Linking Leader Humor to Employee Bootlegging: a Resource-Based Perspective

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we built and tested a theoretical model that explores how and when leader humor can impact employee bootlegging. Based on a field study using a time-lagged research design, we found that leader humor can influence employee bootlegging by fueling relational energy. Furthermore, work unit structure moderates the effect of leader humor on relational energy as well as the indirect effect of leader humor on employee bootlegging via relational energy such that these effects are stronger when the unit operates in an organic structure as opposed to a mechanistic structure. Based on these findings, the current study sheds light on both the leader humor and the bootlegging literature.