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Humor in
The use of humor in corporate corporate
communication communication
John McIlheran
Omaha, Nebraska, USA 267
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how humor can be used to help improve
understanding of a message, as well as to validate the findings of the Booth-Butterfield humor
orientation scale.
Design/methodology/approach – The study used the Booth-Butterfield humor orientation scale to
measure the effectiveness of using humor to maintain focus on written or verbal messages.
Findings – The results showed that participants who rated higher on this scale are more apt to
understand and use humor in their daily communications with each other and the home office. The
study also showed that there is no significant difference in the frequency and effectiveness of humor
usage by participants based on age or geographic location.
Research limitations/implications – All of the managers for this conservative company are
currently male. This limits any analysis of this study based on gender. It also removes gender as an
additional variable, which could have complicated the results.
Practical implications – Humor has been proven to contribute to increases in compliance, learning,
attitude shifts and enjoyment. It also contributes to improved organizational cohesiveness. By
knowing whether an audience perceives humor differently, based on age or location, the sender can
target the message more effectively.
Originality/value – This paper took the findings of the Booth-Butterfield study and expanded the
parameters to include a larger age range and demographic area to test the impact on the humor
orientation scale.
Keywords Corporate communications, Humour
Paper type Research paper

Humor, when boiled down to its essence, is simply an attempt to communicate with
others and have the message interpreted as being funny. That, however, is where the
simplicity of humor ends. Humor is subject to the same variables and limitations as
other forms of communication. There are several variables which determine if a
humorous remark is interpreted by the listener in the same context in which it was
transmitted (Lynch, 2002).
The maintenance of relationships in the workplace, as well as the building of new
relationships, helps to improve the bonds that hold the organization together. Through
the use of communication, not only is organizational cohesiveness maintained or
improved, but it also helps the company to go through the changes, which must always
occur in order for a company to grow (Meyer, 1997). While the paradox of maintenance
and change is a difficult one, it is suggested that humor is essential for this kind of
relationship. Corporate Communications: An
International Journal
Vol. 11 No. 3, 2006
The author wishes to thank Dr S. Booth-Butterfield and Dr M. Booth-Butterfield for graciously pp. 267-274
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
allowing him to use their Humor Orientation Scale in his study. Their work is the basis for this 1356-3289
study. DOI 10.1108/13563280610680849
CCIJ Humor has also been found, when used appropriately, to contribute to increases in
compliance, learning, attitude shifts and enjoyment. It has also been connected to an
11,3 increase in speaker credibility in certain cases (Wanzer et al., 1995). Humor also has a
physiological affect on the recipient. Laughter elevates a person’s cardio and
respiratory function, which as it subsides, creates a relaxation phase (Fry, 1992).
For this study, the humor orientation (HO) scale was administered
268 (Booth-Butterfield and Booth-Butterfield, 1991) to several managers of a
conservative insurance company to determine their HO Scale level. The managers
were then rated by their office coordinators to see if they have the same perception of
the managers as the managers have of themselves. The office coordinators work in the
manager’s office and have direct contact with them on a daily basis. Since, the
managers are located throughout the USA, face-to-face contact rarely occurs with home
office personnel. The manager’s results were also compared to those of the original
study to see how these managers relate to the original respondents. While the
Booth-Butterfield study (Booth-Butterfield and Booth-Butterfield, 1991) was conducted
on undergraduate students in the same geographical area, this study will evaluate
adult males only, who are located throughout the country from a wide range of
demographic and cultural backgrounds.
The HO scale uses 17 statements in a Likert-style response device, to measure
the respondent’s degree of agreement or disagreement, with 1 – strongly agree and
5 – strongly disagree:
1. I regularly tell jokes and funny stories when I am with a group.
2. People usually laugh when I tell a joke or story.
3. I have no memory for jokes or funny stories.
4. I can be funny without having to rehearse a joke.
5. Being funny is a natural communication style with me.
6. I cannot tell a joke well.
7. People seldom ask me to tell stories.
8. My friends would say that I am a funny person.
9. People don’t seem to pay close attention when I tell a joke.
10. Even funny jokes seem flat when I tell them.
11. I can easily remember jokes and stories.
12. People often ask me to tell jokes or stories.
13. My friends would not say that I am a funny person.
14. I do not tell jokes or stories even when asked to.
15. I tell stories and jokes very well.
16. Of all of the people I know, I am one of the funniest.
17. I use humor to communicate in a variety of situations.

