StandortRoom BZ E4.23, Universitätsplatz 1 - Piazza Università, 1, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano
Dienststellen Press and Events
Kontakt Verena De Villa
verena.devilla@unibz.it
02 Apr 2019 14:00-14:45
research seminar
Towards a social role theory of CEOs’ and CFOs’ strategic public language and infomediaries’ evaluations
StandortRoom BZ E4.23, Universitätsplatz 1 - Piazza Università, 1, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano
Dienststellen Press and Events
Kontakt Verena De Villa
verena.devilla@unibz.it
Abstract
Research has generated valuable knowledge about chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) communication with infomediaries, but little is known about how chief financial officers (CFOs) can effectively communicate with infomediaries, and how CEOs’ and CFOs’ communication interactively affect infomediaries’ assessments. Integrating social role theory, language expectancy theory, and literature on strategic public language, we introduce the concepts of top executive roles and role-consistent strategic public language, suggesting that infomediaries evaluate a given firm more positively the more a CEO or aCFO use strategic public language that accommodates infomediaries’ perceptions of the executive’s respective role. We also argue that this effect is stronger for increased avoidance of “role-disconfirming” communication than for increased usage of “role-confirming” communication, and that the effects of the CEO’s and the CFO’s role-consistent communication reinforce each other. We find support when testing our theory in the context of firms’ communication with analysts using a sample of 16,946 earning calls of S&P 500 firms from 2004 through 2014. Our study highlights the CFO’s communication as another important driver of audiences’ firm evaluations; illuminates the hitherto disregarded differences of CEOs’ and CFOs’ communicational roles; and portrays strategic communication as executive teamwork rather than the job of merely one figurehead.