Laurent Bompar, Renaud Lunardo, Camille Saintives and Reynald Brion
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct effects of aggressive and constructive humor on perceptions of Machiavellianism, relationship quality and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct effects of aggressive and constructive humor on perceptions of Machiavellianism, relationship quality and willingness-to-switch (WTS).
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis includes a first replication study with 138 business-to-business buyers and a second study with 175 business-to-business buyers that aims to test the theoretical model. The Process macro is used to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
Results indicate that aggressive and constructive humor types have distinct effects on relationship quality and subsequent buyers’ WTS. Specifically, and contrary to constructive humor, aggressive humor from sellers increases buyers’ perceptions of Machiavellianism, which reveals detrimental to relationship quality and subsequently increases buyers’ WTS.
Research limitations/implications
Although the results about the effects of humor on relationship quality were obtained from actual buyers and consistent across the two studies, they were obtained from two cross-sectional designs, which limits the causality of the effects being observed.
Practical implications
Sellers may benefit from getting deep understanding of how usage humor may impact their relationship with buyers. In particular, this research makes clear for sellers that as long as the type of humor that they use when dealing with a buyer is constructive, no negative outcome might emerge. However, if the humor is aggressive, then the stereotype of Machiavellianism might emerge, leading to lower relationship quality and an increase in WTS from the buyer.
Originality/value
While research on humor as a communication technique for sellers has increased lately, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this research is the first to examine the effects of the distinct types of aggressive and constructive humor and to provide empirical evidence for the different effects of these two types of humor. This research also contributes to the literature on stereotypes associated with sellers, by presenting insights into how the negative stereotype of Machiavellianism is prompted by the use of aggressive humor.
Details
Keywords
Laurent Bompar, Renaud Lunardo and Camille Saintives
While humor is known to help relational outcomes, its usefulness for sellers to build strong relationships with their business partners and achieve performance remain unknown…
Abstract
Purpose
While humor is known to help relational outcomes, its usefulness for sellers to build strong relationships with their business partners and achieve performance remain unknown. Specifically, humor styles (constructive versus offensive) and business sectors (service-based versus other) may play an important role. To fill this gap in extant marketing literature, this study aims to test the effects of humor styles among salespersons of different business sectors on relationship quality and business performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This research paper derives hypotheses from prior studies referring to humor effects in psychology and management, business-to-business and relationship marketing literature. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 175 salespersons operating across different business sectors.
Findings
While constructive humor is shown to have positive effects on relationship quality and business performance regardless of business sectors, a different pattern is found for offensive humor. Specifically, the results show that business sector moderates the effects of this type of humor, which has negative effects on relationship quality and business performance, but only when used by salespersons in non-service-based business sectors.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of the research concern the cultural context. The lack of responses from salespersons from different countries may be considered as a direction for future studies exploring connections between humor usage and culture in business-to-business marketing.
Practical implications
This study brings strategic insights into how to use humor in a business-to-business context.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, no previous study has thus far examined the proposed set of inter-related research constructs.