Purpose

Chief executive officers (CEOs) use social media strategically by communicating directly and immediately to large audiences. However, limited research exists on whether CEOs can use social media as a leadership instrument to exert influence on users. Moreover, little is known whether the effectiveness of CEO communication depends on a specific context. To fill these research gaps, the first research project of this research cluster pertains to whether and how CEOs’ decisions to use leadership-oriented language affect users’ sharing behavior in informal leadership settings such as social media. The second research project within this research cluster focuses on the climate crisis, one of the most pressing global crises of the 21st century. It aims to connect climate-related communication with CEO communication in the digital environment, seeking to understand if the effectiveness of certain types of CEO social media communication depends on the context in which they are applied.   The research projects within this research cluster aim to provide relevant implications for CEOs and their communication teams on how to effectively communicate on social media to prevent their social media efforts from backfiring.

Approach

In both research projects within this research cluster an automated text analysis of thousands of posts on X by various CEOs of Global Fortune 500 companies has been conducted. HLM was utilized to address the research questions.

Keywords

Keywords:
CEO communication, text analysis, social media, user engagement, climate crisis, climate-related communication

Involved Persons

Dr. Ellen Weber, Irini Tsaga, Prof. Dr. Marion Büttgen, Prof. Dr. Kristof Coussement, Dr. Paul Harrigan