Keywords
tacit knowledge
appropriateness of joking
How to Cite
Abstract
In order for joking to actually have a function in the workplace, it must have a forum. There are many pieces of empirical research on humour in the workplace, however the notion of the appropriateness of joking behaviour is often overlooked. The time, place, and circumstances of when joking does or does not occur is related to the situated and contextual nature of humour and issues linked to the private/public domain often will delineate when humour is acceptable or not. When, where, and, most importantly, the permission to joke is important to the understanding of the functional nature of humour. In order to gain an understating of how workers understand the notion of appropriateness, a qualitative study of a very unusual group of workers, crime scene investigators, was undertaken. Tacit personal and organisational belief systems related to culture and learned normative behaviours help determine when and where joking is allowed or forbidden.
References
Alexander, D. A. & Wells, A. (1991). ‘Reactions of police officers to body-handling after a major disaster: A before and after comparison’. British Journal of Psychiatry 159, pp. 547–555.
Alavi, M. & Tiwana, A. (2003). ‘Knowledge management: The information technology dimension’, in Easterby-Smith, M. & Lyles, M. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Malden/Oxford/Melbourne/Berlin: Blackwell, pp. 104–21.
Ashforth, B. E. & Kreiner, G. E. (1999). ‘How can you do it?: Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity’. The Academy of Management Review 24 (3), pp. 413–434.
Ashforth, B. E., Kreiner, G. E., Clark, M. A. & Fugate, M. (2007). ‘Normalising dirty work: Managerial tactics for countering occupational taint’. Academy of Management Journal 50 (1), pp. 149–174.
Bakke, J. W. & Bean, C. J. (2006). ‘The materiality of sensemaking’. Tamara Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry 5 (3), pp. 51–69.
Barsoux, J. L. (1996). ‘Why organisations need humour’. European Management Journal 14 (5), pp. 500–508.
Brookfield, S. (1998). ‘Against naive romanticism: From celebration to the critical analysis of experience’. Studies in Continuing Education 20 (2), pp. 127–142.
Boeije, H. (2002). ‘A purposeful approach to the constant comparative method in the analysis of qualitative interviews’. Quality and Quantity 36 (4), pp. 391–409.
Carver, C. S. (1997). ‘You want to measure coping but your protocol’s too long: Consider the brief cope’. International Journal of Behavioural Medicine 4 (1), pp. 92–100.
Collinson, D. L. (1988). ‘Engineering humour: Masculinity, joking, and conflict in shop-floor relations’. Organisation Studies 9 (2), pp. 181–199.
Collinson, D. L. (2002). ‘Managing humour’. Journal of Management Studies 39, pp. 269–288.
Crawford, M. (2003). ‘Gender and humour in social context’. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9), pp. 1413–1430.
Dewey, J. D. & Carter, T. J. (2003). ‘Exploring the future of HRD: The first future search conference for a profession’. Advances in Developing Human Resources 5 (3), pp. 245–256.
DiBella, A. J. (2003). ‘Organisations as learning portfolios’, in Easterby-Smith, M. & Lyles, M. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Malden/Oxford/Melbourne/Berlin: Blackwell, pp. 145–160.
Duncan, W. J., Smeltzer, L. R. & Leap, T. L. (1990). ‘Humour and work: Applications to management’. Journal of Management 16 (2), pp. 255–278.
Elkjaer, B. (2003). ‘Organisational learning with a pragmatic slant’. International Journal of Lifelong Education 22 (5), pp. 481–494.
Eraut, M. (2000). ‘Non‐formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work’. British Journal of Educational Psychology 70 (1), pp. 113–136.
Fine, G. A. & De Soucey, M. (2005). ‘Joking cultures: Humor themes as social regulation in group life’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 18 (1), pp. 1–22.
Fine, M., Weis, L., Weseen, S., & Wong, L. (2000). ‘For whom. Qualitative research, representations, and social responsibilities’, in Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 107–131.
Gardenswartz, L. & Rowe, A. (1994). Diverse Teams at Work: Capitalising on the Power of Diversity. Chicago: Irwin Professional Pub.
Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Goodman, J. (1983) ‘How to get more smileage out of your life: Making sense of humour, then serving it’, in McGhee, P. E. & Goldstein, J. H. (eds.), Handbook of Humor Research, New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 1–21.
Grimm, P. (2010). ‘Social desirability bias’, in Sheth, J. & Malhotra, N. (eds.), Wiley International Encyclopedia of Marketing, Vol. 2, Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 258–259.
Haniff, N. Z. (1985). ‘Toward a native anthropology: Methodological notes on a study of successful Caribbean women by an insider’. Anthropology and Humanism 10 (4), pp. 107–113.
Henry, V. E. (1995). ‘The police officer as survivor: Death confrontations and the police subculture’. Behavioural Science and the Law 13 (1), pp. 93–112.
Henry, V. E. (2004). Death Work: Police, Trauma, and the Psychology of Survival. New York: Oxford University Press.
Holmes, J. & Marra, M. (2002). ‘Having a laugh at work: How humour contributes to workplace culture’. Journal of Pragmatics 34, pp. 1683–1710.
Hudson, K. M. (2001). ‘Transforming a conservative company one laugh at a time’. Harvard Business Review 79 (7), pp. 45–53.
Hughes, M.K. (2002). ‘Through the looking glass: Racial jokes, social context, and the reasonable person in hostile work environment analysis’. Southern California Law Review 76, p. 1437.
Johnston, R. (1990). ‘Humour: A preventive health strategy’. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling 13 (3), pp. 257–265.
