Celebrity CEOs Research Articles

“Crew, don’t go anywhere near this man!” the co-construction of celebrity and responsible capitalism in broadcast interviews with a chief executive officer

Celebrity CEOs espousing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are receiving increasing media attention. However, researchers have not yet examined how CEOs and journalists co-create meaning about CSR in broadcast talk, an unscripted genre of news making, rife with contestation and cooperation. This paper presents a Conversation Analysis of six interviews featuring Dan Price, a CEO who pledged to “solve income inequality” by restructuring salaries in his company. Findings suggest that CSR anchored a process of double branding in which the CEO promoted himself and journalists reaffirmed their news philosophy. Price’s warm embrace by journalists across the political spectrum demonstrates a collaborative process of “celebrification”. Price created a transferable persona that appealed, through a mixture of political targeting and strategic ambiguity, to diverse audiences. Journalists elevated this persona by serving pseudo-criticism and showing identification. The story thus provided corporate media with the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to “responsible capitalism”.

Does CEO celebrity affect IPO underpricing? Evidence from the strategic emerging industries in China

PurposeThe interaction between evaluators is underestimated in legitimacy literature. This study aims to examine the impact of CEO celebrity on initial public offerings (IPOs) underpricing in Strategic Emerging Industries (SEIs). Based on legitimacy and limited attention effect, this study introduces a new antecedent to the asset pricing literature under a particular sample.Design/methodology/approachThis paper illustrates how CEO celebrity promotes IPO underpricing by enhancing the legitimacy and then explores how the CEO characteristics can moderate this relationship. Using 1,128 IPO companies in China SEIs from 2010 to 2019, cross-section data is used to build a multiple linear regression model to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe result indicates that CEO celebrity is positively related to IPO underpricing. Founder CEO and CEO duality amplify the relationship. Further analysis shows that the relationship between CEO celebrity and IPO underpricing is more pronounced in firms with high Baidu search and low market sentiment.Originality/valueThis study provides insights into how CEO celebrity as notable internal information shapes the formation of investors' preliminary impressions of firms. The evidence consists of legitimacy and limited attention perspective by showing how investors favor, follow and hype the stocks with celebrity CEOs. The results extend the knowledge about how CEO characteristics influence information frictions in asset pricing during IPO.

Not Like the Rest of Us? How CEO Celebrity Affects Quarterly Earnings Call Language

In this study we explore whether celebrity CEOs use certain types of language that affect stakeholders’ perceptions more than noncelebrity CEOs do during earnings calls. We focus specifically on the sociocognitive processes associated with possessing celebrity and how they are likely to influence celebrity CEOs’ language use. We argue that the sociocognitive outcomes associated with the confidence and sense of authority resulting from the CEOs’ celebrity will increase the likelihood they use more relatively positive, concrete, certain, and self-regarding language, all of which can influence stakeholders’ reactions. We also distinguish between A-list and B-list celebrities, and expect greater celebrity will result in greater language attribute use. Based on 8,203 quarterly earnings call transcripts involving celebrity and noncelebrity CEOs, we find general support for our hypotheses. A-list celebrities employ all four language attributes more than both B-list celebrities and noncelebrities, but B-list celebrities differ from noncelebrities only with respect to some language attributes. Our study contributes to the celebrity literature by enhancing our understanding of how achieving celebrity, and the degree of celebrity achieved, affects CEOs’ behaviors. We also contribute to the corporate communications literature by demonstrating how the sociocognitive processes and outcomes associated with CEO celebrity affect language use that can influence stakeholders’ confidence in what the CEO says, even if it reveals no new information.

Celebrity CEOs and financial statement readability

Celebrity CEOs and financial statement readability

Celebrity CEOs and firm innovation investment: Evidence from Chinese-listed companies.

