Birkbeck’s Responsible Business Centre is pleased to invite you to an online research seminar focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility by Dr Silin Ye (Sichuan University, China). Dr Ye is going to discuss her recently published paper at the British Journal of Management. You can read the abstract below. The full paper can also be found here.

Title:  More social, more socially responsible? The impact of CEO social media use on corporate social performance.

Abstract:  Nowadays, more and more chief executive officers (CEOs) are using social media to join online conversations and interact with stakeholders. As this social media presence shows their social participation tendencies, such CEOs have been described as ‘social CEOs’. Building on an upper-echelon perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this study examines whether social CEOs and the implications of their social media engagement have an impact on corporate social performance by developing a needs–affordances–consequences approach. Our approach explores the motives and ability of social CEOs, suggesting the positive influence of CEO sociability on CSR and also the moderating effect of CEOs’ social evaluation. Using data on Chinese publicly listed firms from 2009 to 2020, we find that firms with social CEOs have a higher level of social performance than firms without, and higher CEO status or better CEO reputation can further amplify the positive impact of CEO sociability on corporate social performance.

Biography: Dr Silin Ye is a lecturer at the Business School of Sichuan University, China. She graduated with a PhD in Management from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility, social media, and corporate governance. Her work has been published in Journal of Business Research, British Journal of Management, International Business Review, International Review of Finance, etc.