The inner circle : thesis on CEO social media behaviour

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Thesis Marketing

Author: Valérie Livia de Jongh – 10499563

University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics and Business MSc Business Administration – Marketing Track – 2014/2015

August 31st, 2015

Supervisor: Dr. H.H. Lee

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Statement of originality

This document is written by student Valérie de Jongh who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in

creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

Compared to their foreign counter parts, Dutch CEOs are lagging behind in social media usage. Considering that it can be very challenging to build a personal brand on social media, this study seeks to investigate social media behaviour of Dutch CEOs, in order to gain a better understanding of the Incentives and Motivations for social media usage. In pursuance of a well-‐managed reputation of the CEO and the company it is crucial to understand the opportunities and threats brought by social media. Therefore, this study tries to explore potential drivers for successful CEO social media behaviour by answering (1) how Dutch CEOs manage their personal brand on social networking sites; what are their Incentives and what are Drivers for success? And (2) whether certain personality traits drive certain social media behaviour. A theory was developed using deductive and inductive approaches. A deductive approach was used to construct the matrices used in this study (professionalism

and activity), to structure the personal branding strategies of CEOs. Subsequently, an

exploratory study was conducted by interviewing 16 CEOs from different areas of expertise and industries, using an inductive cluster analysis in order to find patterns in CEO social media activities. The results show that there is an essential difference between creating and

spectating CEOs, which influences how CEOs manage their personal brand on social media.

Based on this difference it could be concluded that creating CEOs manage to successfully build their personal brand through: visibility, transparency, connectedness, personal touch and emphasizing on the core values of the company. While Spectators were absent mainly due to: time constraints, misinterpretation hazards and Dutch Modesty. Subsequently, personal attributes: Agreeableness and Openness to experience are assumed to have an impact on whether a CEO is likely to use social media as a Creator or as a Spectator. This is one of the first studies on this subject and can therefore be seen as a preliminary study. The constructed framework can be used in order to conduct a large-‐scale, quantitative research on ‘CEO social media behaviour.’

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“(...) my problem with paper is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity.”

― Dave Eggers, The Circle

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Acknowledgement

Hereby I present you my master thesis on ‘CEO social media behaviour’. I took great pleasure in working on this project for the past five months at Amrop Executive Search. It has been a great experience to work at this dynamic firm and it was a great opportunity to meet all the inspiring CEOs I have been able to interview.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Lee, my research supervisor, for her patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement, and valuable critiques of this research work. Special thanks should be given to my supervisors, partners at Armop Executive Search: Eelco van Eijck and Job Voorhoeve, for their expert guidance and whom generated inspiring and topical discussions on ‘personal branding’ and ‘social media’. In addition, they have believed in me and provided me their references in order to obtain my interviews with CEOs.

Furthermore, I would like to thank the people at Amrop for welcoming me and helping me wherever possible, especially I want to express my gratitude to Loes Boerema, for being ever helpful and being good company to share a room with.

I would also like to thank all the participating CEOs in my research, for taking the time to conduct the interviews with me and for sharing their sincerity and inspirational visions. In conclusion, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my friends and family for their support, patience and all helpful suggestions.

I hope you will take pleasure in reading this thesis. Amsterdam, August 2015,

Valérie de Jongh

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1. Introduction

Social networks are thriving and social media gain more and more impact on our lives. These digital social media platforms have extensively changed the way people communicate, collaborate and connect with one another. A study by McKinsey found that improving internal communications through the use of social media helps in alignment, employee engagement and could even raise productivity by twenty-‐five percent (Chui et al., 2012). Subsequently, it can be used to store tacit knowledge, facilitate easy access to information and, especially in bigger companies, connect employees (Chui et al., 2012; Ross, 2015). External social media use can be very fruitful as well; Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, recently stirred Tesla shares with nearly 1 billion by simply tweeting an announcement on new developments in the company (Musk, 2015). Furthermore, John Legere, CEO of T-‐Mobile USA, says being active on Twitter gives him a competitive advantage: “for advertisement, for going to customers and knowing how they respond” (Legere, 2015). Subsequently, a continuously growing number of world leaders, are now tweeting, texting, and reaching out to a large audience, through social media. An industry research by Burson-‐Marsteller (2015) revealed that 172 heads of state have a personal Twitter account, while Barack Obama, president of the United States has most followers, Pope Francis, is the world’s most influential leader on Twitter, with most retweets. Interesting insight in this study is the fact that the Dutch ministers are lagging behind in ‘personal’ presence on social media.

