CEOs as corporate ambassadors: deciphering leadership communication via Twitter
ISSN: 1468-4527
Article publication date: 21 October 2021
Issue publication date: 18 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the ways in which chief executive officers (CEOs) communicate via Twitter and help develop guidelines for effective tweeting strategies that can leverage Twitter in leadership communication.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a large-scale content analysis of more than 65,000 tweets by 338 CEOs.
Findings
The authors propose a model that categorizes differences in CEO tweets along six independent dimensions: content professionalism, language professionalism, emotional valence, emotion activation, interactional efforts and information cues. The authors also develop coding schemes and measurement scales for each dimension.
Originality/value
This study provides a multi-dimensional paradigm as well as useful tools for future research on corporate leadership communication on social media.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71802201 and No. 71672200).
Citation
Wu, T., Reynolds, J., Wu, J. and Schlegelmilch, B.B. (2022), "CEOs as corporate ambassadors: deciphering leadership communication via Twitter", Online Information Review, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 787-806. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-09-2021-0484
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited