CEOs as corporate ambassadors: deciphering leadership communication via Twitter

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.

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