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.
ABSTRACT
The prevalence of health misinformation on social media could significantly influence individuals' health behaviors. To examine the prevalent topics, propagation, and correction of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) misinformation, automated content analyses were conducted for posts on Sina Weibo, which is China's largest microblogging site. In total, 177,816 posts related to COVID-19 misinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak in China were analyzed. The structural topic modeling identified 23 valid topics regarding COVID-19 misinformation and its correction, which were further categorized into three general themes. Sentiment analysis was conducted to generate positive and negative sentiment scores for each post. The zero-inflated Poisson model indicated that only the negative sentiment was a significant predictor of the number of comments (ß = 0.003, p < 0.001) but not reposts. Furthermore, users are more prone to repost and comment on information regarding prevention/treatment (e.g., traditional Chinese medicine preventing COVID) as well as potential threats of COVID-19 (e.g., COVID-19 was defined as an epidemic by World Health Organization). Health education and promotion implications are discussed.