Karlsson, I. & Christianson, S. A. (2003). The phenomenology of traumatic experiences in police work. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 26 (3), pp. 419–438.
Klein, A. (1998). The Courage to Laugh: Humour, Hope, and Healing in the Face of Death and Dying. New York: Penguin.
Kreiner, G. E., Ashforth, B. E. & Sluss, D. M. (2006). ‘Identity dynamics in occupational dirty work: Integrating social identity and system justification perspectives’. Organisation Science 17 (5), pp. 619–636.
Kuhlman, T. (1988). ‘Gallows humour for a scaffold setting: Managing aggressive patients in a maximum security forensic unit’. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 39 (10), pp. 1085–1090.
Lampert, M. D. & Ervin-Tripp, S. M. (2006). ‘Risky laughter: Teasing and self-directed joking among male and female friends’. Journal of Pragmatics 38(1), pp. 51–72.
Lynch, O. (2010). ‘Cooking with humor: In-group humor as social organization’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23(2), pp. 127–159.
Mack, N., Woodsong, C., MacQueen, K. N., Guest, G. & Namey, E. (2005). Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina: Family Health International.
Martin, R. A. (2007). The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
Meyer, J. C. (1997). ‘Humour in member narratives: United and dividing at work’. Western Journal of Communications 61 (2), pp. 188–208.
McCarroll, J. E., Ursano, R. J., Wright, K. M. & Fullerton, C. S. (1993). ‘Handling of bodies after violent death: Strategies for coping’. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 63 (2), 209-214.
McGhee, P. (2010). Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-out World: The 7 Humor Habits Program. Bloomington, IN: Author House.
Morreall, J. (2008). ‘Applications of humour: Health, the workplace and education’, in Raskin, V. (ed.), The Primer of Humour Research, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 449–478.
Morreall, J. (2009). Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2001). Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Nijholt, A. (2004). ‘Observations on humorous act construction’. Paper presented at the 17th European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR 2004). University of Vienna, Austria, 13–16 April.
O’Toole, P. & Were, P. (2008). ‘Observing places: Using space and material culture in qualitative research’. Qualitative Research 8 (5), pp. 616–634.
Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Plester, B. & Orams, M. (2008). ‘Send in the clowns: The role of the joker in three New Zealand IT companies’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21 (3), pp. 253–281.
Plester, B. A. & Sayers, J. (2007). ‘“Taking the piss”: Functions of banter in the IT industry’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 20 (2), pp. 157–187.
Porcu, L. (2005). ‘Fishy business: Humor in a Sardinian fish market’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 18 (1), pp. 69–102.
Robinson, D. T. & Smith-Lovin, L. (2001). ‘Getting a laugh: Gender, status, and humour in task discussions’. Social Forces 80 (1), pp. 123–158.
Romero, E. J. & Cruthirds, K. W. (2006). ‘The use of humour in the workplace’. The Academy of Management Perspectives 20 (2), pp. 58–69.
Romero, E. J. & Pescosolido, E. (2008). ‘Humour and group effectiveness’. Human Relations 61 (3), pp. 395–418.
Saroglou, V. & Anciaux, L. (2004). ‘Liking sick humor: Coping styles and religion as predictors’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 17 (3), pp. 257–277.
Schnurr, S. (2008). ‘Surviving in a man’s world with a sense of humour: An analysis of women leaders’ use of humour at work’. Leadership 4 (3), pp. 299–319.
Shank, G. D. (2006). Qualitative Research: A Personal Skills Approach. Columbus, OH: Pearson.
Stroebe, M. & Schut, H. (1999). ‘The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description’. Death Studies 23 (3), pp. 197–224.
Taylor, P. & Bain, P. (2003). ‘Subterranean worksick blues: Humour as subversion in two call centres. Organisation Studies 24 (9), pp. 1487–1509.
Thorson, J. A. (1993). ‘Have you ever seen a hearse go by? Some thoughts on gallows humor’. Journal of American Culture 16 (2), pp. 17–24.
Tracy, S.J. & Scott, C. (2006). ‘Sexuality, masculinity, and taint management among firefighters and correctional officers: Getting down and dirty with “America’s heroes” and the “Scum of law enforcement”’. Management Communication Quarterly 20 (6), pp. 6–36.
Triezenberg, K. (2004). ‘Humour enhancers in the study of humorous literature’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 17 (4), pp. 411–418.
Vera, D. & Crossan, M. (2005). ‘Improvisation and innovative performance in teams’. Organisation Science 16 (3), pp. 203–224.
Vinton, K. L. (1989). ‘Humour in the workplace: It is more than telling jokes’. Small Group Research 20 (2), pp. 151–166.
Wallinger, L. M. (1997). ‘Don’t smile before Christmas: The role of humour in education’. NASSP Bulletin 81 (589), pp. 27–34.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organisations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Westwood, R. (2004). ‘Comic relief: Subversion and catharsis in organisational comedic theatre’. Organisation Studies 25 (5), pp. 775–795.
Westwood, R. I. & Johnston, A. (2012). ‘Reclaiming authentic selves: Control, resistive humour and identity work in the office. Organisation 19 (6), pp. 787–808.
Westwood, R. I. & Johnston, A. (2013). ‘Humor in organisation: From function to resistance’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 26 (2), pp. 219–247.
Westwood, R. & Rhodes, C. (2007). ‘Humour and the study of organisations’, in Westwood, R. & Rhodes, C. (eds.), Humour, Work and Organisation, London: Routledge, pp. 1–13.
Woody, R. H. (2005). ‘The police culture: Research implications for psychological services’. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 36 (5), pp. 525–529.