Why so serious? The effects of humour on creativity and innovation

Abstract

Humour is an integral part of human interactions, but it is not clear how it contributes to creativity in innovation. This paper provides new insights into the emerging literature about the impact of humour on creativity in innovation by conceptualizing humour as a situation-specific state and using a mixed methods research design to investigate the use and impact of humour in two specific innovation contexts: idea generation by customers and collaboration in innovation teams. Our research makes four important contributions. (1) It suggests and demonstrates the relevance of a situation-specific humorous mood. (2) It distinguishes between natural and instrumental humour and emphasizes that a purposely induced humorous mood can enhance creativity. (3) It shows that the impact of humour is not limited to a firm's individual employees but can also include external actors, such as customers and interactions between members of innovation teams. (4) It identifies the key drivers and effects of humorous mood in innovation. The findings from two empirical studies are integrated into a framework that captures the key concepts and relationships and that is also used to derive several directions for further research to better understand the effects of humour on creativity in the context of innovation.