Review of related literature

Meyer stated that, “humor is pervasive in all human communication; in meetings,
in politics, at home, and at work, humor may be welcomed as a unifying and
relaxing force” (Meyer, 1997). While humor can be used to be hurtful and divisive
(Alberts et al., 1996; Young and Bippus, 2001), most humor is meant to be positive. Humor in
Humor, as a form of communication, can be misunderstood or improperly used. When corporate
this occurs, humor can intentionally or unintentionally become a weapon, which divides
friends and coworkers. Humor, no matter how well meant, often has a dualistic character communication
to it. This dualistic nature is called the paradox of humor (Lynch, 2002). Humor, like
physics, has an action and a reaction. For the positive to occur, there has to be a negative.
Usually, the person being discussed in the joke receives the negative affect of the humor. 269
It can be another person or the communicator making fun of him/herself.
Humor in communication is based on the motivation that it is an expression of
superiority, a tension reliever and/or an interpretation of incongruity. Superiority is
based on the notion that people can make themselves superior to others by making
others seem inferior through the use of humor. Tension relief is the use of humor to
relieve tension or grief when someone is depressed. Incongruity humor is intellectual
humor that challenges society’s norms and gets the receiver to think of things in a new
way (Lynch, 2002).
So, what does it take for humor to be effectively used? As discussed earlier, it takes
a variety of skill sets, which include, but are not limited to the following:
(1) Knowing one’s audience – it is important to know the background, or shared
experience of the target audience. The use of humor is most common among
friends and co-workers (Miczo, 2004).
(2) One must know when the use of humor is appropriate. If all of the other factors
are correct, but the timing is not, the use of humor will be considered ineffective
or be negatively received (Wanzer et al., 1995).
(3) The delivery of the humorous message needs to be correct. People who score
higher on the HO scale are more likely to attempt humor and be able to deliver it
properly (Booth-Butterfield and Booth-Butterfield, 1991).
(4) Humor must have originality. Humor will not be perceived as humorous unless
it is new, or at least used in a new context (Bippus, 2000).

Methodology
The actual distribution of the HO scale occurred when all of the division managers
were at the home office for a weeklong meeting. This allowed for the physical
separation needed between the manager and their office coordinators, thus ensuring
that they did not compare notes and influence the results of the study.
Again, the study compared 46 managers from locations throughout the USA.
The managers were required to attend a round table meeting focusing on feedback.
Before this session started, a copy of the HO scale was distributed to each of them.
They were asked to complete it before they left the meeting. Two assistants picked up
the completed surveys and identified the manager who had completed it. The final
survey contained the manager’s name, age, his office location and his responses to each
of the 17 statements. Each manager’s report was then compared to that of the other
managers and to his office coordinator.
The goal was to develop a working model of each manager’s humor index, how it
compared to that of his peers, and how it can aid the home office in more effectively
communicating with their remote office personnel.
CCIJ The results of the surveys were compiled and a total was calculated for each manager
11,3 across all 17 statements. It was also calculated for each statement across all 46 managers.
The same was done for the 45 office managers. It should be noted that one office does not
currently have a coordinator. That manager’s information was used for comparison to the
manager group, but excluded from the office coordinator portion of the analysis.
The questions were broken up into two separate classifications. Questions 1, 3, 4, 5,
270 7, 11, 12, 14 and 17 all deal with how often humor is used. Questions 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15
and 16 deal with how effectively the humor was used. Based on the Likert-style format
set up, the lower the score, the higher the likelihood that the manager uses humor in his
communications and perceives that he does so efficiently.

