related to demonstration of IWB, we suggest that the humorous climate would have the same effect.

Additionally, researchers suggest that gender differences matters in perception of humor and its use, thus being a significant variable in a model (Cann et al., 2014). For instance, Martin et al. (2003) revealed that man scored much higher on negative humor, enjoying using it more. Others also suggest that such individual characteristics as level of education, managerial or non-managerial position as well as job tenure may also be important features to consider in relation to humor and IWB (Pundt, 2015; Kim & Koo, 2017). Hence, we have decided to add them in our model as well.

2. Methodology

Having analyzed the existing literature on IWB and humor, several hypotheses were developed. First, since different aspects of humor (e.g., humorous leadership (Pundt, 2015) have positive relations to demonstration of IWB, it is more likely that humorous climate will have the same effect. Additionally, given that the same relations between humorous climate and job satisfaction and commitment were proved by Cann et al. (2014), we suggest that it will similarly influence the IWB being another aspect of employee's workplace well-being (Gujral & Bhardwaj, 2016). Hence, we came up with the following hypotheses on this matter:

H1. Humorous climate significantly and positively influences IWB.

H2. Such humorous climate dimensions as positive humor and supervisor support are positively related to IWB.

H3. Such humorous climate dimensions as negative humor and outgroup humor are negatively related to IWB.

Moreover, we intend to contribute the study of Slatten et al. (2011) by testing the role of employee's individual differences. Gender has strong relation with humor expressed in the workplace (Martin et al., 2003), while educational level, job tenure, and job position were positively related to IWB construct (Pundt, 2015). Therefore, we suspect that while assessing the relationship between humorous climate and IWB, it is essential to add some control variables that may somehow be connected to both concepts. Consequently, the following hypotheses are suggested:

H4. Gender, educational level, job tenure, and job position are significant in the relationship between IWB and humorous climate.

H5. Humorous climate significantly and positively influences the IWB after the effect of such variables as gender, educational level, job position and job tenure are accounted for.

H6: The effect of the humorous climate on the IWB differs depending on employees' gender, educational background, job tenure, and position they hold.

Tested together, these hypotheses should contribute to meeting the objective of the research, namely examining the effect of humorous climate and IWB and the role of individual characteristics in this relationship.

2.1 Research design

All study hypotheses are based on prior published research, so they are a priori generated (Bacon-Shone, 2016). Therefore, the study is content-explanatory (Harkiolakis, 2017) aiming at investigating the causal relationship between variables (IWB and humorous climate) and the role of individual differences in this causality. It suggests the deductive approach (Harkiolakis, 2017) to be applied in our study. The research design is descriptive (Harkiolakis, 2017) with the survey as the main tool of data collection. It has a quantitative data collection process and quantitative data analysis strategy (Bacon-Shone, 2016) to be able to test the hypotheses that were developed.

There are several stages of the research. First, we examined the literature on the IWB and humor in the workplace and identified their main characteristics, definitions, antecedents, and consequences, and other relevant concepts. It was applicable for further hypotheses generating process to understand the underlying assumptions for proposed hypotheses. Another crucial aspect is the absence of evidence on causality between IWB and humorous climate done on the Russian market in banking industry. Therefore, the relations between these variables were predicted by the analogy with other industries.

Once it has been done, we defined the research strategy. Our research implies the generalization on the whole banking industry with employees in banks being observed. It suggested the survey as the most appropriate tool for collecting data as well as quantitative methods of data analysis for testing the hypotheses to draw statistically significant conclusions.

After data was collected and analyzed, we were able to make decisions to confirm or reject the hypotheses. As a result of our study, we provide some practical significance on how managers are able to use the produced knowledge in their daily routine. Moreover, conclusions done on the basis of the analysis are new theoretical knowledge that can boost the development of IWB and humor research to a new level.

2.2 Data collection process

We collected primary data (Bacon-Shone, 2016) because there was no existing data sets on the topic of the research. Moreover, primary data is also advantageous as we are able to create our own data set with variables suitable for chosen research purpose and hypothesis. Thus, we are able to draw more reliable conclusions based on gained data.

To achieve this, cross-sectional survey is chosen as the main quantitative method of collecting data. It contains 3 blocks of questions: general information, IWB, and humorous climate (see Appendix 1). The first block consists of, five demographic questions on respondent's gender, age, educational level, job tenure, and job position to create participants profiles and further use these control variables as individual differences. The IWB block is represented by 9 items on IWB developed by Jansenn (2000) to be evaluated on the 5-point Likert scale from “absolutely disagree” to “absolutely agree”. Sample items are “I evaluate the utility of innovative ideas” or “I mobilize support for innovative ideas”. The humorous work climate block consists of 16 items developed by Cann et al. (2014). In this block, respondents should evaluate items according to a 7-point Likert scale from “absolutely disagree” to “absolutely agree”. Sample items in this block are “Humor is something we all enjoy sharing at work” or “My supervisor expects a serious atmosphere at work”. Answers to the former two blocks indicate the variables of IWB and humorous climate respectively that are later added to the analysis.

