How CEOs respond to crisis: a comparison of rhetorical strategies during Coronavirus pandemic outbreak

Journal title CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Author/s Domenico Sardanelli, Agostino Vollero, Alfonso Siano, Francesca Conte
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2020/1 Language Italian
Pages 19 P. 65-83 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/cgrds1-2020oa10116
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Coming out of an exogenous company crisis requires rebuilding the trust of skeptical, disappointed or unsatisfied stakeholders. This study aims to analyze how the CEOs rhetorical strategies employed by the most affected industries after the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19 suddenly changed at the beginning of 2020. The virus diffusion all over the world has forced these companies (airlines, railroads, food services, hotels, casinos & resorts) to incur in unexpected costs and a rapid profit loss, thus raising their stakeholders’ concerns about firms’ ability to face this crisis. By comparing CEO letters to shareholders, included in the 2019 and 2020 proxy statements, we carried out a content analysis of the rhetorical strategies adopted to face up to the outbreak of a global crisis. Results show that the shareholders letters that explicitly refer to the virus tend to score lower in terms of sentiment and higher in terms of supportiveness, compared with the letters that do not directly refer to the virus topic. The study offers key contributions for CEOs on how to communicate an unexpected and rapid change of growth perspectives for their companies.

Keywords: CEO communication; crisis; coronavirus; rhetorical strategies; sentiment; supportiveness

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Domenico Sardanelli, Agostino Vollero, Alfonso Siano, Francesca Conte, Come i CEOs rispondono alla crisi: un’analisi comparativa delle strategie retoriche durante la pandemia da Coronavirus in "CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT STUDIES" 1/2020, pp 65-83, DOI: 10.3280/cgrds1-2020oa10116