How Social Media Posts and Stakeholder Characteristics Lead to CEO Infamy

Abstract

CEO celebrity and infamy are inextricably linked social evaluations based on high media visibility and non-conforming behaviors. Their difference lies in the valence of constituent groups’ evaluations of those behaviors, being either positive or negative. While racism has become an urgent and contentious matter for US society, no research has yet focused on how constituents build their evaluations after CEOs express positive, negative, or even uncivil attitudes via social media. In this study, we aim to uncover what happens when a celebrity CEO engages in a behavior that is enhancing, neglecting, or even appearing as uncivil as related to the topic of D&I and racism. To do so, we look at public statements made by celebrity CEOs via Twitter, and at how the personal inclinations of constituents on the topic of racial diversity inform, and overturn their evaluations. We show constituents with a higher preference for whites have higher infamy evaluations when CEOs tweet about D&I-enhancing initiatives, but lower infamy evaluations when reacting to tweets that neglect these initiatives. Moreover, we show that uncivil tweets—containing offensive language towards some racial groups—lead to uniform increases in CEO infamy.