The original scales by Cann et al. (2014) and Jansenn (2000) were available in English. Because the study is conducted in the Russian companies, only Russian-speaking employees were to complete the survey. Hence, we translated the English versions into Russian with the help of philologist to ensure the quality and clear meaning of all phrases. At the same time, a bilingual faculty member read both versions and corrected for accuracy of both scales. Then, a bilingual management student translated those statements that we did not agree upon and, finally, a teacher of Russian language read and polished the Russian version. We also did a backward translation (Harkiolakis, 2017) later that caused no changes in the meaning. A further pilot study was done to increase the quality of the survey and reveal some potential problem areas that might mislead our respondents. We asked 11 people to complete the survey and emphasize those aspects that were unclear or confusing. Based on their feedback, we improved the survey. Then an analysis was conducted to verify the reliability and validity of the instruments to be used in analysis. The pilot showed that the type of data we collect is suitable for those tools of analysis. Importantly, the pilot respondents were not included in the final sample (Teijlingen & Hundley, 2001).

The survey was distributed electronically via corporate social networks and emails among employees in a bank in the North-West of Russia in February, 2019. This method is appropriate for our research as it allows to collect data from as many people as possible to ensure the representativeness of a sample. It is also a good solution in terms of limited resources such as money and time.

Through the survey we created the multivariate dataset with the cross-sectional data on each employee, consisting of 10 variables. Innovative work behavior (IWB) and humorous working climate are the dependent and independent variables respectively, which are measured by the average score on each statement of the scale. We also added some extra variables, representing the four dimensions of humorous work climate, namely positive and negative humor, outgroup humor and supervisor support, which are also measured by the average scores on each statement included in the respective dimension.

Gender is the control variable, discrete quantitative and binomial, expressed in 0=male and 1=female. Educational level is the ordinal qualitative, expressed in 1=secondary education, 2=incomplete higher education and 3=higher education. Job position is another control variable, discrete qualitative, expressed in 0=manager with subordinates, and 1=manager without subordinates and 2=non-manager. Finally, job tenure is final control variable, interval quantitative, expressed in years of occupying the position that are 0=less than a year, 1=1-3 years, 2=4-6 years, 3=7-10 years, 4=more than 10 years.

2.3 Sample

The study is done in the North-West region branch of one of the largest banks operating across the Russian Federation. The choice of the company is determined by the research objective and primary explained by the fact that banking industry was not observed yet with regard to IWB and humor. Moreover, banking sector is a bit separate from other industries as it could not be attached to the particular economic sector. The company we study meets several criteria that were required, namely the large size of the business, the industry and the orientation on innovations that should be mentioned in company's current strategy. The latter aspect could ensure that answers to IWB questions will reflect employee's desire to be innovative at work.

Our sampling method for the research is convenient non-probability (Bacon-Shone, 2016). We consider it as a good choice for detecting relationships among different phenomena, and a suitable solution when the population is too large to test and when there is an easy access to a company that meets all the above-mentioned criteria. Still we acknowledge the limitation that such sampling technique may harm the representativeness of the sample.

The population of the study is estimated by the personnel headcount of the company, whilst the sample is represented by employees who will agree to complete the survey. These workers were chosen by the snowball method (Bacon-Shone, 2016), when the survey was distributed through the employee networks.

Data were collected from 104 employees (80 females and 24 males). The majority of respondents (63,5%) are 30-45 years old while 17,3% were in 46-55 age category and “less than 29 years old” category. Most of the respondents, namely 92,3% have higher education. As for the job tenure, 56,7% of employees have more than 10 years of experience, 12,5% have been working for 7-10 years, 16,3% are for 4-6 years and 13,5% employees only work for 1-3 years. Finally, 56,7% of all respondents are managers without subordinates, 20,2% are not managers at all and only 23,1% of employees are managers who have subordinates.

2.4 Data analysis strategy

The collected data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 25, standard edition. This statistical instrument is considered to be the most suitable to observe such social phenomena as humorous climate and employee innovative behavior (Bacon-Shone, 2016). Moreover, it contains all necessary functions to test the proposed hypotheses.

Prior to the analysis, we organized the list of variables in a way to be applicable for further investigation. The variables IWB and HWC were computed as average scores of 9 items and 16 items for each respondent, respectively. Similarly, four categories of humorous climate were averaged by the respective items included. We also decoded items for Supervisor Support dimension as they were reverse scored. Then, to verify the reliability of the survey Cronbach's alpha coefficient is to be used. We believe this step is crucial due to the translation of original scales into Russian, hence, reliability should be tested.

Generally, our data analysis strategy implies six steps to be taken to achieve the purpose of the study. First, we have used descriptive statistics (frequencies) to understand our sample. Another descriptive tool (descriptives) has demonstrated the average scores, median, standard deviation, minimum and maximum scores for such variables as IWB, HWC, Positive Humor, Negative Humor, Outgroup Humor and Supervisor Support.

Second, we checked whether the distribution of all 6 variables are normal or not by using Kolmagorov-Smirnov test. This was an important basis for deciding what kind of correlation analysis to use (Spearman or Pearson) and determining how suitable variables for regression analysis. After that, we used correlation analysis to find correlation between variables and understand their feasibility to be included in the further investigation of relationship between humorous climate and IWB. The major limitation here is that the coefficients may be highly dependent on the size of sample and its interpretation can be subjective. Additionally, correlation does not mean causation, thus there is a need to use another tool that can give such an information. Hence, in order to determine the direction of relations, we generated a graph and using a curve estimation function were trying to predict which curve better describes how much humorous climate predicts employees' desire to demonstrate IWB. According to these results, regression analysis was done to get some concrete figures. These steps helped us to get results for H1-H3.