In line with this research, Volkskrant found similar results concerning Dutch CEOs on Twitter: not present (Witteman, 2014). This last insight is enquiring as to understanding reasons for CEOs not to be present online. Consequently, it is important to establish why some CEOs do use social media, while others do not. This distinction is helpful in finding the possible advantages or disadvantages of social media usage and what could be possible drivers for CEOs to extend their engagement in social media. In this way it might be possible to effectively train other CEOs to become successful in online personal branding. In order to emphasize on these drivers, the differences in personality traits and the effects on social media use by CEOs is a relevant, yet barely studied issue (Freberg, Graham, McGaughey & Freberg, 2011; BRANDfog, 2013; Brown, Sikes & Willmott, 2013).

Considering that in the same way heads of states function as the face of their country,

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) function as the face of their company and the corporate brand. Therefore it is essential, not to only understand the corporate social media branding

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several (industry) researches, a CEO’s reputation – his personal brand – has tremendous impact on the company’s reputation and many PR-‐departments would like their CEOs to participate (Business Editors, 2001; Jin & Yeo, 2011; Witteman, 2014; Weber Shandwick, 2015).

Although it might be challenging to find out more about these people, considering the taciturn character of this segment, this research aims to establish why some CEOs are successfully building their ‘social personal brand,’ while others prefer not to engage in social media and what might be potential incentives to enhance their online appearance. If this study is able to fill this gap in research, it might be possible to fruitfully train other CEOs to become successful in online personal branding. Especially since previous research has demonstrated it to be very beneficial for companies if the CEO would engage in social media. According to research among stakeholders, CEOs could: diminish the psychological distance, present themselves and the brand, and enhance reputation through social media (Alghawi, Yan & Wei, 2014).

Ashley and Tuten (2015) did an extensive study on how to deal with creative messages or content in branded social activities in order to maximise psychological engagement with a brand. Their study confirmed the importance of frequent updates and establishes incentives for participation. While Ashley and Tuten (2015) focus on social content created by a brand persona, personal branding of CEOs on social media, within the context of their company, has not been studied extensively. In this sense, a CEO’s personal branding strategy on social media, in terms of the number of updates, is an interesting topic to study. Even more so considering that in a survey under U.K. and U.S. employees it appeared that more than three-‐quarter believed that it was important for CEOs to communicate with customers through social media channels and that engaging in social media would even make CEOs more effective (BRANDFog; 2013). As earlier research by Chui et al. (2012) stressed the importance of the internal uses of social media in engaging their employees, this study seeks to investigate a CEO’s personal brand both from an external (addressing stakeholders), as from an internal (addressing employees) perspective.

Still little is known about personal branding and social activities of CEOs as influencers and whether it is affected by their personality. The personal branding of CEOs is of interest since they give credibility to a company’s branded message. (Freberg et al., 2011; Weber Shandwick, 2013). Therefore, in order to understand the incentives for social media usage by CEO’s, it is important to assess certain personality traits of CEOs. Previous studies show that psychological attributes of CEOs affect their strategic decision-‐making-‐process, which

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might explain their incentives (Miller & Toulouse, 1986; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010; Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2011). Subsequently, prior research suggests that dimensions like extraversion and openness to experience are related to the level of activity on social media (Zywica & Danowski, 2008; Ross et al., 2009; Correa, Hinsley & Zuniga, 2010). And furthermore, neuroticism is assumed to be linked to a preference for face-‐to-‐face contact (Ehrenberg, Juckes, White & Walsh, 2008).

