Research to be presented by the University of Leicester reveals that humour can play a key role in international business meetings - and can influence the power-play within meetings.

A study by Dr Pamela Rogerson-Revell, of the University's School of Education, was presented at a seminar on Wednesday May 28.

She finds that humour is an important linguistic resource which can be used to include and exclude people - to the extent that members at a meeting can subvert the meeting and even usurp the power of the Chair.

Her study of international business meetings attended by managers of a large international organisation provides a picture of what might happen behind closed boardroom doors at international conglomerates. Her findings suggest that in the meetings she studied:

humour is commonly prevalent in business meetings and can be used, along with other strategies, to assert power or influence

some native English speakers, particularly western males, appear to use humour to assert their superiority over others

humour facilitates the process by which members of a meeting collude with one another

humour is used by two or more members in a meeting to express group solidarity

Dr Rogerson-Revell said, "An interesting and unexpected outcome of the investigation was that one commonly recurring interactive strategy in meetings was the use of humour.

"The findings of the study show that humour is present in all meetings but the frequency and tone of the humour varies with the style of the meetings. Indeed shifts in style between formality and informality are a common feature of the meetings and humour appears to be one of several linguistic devices which cluster together to mark these shifts towards greater informality.

"It appears that these shifts and the humour within them are used strategically to show solidarity and power, particularly by the dominant 'in-group' of western, male participants.

"In meetings, power relationships are not overtly dynamic: the designated chair and participants have conventionalised rights and functions. It is consequently easy to conclude that the distribution of power, status and roles, are predetermined and static, rather than looking at the strategic use of language to create, maintain or shift relations between interactants.

"Nevertheless, in many types of interactions, including meetings, participants not only collaborate but also collude and even compete with each other in order to get things done.

"Humour is one of several interactive strategies which occur repeatedly throughout the meetings and belongs to a cluster of linguistic devices which appear to be used strategically to mark solidarity and/or power/influence. "