In today's commercial-oriented world, intense social attention makes it easier for CEOs to become celebrities. This social escalation and characteristic change of CEOs into celebrities tend to influence their motivation and behavior, and thus the strategic decisions and results of firms. Despite the significance of recognizing CEOs' social identity, the impact of celebrity CEOs on innovation strategy remains unknown. Integrating identity and upper echelons theories, this study examines and provides empirical evidence on how celebrity CEOs affect firm innovation investment using data of Chinese listed companies from 2015 to 2020. We argue that celebrity CEOs' engagement in innovation investment is driven by their motivation for preserving celebrity status. Further, we show that analyst coverage plays a positive moderating role between celebrity CEOs and innovation investment, and the positive effect of celebrity CEOs on innovation investment becomes weaker in state-owned enterprises. This study confirms the important role of CEOs' specific social identity in firm innovation strategy, which is motivated by celebrity CEOs' attempt to maintain their established status and reputation. The results expand the research on the influencing factors of firm innovation investment that focus on executives' social characteristics. They also provide managerial implications for board of directors to recruit and supervise a celebrity CEO.

How Social Media Posts and Stakeholder Characteristics Lead to CEO Infamy

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.

How Celebrity CEOs and Firm Performance Influence Competitor CEOs’ Risk-Taking

This study draws on prospect theory and social comparison theory to explore how a peer CEO winning a prestigious CEO award and firm performance relative to aspirations influence competitor CEOs’ risk-taking behavior. We find that when a peer CEO wins a prestigious CEO award, competitor CEOs increase their R&D intensity in the post-award period. Moreover, the proclivity becomes stronger when their firm performance relative to aspirations is both good and poor. We also find that managerial discretion strengthens the moderating effects of an award-winning peer on the relationship between firm performance relative to aspirations and R&D intensity. These findings contribute to the literature by suggesting how social judgment of peers influences competitor CEOs’ risky strategic actions.

Moral Self-Licensing and Incorporated Values: Flawed Common Sense Shaping CEO Activism

The essay contributes to the literature on CEO activism by bridging it with research on moral self-licensing and neoliberalism. Mainly discussed in psychology, moral self-licensing deals with the notion that people access past actions to decide their course. Additionally, under neoliberalism, businesspeople develop a self-indulging view of their role as job-creators, which gives them a sense of entitlement to participate in civil society and share even opinions that may appear questionable. I argue that when celebrity CEOs share their political views in the public arena, they draft the core of their positioning from neoliberal common sense. This common-sense fails to see society as a legitimate concern and frames problems under the logic of egoism and competition that characterizes neoliberal freedom. I finish the discussion by highlighting potential uses for these ideas, moving beyond current debates on CEO activism, by better understanding how businesspeople operate as political actors.

Celebrity CEOs and Financial Statement Readability

Celebrity CEOs and Financial Statement Readability

How Do Celebrity CEOS Affect Firm Environmental Performance?

How Do Celebrity CEOS Affect Firm Environmental Performance?

The impact of celebrity CEOs on restaurant firm performance: The moderating role of environmental dynamism

In today’s media-saturated world, intense media attention propels some CEOs to stardom. This social escalation of CEOs to celebrities inherently affects their actions and strategic choices, and thus the performance of their host organizations. Despite the importance of understanding upper echelons—especially celebrity CEOs in the tourism and hospitality industry—researchers have devoted little attention to the implications of CEO celebrity. As a result, whether CEO celebrity serves as a company asset or liability remained largely unknown. Based on the upper echelons theory and CEOs’ behavioral constraints, this study uncovers and provides initial empirical evidence on how a CEO’s celebrity affects firm performance, with a detailed examination of the restaurant industry. Further, we show that industry dynamism, an important external environmental factor, plays a positive moderating role such that the positive effect of CEO celebrity on firm performance becomes weaker as industry dynamism increases.

