How, why, and under which circumstances does leader humor affect team processes and team performance, and how can it be detected and measured on a large scale by applying automatic, multimodal approaches? A research project of the University of Passau and the University of Augsburg aims to explore just that. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is now funding this ambitious project for a duration of 3 years.

Humor, one of the most fundamental and complex phenomena in social psychology, is increasingly attracting attention in management research. However, scholarly understanding of humor in organizations is still substantially limited, largely because research in this domain has primarily been qualitative, survey-based, and small scale.

Now, recent advances in computerized psychometry promise new opportunities for nuanced, ad hoc measurements of humor that are free from the substantial limitations associated with traditional humor measures. As the first research project at this intersection of research fields to date, the applicants, Andreas König,  Professor of Strategic Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Passau, and Björn Schuller, Professor of  Embedded Intelligence for Health Care and Wellbeing at the University of Augsburg, are combining their domains of expertise and complementary competencies to address these research gaps.

Besides collaborating with the University of Augsburg’s experts in machine learning and automatic speech recognition, the Passau team, consisting of Prof. Dr. König, Benno Stöcklein and Niklas Müller, will also work together with internationally renowned humor and leadership experts, and thus further strengthen the international profile of the University of Passau. Among others, Nathan Hiller, Associate Professor at Florida International University, and Cecily Cooper, Associate Professor at the University of Miami, will support the project.