Convincingly, personal traits do affect people’s decision-‐making with regards to the phenomenon of ‘social media’. It is therefore interesting to examine this effect further with regards to CEOs’ social media strategies. In this study the big five model, as designed by McCrae & Costa (1987), will be used, as it is a well-‐known and proven model for testing personality attributes. The five characteristics embodied in this model are: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experiences, conscientiousness, and agreeableness (John & Srivastava, 1999).

While previous research has provided a good introduction to the subject of stakeholder perspectives on CEO social media behaviour, they do not cover the CEO’s judgment and attitude towards social media (Jin & Yeo, 2011; Weber Shandwick, 2015). By exploring CEO attitude towards personal branding on social media in relation to the corporate brand and what the effect of their personality might be on this attitude, this research seeks to shed another light on the challenges and opportunities brought by the vast changing media landscape of social media.

In order to understand the challenges that lie in the vast growing complexity of stakeholders on social media, and how CEOs could best react to this phenomenon, it is important to organisations and the top board, to understand how CEOs behave or should behave on social media. In pursuance of a well-‐managed reputation of the CEO and the company it is crucial to understand the opportunities and threats brought by social media. Therefore, this research tries to close the gap in research by answering the following questions:

-‐ How do Dutch CEOs manage their personal brand on social networking sites; what

are their incentives and what are drivers for success?

-‐ Do certain personality traits drive certain social media behaviour?

To answer the first questions an exploratory study will be conducted through 16 semi-‐ structured interviews with CEOs (see Appendix I). Subsequently a cluster analysis will be

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conducted in order to find patterns in CEO social media activities using deductive and inductive approaches (Hinkin, 1998). A deductive approach was used to construct the matrices used in this study (professionalism and activity), which were based on prior studies, to structure the personal branding strategies of CEOs. (Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Larcker, 2012; Larcker, Larcker & Tayan, 2012; Alghawi et al., 2014). Subsequently, an inductive cluster analysis was conducted by the outputs of interviewing 16 CEOs from different areas of expertise and industries, to ensure the adequacy of the framework.

Additionally, this research seeks to investigate possible drivers, like personality traits, for certain social media behaviour. Therefore, in order to establish the second question, personal traits were measured using the mini-‐IPIP-‐questionnaire (see Appendix II).

This study will contribute to existing research in the following ways. First, the study provides insights into the sort of activities, strategies and the extent of social media usage by CEOs. Second, it offers insights into the perceived obstacles that inhibit social media usage. Third, it examines the effect of CEOs’ personality traits on social media usage and strategies.

This paper opens by reviewing previous literature on social media, personal branding and personality traits. Subsequently, it will elaborate on the methodology and main findings from the interviews. Conclusively, the findings will be discussed in the light of previous literature, managerial implications will be highlighted and suggestions for further research will be proposed.

2. Theoretical Framework

In the past few years, new forms of media, social media in particular, have become increasingly important in reaching the company’s stakeholders. According to several studies, social media can impact a firm’s revenues through improving customer satisfaction and customer retention, reputation, and even its survival (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy & Silvestre 2011; Golbeck, 2013). Different social networks serve different needs. With this wide variety in audience, social media could be applied in a wide range of business purposes and opportunities.

This chapter provides an extensive assessment of the literature concerning the main concepts in this paper, conducive to analysing what has already been studied in the field of social media use among executives. First, a short review concerning social media is provided.

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Next, the concept of personal branding by C-‐suite leaders will be discussed. Subsequently, author will discuss personal branding strategies of C-‐level leaders on social media. Conclusively, personality attributes will be discussed. Finally, based on this assessment, propositions and a conceptual framework are developed for further testing in this study.

2.1 Social Media

“It is the largest database in the world of human thoughts” – Case A

The potential of social networking sites as a marketing tool is prosperous and both scientist and marketers are looking for ways to study behaviours and trends within social media in order to adapt quickly in this fast changing environment (Lima & De Castro, 2014; McCorkindale & DiStaso, 2014). Companies are investing millions in social media strategies and expertise in order to stay ahead of competition and build reputation (McCorkindale & DiStaso, 2014).

