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The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis, which consists of interviews with executive trainee programs of three international companies. The results of this analysis offer answers to questions currently being discussed in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, namely, on the effects of CSR communication on top talent attraction.

The study uses structured interviews to analyze the communication perceptions and expectations of (n = 15) top talents when making employer decisions. It compares these with the expectations and intentions of HR managers responsible for programs and communications (n = 15).

The study found that HR managers only partially reflect top talents’ specific communication expectations. In addition to the program-specific CSR content, corporate communications have an overarching optimization potential in the communication mode and information architecture. It is particularly striking that future executives proactively seek CSR content in hiring and access corporate and brand communications for this purpose.

The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made a digital interview setting necessary and did not allow to react in detail on every physical signal. On top, the study has only 30 participants (15 HR/15 talents) from three different talent programs.

The study identifies practical, gender-specific and industry-specific implications for corporate communications regarding content and mode of communication. Companies should specify concrete measures for recruiting future executives, but they can also indicate efforts and first initiatives, thus setting a more decisive stage for an aspiration.

The study is characterized by its unique data set. Only a few companies have explicit programs for the development of future executives. The study also examines HR managers’ communication planning and expectations and future executives’ effective communication perceptions and perspectives.

This study answers the call for research and theorising exploring ethical communication and brand risk from the African continent. The study's purpose was to identify the challenges that strategic communication practitioners face in enacting ethical crisis communication in South Africa.

The researchers conducted ten in-depth interviews with South African strategic communication professionals.

The dominant theme emerging from the study is the marginalisation and exclusion of the communication function in decision-making during crisis situations. Communicators were viewed as implementers, technicians and not strategic counsel. The protection of organisational reputation was done at the expense of the ethics and moral conscience of practitioners. Practitioners were viewed and deployed as spin doctors and tools to face unwanted media interactions.

The article sheds light on the concepts of ethical communication and decision-making in a multicultural African context using the moral theory of Ubuntu and strategic communication. It demonstrates the tension professionals experience as they toggle between unethical capitalist approaches and African values. The practitioner's role as organisational moral conscience is hindered, suppressed and undermined by organisational leadership's directives to use opaque, complex communication, selective transparency and misrepresentation of facts.

As one of the most influential theories in strategic management, Hambrick and Mason’s Upper Echelons Theory has yielded significant conceptual and empirical advancements linking executive characteristics and perceptions to decision-making. Specifically, work on this theory consistently shows that CEOs’ decisions are biased by personal characteristics to the benefit and detriment of firms. While this stream of research links executive decision processes to outcomes such as executive dismissals, analyst evaluations, and press coverage, surprisingly little is understood about if and whether the information CEOs convey is subject to the same filtering process by a firm’s key evaluators. Thus, in this chapter, we aim to extend Upper Echelons Theory by positing that a double filtering process occurs whereby the cognitive aids CEOs use can be informed by not only their cognitive base and values but also the characteristics and priorities of those who evaluate the nonverbal and verbal signals they send. To do so, we build on recent conceptual and empirical advancements to make a case for the decision-making biases and tendencies that influence signal interpretation by three key evaluator groups internal and external to the firm: boards of directors, financial analysts, and the media. We conclude by considering the implications of evaluators’ information filtering and how this more holistic view of Upper Echelons decision-making can enable executive teams to be strategic with the cognitive aids they use to influence evaluations.