Impact of Global Brand CMOs’ CSR and Socio-Political Activism Communication on Twitter
(A2022-108164)

AUTHORS

Peren Ozturan, Ozyegin University; Amir Grinstein, Northeastern University

ABSTRACT

Two global trends involve brands’ engagement in socio-political issues and the digitalization. The role of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in these trends is understudied. This poses the following research questions: (1) How central is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or socio-political activism in the communication of global brands’ CMOs? (2) Does CMOs’ communication about CSR or socio-political activism have digital impact? And (3) how brand origin i.e., the geographical location of its headquarter (HQ) and CMO nationality (U.S. vs. non-U.S. i.e., international, for both variables) influence the CSR or socio-political activism digital communication impact? This research (Ntweets = 17,468 over NCMOs=81) finds that CMOs rarely publish CSR or socio-political activism tweets (5.3% and 3.2%), demonstrate a positive impact of CSR tweets on re-tweets while a negative impact of socio-political activism tweets on re-tweets. Further, non-U.S. HQ and CMO nationality improve these effects.