For this study, social media can be referred to as an umbrella term under which several types of virtual, cultural practices take place such as blogging, social networking and other user-‐content generation (Lietsala & Sirkkunen; 2008; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Due to their output as networks, where interconnected actors relate to one another, these platforms have become the perfect place for firms and customers to meet. It has enabled customers to actively participate in the messages firms spread around the Internet. (Hennig-‐Thurau et al., 2010; Lieberman, 2014).

Social media can be used for a wide range of distinctive business functions. Not only, do companies use social media for their own campaigns, it is also a good way to stay informed on the last customer insights and peer-‐to-‐peer customer conversations. Furthermore, companies can gather ideas for future business, and analyse consumer decision-‐making behaviour through big data (Holsapple, Hsiao, Pakath, 2014).

As different social networking websites serve different goals, it is very useful for marketers, to know what to post on which platform. Once capable of exploiting these networking sites, customer insights can be used to create positive brand associations on the web in dialogue with the customer (Smith, Fisher & Yongjian, 2012). Furthermore, considering that stakeholder preferences are changing and platforms evolve in conjunction with stakeholder needs, organisations must fit social media into their business strategy and adapt these strategies continually (McCorkindale & DiStaso., 2014).

However, according to prior research not only companies should shape their social media strategies, also for executives it could be important to profile themselves on social

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media, as their image affects the corporate image (Witteman, 2014). In a study done by Men (2012), CEO credibility turned out to be positively related to perceived corporate reputation and engagement among employees.

2.2 Personal branding

“The most important point is to make sure you are visible” – Case D

Image is the reflection of how an organisation or person wants to be seen or reflected by other actors (Argenti & Barnes, 2009). The organisation or person will try to create a set of unique associations and characteristics to generate or maintain this reflection by others; its/his/her identity (Alsem & Kostelijk, 2008). Identity can help in building relationships between customers and the company (Fournier, 1998).

Experiences with a certain brand can contribute to an image one might have of a certain organisation, product or person which leads to a certain attitude towards these firms, products or individuals. The cluster of all these images encompasses the reputation in comparison with its competitors (Keller, 2008; van Riel, 2006). With corporate branding all members of the organisation need to work in accordance with the preferred brand identity, the brand values need to be defined and communicated consistently towards stakeholders, in order to create a favourable brand reputation (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). It is essential to tailor messages to a certain identity in order to circumvent internal or external confusion, which consequently can lead to loss of credibility, trust and eventually financial performance (Argenti et al., 2009).

Considering that top management usually generates the mission, vision and values of corporations, and thus corporate identity is engendered based on their visions, it is pivotal to take their views into account when considering brand, identity, image and reputation (Argenti et al., 2009). Consequently, the effect of a CEO’s good reputation can lead to a more favourable reputation for the company as a whole, which McLaughlin & Mott (2009) started to indicate as the notion of ‘leadership brand equity’.

Top management consists of C-‐suite leaders; a widely used term to refer to a corporation's most important senior executives such as the CEO or the Managing Director (MD). Also other executives within the same board, or reporting directly to the CEO, i.e. the span of control of the CEO, can be referred to as C-‐level. (Groysberg, Kelly & MacDonald, 2011; Guadalupe, Li & Wulf, 2013; Fitzsimmons, Callan & Paulsen, 2014).

To shed another light on the topic of branded social content, it is interesting to zoom in on the personal brand of the CEO as the face of the company and the brand, considering

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that C-‐suite leaders can be seen as Social Media Influencers (Freberg et al., 2011). Influencers are viable for many organisations, as they give credibility to the company’s messages. In this way CEOs can shape the attitude of the audience through blogging and tweeting (Freberg et al., 2011; Weber Shandwick, 2013). According to Freberg et al. (2011) social media influencers are usually ambitious, smart, productive and especially verbal individuals. Considering the fact that CEOs are usually the spokesperson of companies and in the spotlights of big corporate events, this study shows a significant overlap between personality traits of social media influencers and executives.

Already in the ‘strategic choice’ and the ‘upper echelon theory’ the importance of top managers in driving strategic changes was highlighted (Child, 1972; Hambrick & Mason, 1984). The drastically changed media environment today, can be seen as an opportunity for strategic change, through new ways of reaching stakeholders with social media.

