부산대학교 도서관

Employee proactivity has been shown to play an important role in contemporary organizations. In the present study, we intended to understand the predictors of employees’ proactive work design behaviors, such as task i-deals and job crafting, based on the symbolic interactionist perspective on identity. Specifically, we investigated the effects of leader humor on employees’ task i-deals and job crafting behaviors through the mediating mechanism of authentic self-expression and the moderating role of receiving negative workplace gossip from an identity perspective. The four-wave data were collected from a sample of 320 employees to test the hypotheses. The results confirmed that leader humor as a form of positive social interaction promoted employees’ proactive behaviors by influencing the levels of authentic self-expression. In addition, the effect of leader humor became more pronounced in a gossipy work environment. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.