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Research Summary: While previous organizational impression management (OIM) research focuses on highlighting firms in a favorable light, we explore CEOs' use of "strategic negativity" to manage expectations. We draw on OIM's psychological roots to predict that despite pressure to "be positive," when CEOs perceive stakeholders are motivated to raise their expectations and have an opportunity to do so, CEOs strategically use negativity to counteract this anticipated expectation increase. We test our predictions on 7330 quarterly earnings calls from 370 publicly traded firms (2008–2019), examining how the "motive" of a positive material earnings surprise and "opportunity" of a new fiscal year jointly increase CEO negativity in prepared remarks. We elaborate the wide applicability of strategic negativity, the "other side" of the OIM phenomenon. Managerial Summary: In contrast to the prevailing view that CEOs usually "positively spin" the firm's situation to stakeholders, we investigate how CEOs strategically use negativity to counteract stakeholder optimism, provided CEOs perceive expectations are likely to rocket upward. We argue that positive news represents a "motive" and a chance to reflect represents an "opportunity," and that together they risk raising expectations. Analyzing 7330 quarterly earnings calls of 370 companies (2008–2019), we specifically examined how both (1) a positive earnings surprise and (2) a new fiscal year force CEOs out of their positivity comfort zone and encourage them to be strategically negative in earnings call remarks, to try to lower stakeholder expectations. Our results support this view and pave the way for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical issue in corporate governance is identifying, rewarding, and retaining high-quality CEOs. But, over time, do evaluators accurately assess a CEO's contextual quality? Further, which signals may be used to discern this quality? Through two studies, this paper seeks to address these long-standing questions. In Study 1, we explore how boards compensate and dismiss CEOs and the media grants awards over time based on contextual quality. We then discover that the language spoken by high- and low-quality CEOs on earnings calls differs in the absence of clear performance signals. In Study 2, we broaden this analysis and apply a deep learning-based natural language processing model to show that quality corresponds with the content of CEOs' speech to investors. Specifically, we show that contextual quality corresponds with a CEO's "unscripted novelty," which refers to their tendency to discuss new topics during the unscripted portion of earnings calls. We further show that unscripted novelty leads to positive stock market reactions. Taken together, these discoveries offer insights for scholars and practitioners into the accuracy of quality assessments and distinctive patterns underlying high- and low-quality CEOs' speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational research has long been interested in crises and crisis management. Whether focused on crisis antecedents, outcomes, or managing a crisis, research has revealed a number of important findings. However, research in this space remains fragmented, making it difficult for scholars to understand the literature’s core conclusions, recognize unsolved problems, and navigate paths forward. To address these issues, we propose an integrative framework of crises and crisis management that draws from research in strategy, organizational theory, and organizational behavior as well as from research in public relations and corporate communication. We identify two primary perspectives in the literature, one focused on the internal dynamics of a crisis and one focused on managing external stakeholders. We review core concepts from each perspective and highlight the commonalities that exist between them. Finally, we use our integrative framework to propose future research directions for scholars interested in crises and crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]