Social Influence of Celebrity CEOs: Evidence from Chinese Forbes Ranking List

In this study, we focused on the celebrity CEO and proposed the main effect that celebrity CEO has a positive impact on their peer companies’ behavior and subsequent R&D investment. Further, we proposed the moderating effects of similarities between celebrity and peer CEOs’ characteristics, similarities between celebrity CEO’s company and peer company’s firm characteristics, and the peer company CEO’s power on the relationship between celebrity CEO and the peer firms’ CEO and R&D investment. We built our arguments on the social influence perspective and proposed the hypotheses regarding celebrity CEOs’ role model effect on the peer companies’ R&D investment. We mainly focus on the antecedent condition of social influence—social identity and the reaction after being influenced—social learning. The hypotheses are tested in the Chinese context with the matched data from “The Best CEOs of The Year” published by Forbes China from 2012 to 2017. We attempt to contribute to the literature about celebrity CEO and social influence perspective.

Silencing the crowd: China, the NBA, and leveraging market size to export censorship

While censorship within China has been a longstanding phenomenon, efforts to suppress information and to reshape perception of China abroad have become increasingly widespread and sophisticated. Recently, this trend has manifested through several high-profile incidents of foreign firms censoring controversial content outside of China in order to retain access to the Chinese consumer market. This article argues that China is uniquely situated to leverage this type of market power due to its enormous, growing consumer base and authoritarian structure. This form of ‘exporting’ censorship can occur in three ways: content bans, position reversal, and self-censorship. Outward-facing firms, especially in the entertainment industry, are particularly vulnerable to this type of pressure as their employees, including actors, athletes, and celebrity CEOs, may have an independent following and audience for their personal views. By analyzing the controversy between China and the National Basketball Association over a single tweet in support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, this article demonstrates the conditions under which censorship efforts may be outsourced to private, foreign actors in jurisdictions outside of China.

COVID‐19 and the Future of Management Studies. Insights from Leading Scholars

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and its medical, social and economic impacts presented profound challenges to business, government, and society It also presents management scholars with an opportunity to rethink some of our core assumptions and directions of our research In response, in the Summer of 2020, in our capacity as co- General Editors of the Journal of Management Studies, one of the foremost academic journals of management and organization studies, we commissioned short commentaries from leading management scholars

Celebrity CEO and Earnings Management: Interplay between CEO-CFO Similarity and External Monitoring

This paper examines how CEO celebrity status affects earnings management. Using CEO award data from 1997-2011, we find that celebrity CEOs use discretionary accruals more to manage reported earning...

Save the World but Ignore the Fellows? Selective Engagement in CSR of Celebrity CEOs

We attempt to provide a novel view of the antecedent of selective engagement between external and internal CSR of firms. Specially, we investigate the influence of becoming a celebrity (e.g., winning a CEO award) on the CEO’s intention to conduct corporate philanthropy (i.e., external CSR) or employee-related CSR (i.e., internal CSR). We find that, after becoming a celebrity, CEOs will conduct more corporate philanthropy because they attempt to maintain their social status among the social audience; and CEOs will do less employee-related CSR after becoming a celebrity because winning an award has already established their legitimacy inside the firm so that they feel unnecessary to do employee-related CSR. Furthermore, the media coverage strengthens the effects of CEO celebrity on corporate philanthropy and employee-related CSR. Findings from this study contribute to CEO social acclaim research and CSR literature by proposing the role of CEO celebrity in triggering firms’ selective engagement in CSR.

Celebrity CEO, identity threat, and impression management: Impact of celebrity status on corporate social responsibility

In this study, we examine the impact of CEO celebrity status on the propensity of firms to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Integrating identity and impression management theories, we argue that a firm’s engagement in CSR activities is affected by a celebrity CEO’s impression management motive to maintain his/her identity and status as a celebrity. We then explore three boundary conditions under which the effects of celebrity status on CSR may be strengthened. We find that celebrity CEOs’ engagement in CSR activities as an impression management tactic increases when uncertainty surrounding a firm’s expected performance is high, when firm performance is low, and the competitive intensity of the industry is high. The findings of this study provide useful insights into the specific ways by which celebrity CEOs attempt to protect their established status and reputation. This paper contributes to various domains of research concerning CEOs, impression management, and CSR.

