CEO as “Chief Crisis Officer” under COVID-19: A Content Analysis of CEO Open Letters Using Structural Topic Modeling

ABSTRACT This study seeks to explore how business leaders should respond to COVID-19. In advancing theoretical development of strategic crisis communication, we incorporated theoretical frameworks of organizational resilience, social support, and values-centered communication to make sense of CEO’s COVID-19 responses. Using structural topic modeling, this study analyzed 192 CEO open letters from 152 multinational corporations that are listed on the 2020 Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies. Fourteen valid topics and four general themes were identified and discussed. Results suggested that in those letters, CEOs demonstrated organizational resilience by giving sense to current crisis situations and expressing their self-efficacy and response efficacy in handling challenges, which supported the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational resilience in this new crisis context. Additionally, both emotional and instrumental support provisions were found in CEOs’ letters. A values-centered and care ethics communication approach was widely taken in CEOs’ messages, highlighting the importance of social solidarity in facing a public health crisis. This study also explored how topic prevalence varied by business sectors and CEOs’ genders and associated with companies’ financial performance. These summarized communication strategies and narrative topics shed light on crisis communication practice and theory, especially in the context of a global public health crisis.