Abstract:

This study aimed to scrutinize hierarchical level differences in the use of humor styles of Thai managers who worked at a selected real estate company in Bangkok, Thailand. Participants were collected from 52 managers in all hierarchical levels. Humor style questionnaire (HSQ) was used as the instrument for data collection. Validity and reliability of the scale measurement were reported with acceptable alpha’s scores. Findings exhibited that the most preferred use of humor style of Thai managers was the affiliative humor style. Results of one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated the statistically significant differences among hierarchical level groups on a combined dependent variables (Wilk’s Ʌ = .70, F(8, 92) = 2.26, p =.03, partial ȵ 2 = .164). The partial ȵ2 = .16 indicated that approximately16 % of multivariate variance of the dependent variables was correlated with the group factor. As a result, the main effects of independent variables were processed for further evaluation by using analysis of variance(ANOVA).The analysis revealed the statistically significant difference in self-enhancing humor style (F = 6.08, p = .004). A pair wise comparison of the Bonferroni correction revealed statistically significant differences of the use of self-enhancing humor between first-line managers and middle managers demonstrating that first-line managers reported significantly lower use of self-enhancing humor style than middle managers. Limitations and recommendations for future studies were also discussed.