The role of gender bias and self-presentation on journalist-CEO interactions

Abstract

Past research finds that journalists’ perceptions guide what they convey to their audience resulting in biased reporting that shapes stakeholders’ perceptions of CEOs. Less is understood about how these biases affect the questions journalists ask and, in turn, CEOs’ responses to these implicit biases to shape their own narratives and others’ perceptions. We build on past research on impression management and role congruity to understand how journalists and CEOs interact with one another. In a study of CEOs of Fortune 1000 firms we find that journalists approach interviews with more competence when interacting with female CEOs rather than with male CEOs, particularly when there are more female directors on the board. Female CEOs, in turn, present more competence than male CEOs particularly when there are more female directors on the board, and this relationship is mediated by journalist competence. Our work contributes to the larger body of work on gender, diversity and leadership in upper echelons by offering new insight into gender and leadership and contributes to the study of macro- and micro-processes in upper echelons.