The effects of humor usage by salespersons: the roles of humor type and business sector

Purpose While humor is known to help relational outcomes, its usefulness for sellers to build strong relationships with their business partners and achieve performance remain unknown. Specifically, humor styles (constructive versus offensive) and business sectors (service-based versus other) may play an important role. To fill this gap in extant marketing literature, this study aims to test the effects of humor styles among salespersons of different business sectors on relationship quality and business performance. Design/methodology/approach This research paper derives hypotheses from prior studies referring to humor effects in psychology and management, business-to-business and relationship marketing literature. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 175 salespersons operating across different business sectors. Findings While constructive humor is shown to have positive effects on relationship quality and business performance regardless of business sectors, a different pattern is found for offensive humor. Specifically, the results show that business sector moderates the effects of this type of humor, which has negative effects on relationship quality and business performance, but only when used by salespersons in non-service-based business sectors. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the research concern the cultural context. The lack of responses from salespersons from different countries may be considered as a direction for future studies exploring connections between humor usage and culture in business-to-business marketing. Practical implications This study brings strategic insights into how to use humor in a business-to-business context. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, no previous study has thus far examined the proposed set of inter-related research constructs.