The impact of target CEO celebrity on M&A premiums

AbstractWe examine the influence of target‐CEO celebrity on the premium paid by bidders using information asymmetry, uncertainty, and resource‐based‐view perspectives. Studies suggest that CEOs and their firms can suffer from a “burden of celebrity” if they fail to meet heightened performance expectations. We hypothesize that bidders acquire targets led by celebrity CEOs (those who garner significant and widespread media attention) with lower premiums because bidders react to market overvaluation. We also argue that celebrity CEOs who leave post‐merger drive premiums even lower because they take their potential integration value with them. A six‐year sample of US‐based M&A transactions supports our hypotheses.

In for a penny, in for a pound? Exploring mutual endorsement effects between celebrity CEOs and corporate brands

PurposeWhile the branding of individuals has attracted increasing attention from practitioners in recent decades, understanding of personal branding still remains limited, especially with regard to the branding of celebrity CEOs. To contribute to this debate, this paper aims to explore the co-branding of celebrity CEOs and corporate brands, integrating endorsement theory and the concept of meaning transfer at a level of brand attributes.Design/methodology/approachA between-subjects true experimental design was chosen for each of the two empirical studies with a total of 268 participants, using mock newspaper articles about a succession scenario at the CEO level of different companies. The study is designed to analyse the meaning transfer from celebrity CEO to corporate brand and vice versa using 16 personality attributes.FindingsThis study gives empirical support for meaning transfer effects at the brand attribute level in both the celebrity-CEO-to-corporate-brand and corporate-brand-to-celebrity-CEO direction, which confirms the applicability of the concept of brand endorsement to celebrity CEOs and the mutuality in co-branding models. Furthermore, a more detailed and expansive perspective on the definition of endorsement is provided as well as managerial guidance for building celebrity CEOs and corporate brands in consideration of meaning transfer effects.Originality/valueThis study is one of only few analysing the phenomenon of meaning transfer between brands that focus on non-evaluative associations (i.e. personality attributes). It is unique in its scope, insofar as the partnering relationship between celebrity CEOs and corporate brands have not been analysed empirically from this perspective yet. It bridges the gap between application in practice and the academic foundations, and it contributes to a broader understanding and definition of celebrity endorsement.

An opportunity space odyssey: historical exploration of demand-driven entrepreneurial innovation

PurposeOne of the crucial questions confronting strategy and entrepreneurship scholars continues to be: where do new industry sectors come from? Extant literature suffers from a supply-side “skew” that focuses unduly on the role of heroic figures and celebrity CEOs, at the expense of demand-side considerations. In response, the purpose of this paper is to examine societal demand for entrepreneurial innovations. Employing historical data spanning nearly a century, the author assess more completely the role of latent demand-side signaling in driving the quantity and diversity of entrepreneurial innovation.Design/methodology/approachApplying the methods of historical econometrics, this study employs historical artifacts and cliometric models to analyze textual data in drawn from three distinctive sources: Popular Science Monthly magazine, from its founding in 1872 to 1969; periodicals, newsletters, club minutes, films and radio transcripts from the Science Society, from 1921 to 1969; and programs and news accounts from the US National High School Science Fair, from 1950 to 1969. In total, 2,084 documents containing 33,720 articles and advertisements were coded for content related to pure science, applied science and commercialized science.FindingsThree key findings are revealed: vast opportunity spaces often exist prior to being occupied by individuals and firms; societal preferences play a vital role in determining the quantity and diversity of entrepreneurial activity; and entrepreneurs who are responsive to latent demand-side signals are likely to experience greater commercial success.Research limitations/implicationsThis study intentionally draws data from three markedly different textual sources. The painstaking process of triangulation reveals heretofore unobserved latencies that invite fresh perspectives on innovation discovery and diffusion.Originality/valueThis paper constitutes the most panoramic investigation to-date of the influence wielded by latent demand-side forces in the discovery and commercialization of innovation.