Self‐serving attribution in leader humor: Investigating when and why leader humor relates to employee unethical pro‐organizational behavior

Abstract Prior literature on leader humor primarily focuses on its positive effects on employee attitudes and behaviors; however, its potential negative effects have been largely neglected and underestimated. This research challenges the previous wisdom and proposes a model based on attribution theory that for employees with self‐serving attributions, leader humor will promote their psychological entitlement, which further leads to unethical pro‐organizational behavior. Based on three‐wave survey data collected from 313 employees and an experiment via Master of Business Administration (MBA) students in China, we found that the interaction of leader humor and self‐serving attribution was positively related to psychological entitlement, which in turn contributed to unethical pro‐organizational behavior. The theoretical and managerial implications for understanding how to manage leader humor are discussed.