Jokes That Illustrate Unethical Business Behaviour

AbstractThis chapter explores a new jokes-based illustration method targeting ethical transgressions in the business context. The method question is how well public business jokes published on the Internet can illustrate common ethical business transgressions. The result is that ten common unethical business practices mentioned in interviews with over 100 consultants, can all be illustrated with public business jokes. That shows that jokes are a good source for illustrating common unethical business behaviour. As jokes activate normative standards, they also point at what the ethical issue is. This gives them illustrative value for answering both descriptive and evaluative research questions. Still, the jokes-based illustration method has its limitations. First, it takes time for jokes to be published on the Internet and to get shared. Second, jokes can only be experienced as funny when they illustrate mild norm violation. When behaviour gets very unethical our emotional response turns into anger, and fun gets lost. Third, ethical transgressions need to be somewhat common and recognizable to be good joking material. Fourth, not everyone “gets” a joke. That means, the audience needs to be sufficiently able to interpret well. Finally, for illustration purpose, a topical match between the joke and the ethical issue is important, which puts high demands on searching and selection.