The Times: 'The joke's on your boss'
Published 15 May 2003
Professor David Collinson, of the Department of Management Learning, has been quoted extensively in an article in the Times about joking and humour at work.
'People use humour a great deal to cope with the absurdities and contradictions of working life', says Professor David Collinson of Lancaster University Management School, whose research suggests that the relationship between humour, power and management is of growing importance. 'Humour can also be a way for employees to express cynicism, and alienation - a form of resistance to hierarchical power. The danger, of course, is that employees laugh at rather than with their managers.
Managers have traditionally had a hard time dealing with humour. 'Ambiguity is at the heart of humour and this is something which managers often struggle with,' Professor Collinson says.