Results and discussion

The original Booth-Butterfield study was administered to 275 undergraduate students
at an east coast university over a two-year period. This study was conducted using a
much higher and wider range of ages (from 31 to 68 years of age). The initial thinking
was that this span would create a significant difference in the outcome. The results
show that the HO scale was not influenced by the age of the participant. When
analyzed by response total, there was no discernable age group that stood out as being
more humorous than another. Therefore, age does not appear to have a bearing on how
funny someone thinks that they are. This means that humorous communication does
not need to be targeted based on the age of the audience. The only exception to this case
would be if the message sender is making a reference to an event or product that has
little importance to a particular age segment. For example, making a statement
referring to the great depression would have more impact on someone who is older and
more closely tied to the event than someone who is in his or her 20s today. They may
have studied the event, but there is little personal connection to it.
The next conclusion that was made was that the manager’s geographical home
does not influence the results of the survey. When comparing the responders
between those with the highest HO scale total (less humorous) and those with the
lowest score (most humorous), then reviewing their home city, the results are
scattered throughout the USA. There is no concentration of responders in any one
region. This means that a humorous communication does not need to be altered
based on geography.
When looking at the total score for each of the 46 managers, the manager who ranked
himself as most humorous on the scale ended with a total score of 38. The manager who
ranked himself least humorous ended with a total score of 58. The mean score was a 49
out of a total 85 possible. Of the 46 managers, 20 fell below the mean score, meaning that
they ranked themselves more humorous than the average. The remaining 26 were at or
above the mean score, ranking themselves as less humorous than average.
The following conclusions are drawn by a comparison between the manager and his
office coordinator. Subject number 37 does not have an office manager, and was
excluded from this part of the study.
Of the remaining 45 managers, 18 of their office coordinators rated their manager as
being more humorous than the manager rated himself. Of this group, 13 of the
18 responded that the manager used humor more frequently than he thought he did.
Ten office coordinators believe that the manager used humor more efficiently than he
felt he did. Of the 18 office coordinators who rated their manager as being more
humorous, only two of them felt the manager used humor less frequently and another Humor in
three felt the manager’s humor was less efficient than the manager thought. corporate
There were eight managers and office coordinators who agreed on the managers
HO Scale rating. However, there were only two that matched exactly when broken communication
down to the frequency of use and the efficiency of use. Of the remaining six office
coordinators, only two felt the manager used humor more frequently, but they did so
with less efficiency. The other four felt the manager overstated his use of humor, but 271
understated his efficiency.
The remaining 19 office coordinators all felt that their managers had overstated
their ability to use humor. The comparison of frequency to efficiency showed some
interesting results. Only one of the coordinators felt that the manager had understated
his frequency of using humor. Another four coordinators felt that the manager had
understated their efficiency of using humor. These understatements were offset by the
coordinator’s feeling that the manager had overstated their abilities in the other area.
The remaining 14 coordinators felt that the manager had overstated his frequency
and/or efficiency. In fact, some coordinators felt that their manager had drastically
overstated their HO scale ranking. Considering the fact that the HO scale has
a minimum score of 17 to a maximum of 85, a variance in the total rankings
of 10 percent or more is of interest. Three of the coordinators had ranking of
12.9-22.4 percent different from their managers. Of these three, two felt the manager
had greatly overstated his frequency of use, but was closer on the efficiency of use. The
remaining coordinator felt the manager had overstated both areas equally. When a
t-test was performed to compare the overall responses between the managers and
coordinators.
When looking at the overall ratings of the managers only, the mean based on total
score over all 17 statements is 49.07. A mean was also calculated for each manager,
based on responses to each of the 17 statements. This mean was then compared to each
of the other managers. This mean was 2.89.
When looking only at the nine questions that deal with frequency of use, the
manager mean was 2.71. The eight questions that deal with the effectiveness of use,
resulted in a mean of 3.09. Based on the Likert scale, with 3.0 being neutral. These
managers perceive that they use humor slightly more frequently, but slightly less
effectively than average.
When using a t-test for means (Table I) to compare the overall results of the
managers to the office coordinators, the results show that there is no statistical
significance between their perception of the manager’s total, frequency or effective use
of humor as a whole.
When looking solely at the managers, a dissimilarity matrix using Euclidean
distance was used to compare each manager to the other. The results of this
analysis showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the
managers. There was one manager who perceived himself to frequently use humor
and to be highly effective in it use, but this lone outlier was not enough to skew the
results.

Summary
The use of humor in corporate communication is important to the clarity and
understanding of the message by the recipient. To properly use humor, the message
 11,3
CCIJ

272

Table I.
T-test of mean
t-test: paired two sample for t-test: paired two sample for
t-test: paired two sample for means – total means – frequency means – effectiveness
DM DOC DM DOC
DM DOC frequency frequency effectiveness effectiveness
mean mean mean mean mean mean

Mean 2.886 2.946 2.709 2.780 3.086 3.133

Variance 0.063 0.062 0.151 0.143 0.045 0.054
Observations 45 45 45 45 45 45
Pearson correlation 0.359 0.345 0.159
Hypothesized mean difference 0.000 0.000 0
df 44 44 44
t stat 21.426 2 1.095 2 1.102
P(T # t) one-tail 0.083 0.140 0.138
T critical one-tail 1.680 1.680 1.680
P(T # t) two-tail 0.161 0.280 0.276
t critical two-tail 2.015 2.015 2.015
sender must know the audience they are addressing. This is especially important if Humor in
communicating with satellite offices that do not have the benefit of seeing and hearing corporate
the sender’s verbal and non-verbal messages. Quite often, message senders have a
different perception of their frequency and ability to efficiently use humor, than does communication
their audience. This discrepancy can lead to a breakdown in the clarity of the message.
When one masters the use of humor, with all of its variables, they can become someone
with whom the audience can relate and whose messages are well received and 273
understood. Based on this research, there was no statistically significant difference
between these managers perception of how often they use humor and how effective
they are when using it. While the office coordinators’ perceptions of their manager’s
HO varied slightly, it was also not statistically significant. Based on this information,
they should all be able to perceive and understand humor on a similar level to the other
managers throughout the USA.

Limitations
All of the managers for this conservative company are currently male. This limits any
analysis of this study based on gender. It also removes gender as an additional
variable, which could have complicated the results.
With the managers covering such a large geographical area, it was possible that the
meaning of the HO scale could be misinterpreted in one of the regions. Given the results
of the data, this did not occur. It also meant getting a larger sampling of cultures than
did the original study.

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274
Corresponding author
John McIlheran can be contacted at: johnmack@cox.net

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