Investor Response to CEO Celebrity
Ewing, Lawson
Ewing, Lawson
Citations
Altmetric:
Soloist
Composer
Publisher
Date
2025-05-19
Additional date(s)
Abstract
Firms have reimagined the role of their CEO, specifically in participating in revenue and brand building firm activities. Due to the rise of social media integration within firms? stakeholder engagement strategy, the CEO Celebrity phenomenon has come to light, considering the mass following and influence of such individuals. These celebrity CEOs differ from non-celebrities CEO due to their ability to elicit a positive response from their public audience through various factors. Utilizing existing theories, variable relationships, and existing research on the classification of celebrity CEOs, this author analyzes product launch and recall events to understand whether celebrity amplifies investor response to launches or mitigates negative effects to recalls. He finds no significance in product launches and no product recalls. However, the study finds that there is an inverse correlation between the degree of celebrity and the variability of investor response, providing new implications for firms with celebrity CEOs on the importance of managing market reactions and the integration of firm leadership in a crisis management strategy.