Nothing Serious? Candidates’ Use of Humour in Management Training
研究三家私营企业管理者在培训中如何使用幽默，发现幽默能表达严肃对话中难以言说的情绪，并揭示对现实的共同感知。
This article explores the use made of humour in three different private sector organizations. It draws on observations of managers working towards a management qualification and, from the jokes they exchange, it argues that studying humour may offer insights into sentiments not easily articulated in ‘serious’ conversation. Humour’s ambiguity enables contentious statements to be made without fear of recrimination. Equally, constructing jokes by juxtaposing two different frames of reference provides a glimpse of alternative (and shared) perceptions of ‘reality’. This sensitivity to complexity makes humour a particularly appropriate vehicle for conveying ambitions, subversions, triumphs and failures and this article considers some of the ‘serious’ messages underlying the jokes.