Rumor Has It: CEO Gender and Response to Organizational Denials

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Montgomery, Nicole Votolato; Cowen, Amanda P.
• 署名单位: University of Virginia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0001206
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1817-1832
• 关键词: female CEOs; crisis response; crisis communication; denial; AGENCY

摘要

The ambiguous credibility of online allegations can pose a significant threat to an organization's reputation, relationships with stakeholders, and future performance. As a result, addressing false or misleading allegations has emerged as an important priority among corporate executives. In this research, we examine how CEO gender influences the effectiveness of different types of denial responses in the wake of rumor crises. We find that, after reading damaging allegations about an organization, consumers react more favorably to denials issued by male versus female CEOs. We argue that this is attributable to the dominance that characterizes denial responses, which results in a greater (negative) expectancy violation for female (vs. male) CEOs issuing such statements. Such violations result in lower trust in, and less willingness to do business with, organizations led by women (vs. men) who issue a denial response. We show that these relationships are moderated by increased prescriptive agency (i.e., clarified denials) and the attribution of the response (i.e., to the CEO vs. organization). Taken together, our findings have implications for theory on agentic characteristics, crisis communication, and female leadership, as well as practical implications for how all organizations can adopt more effective crisis responses.