Subsequently, Business Editors (2001) conducted a survey on the effect of a CEO’s reputation on the corporate reputation; more than half of the surveyed executives thought that corporate reputation was for at least one half, attributable to the CEO’s image. This number has only increased since, and Jin and Yeo (2011) found that CEO reputation and corporate reputation determine both the company’s success and fruitful relationships with several stakeholders.

Furthermore, previous research suggests that personal branding of executives is an important influencer of corporate reputation. This is of interest for CEOs in all markets, considering that the growing complexity of the ‘global’ stakeholders has altered together with the vibrant and radically changing media environment. Therefore this study seeks to investigate CEO’s leading companies emphasizing on consumers as well as CEO’s leading companies that are focussing more on the Business-‐to-‐Business market. Corporate reputation does not only matter to consumers, also in Business-‐to-‐Bussiness (B2B) markets it is very important to influence stakeholders’ perceptions positively (Spekman, 2009; Swani, Brown & Milne, 2014). As Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein put it:

“I think the average American […] had never heard of Goldman Sachs before three years ago. Shame on us in a way for not anticipating how important that would be. We’re an institutional business with no consumers. It turns out, another name for consumers are citizens and taxpayers. […] They always should have been important, but it wasn’t part of our audience as we thought about it. [...]” (Weber Shandwick, 2015, p. 2).

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Therefore, in the sense of CEOs as influencers of corporate reputation, social media can have several advantages for executives when managed effectively, such as: storytelling, strategy echoing, and connecting with stakeholders which now no longer needs to go through traditional media and Public Relations (Weber Shandwick, 2015).

Social media use of executives as media influencers has barely been studied in the academic field. It is however an interesting topic, as it might shed another light on the challenges that lie in the vast growing complexity in audiences, and how best to reach them. The new insights provided by this study can help organisations and the top board in understanding the opportunities and challenges of social media use by CEOs and support in laying the foundations for a well-‐managed CEO and company reputation.

So far little effort has been made to analyse personal branding by CEOs on social media and whether or not they can be seen as social media influencers (Freberg et al., 2011). This research amplifies previous studies by highlighting the role and perceptions of the CEO himself/herself on social media.

Based on previous studies, such as the upper echelon theory, author theorizes that ‘personality traits’ of CEOs serve as lenses through which CEOs intuitively observe strategic questions and on which they base their decisions, from the likes of; whether to use or not to use social media – and decide on a suitable approach on how to deal with this new form of information flow (Child, 1972; Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Freberg et al., 2011; BRANDfog, 2013; Brown et al., 2013).

Psychological attributes can have impact on the perception of information cues used in social media and how they are interpreted. This process will form the foundation for the CEO’s used social media strategy (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010). In this sense it is interesting to find out whether CEO personality traits affect their social strategies. Therefore, this paper will first discuss the possible social media strategies of CEOs and subsequently, the personality traits that might affect them.

2.3 Social media personal branding strategies

“Well, I don't have a strategy. We figured it out. I have a presence but I don’t have a strategy”

– Case F

As elaborated on before, personal branding is evident for CEOs. Already in the ‘upper echelon theory’ the importance of CEOs in driving strategic changes was reinforced (Child, 1972; Hambrick & Mason, 1984). With the new developments in social media, CEOs can use this to their advantage by giving credibility to the company’s message and shape the

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Creator

Spectator

Professional

Personal

attitude of the audience through blogging and tweeting. According to previous research CEOs can use different strategies to profile themselves on social media. Whether this profiling transpires deliberately or unaware, these strategies contribute to their personal brand on social media; and thus how they shape their ‘personal branding’ strategy online (Alghawi et al., 2014).

Yet, first we need to know how CEOs behave on social media in order to assess their ‘personal branding’ strategies on social media. Therefore this study will explore several social media strategies, based on the analyses done by Alghawi et al. (2014) and Larcker et al. (2012) a matrix was constructed measuring social media image strategies along social

activity (spectator vs. creator) and professionalism (professional vs. personal) (see Figure I).

This matrix will be further elaborated on in the methodology section.

Figure I: ‘Personal branding’ strategy on social media (adapted from Alghawi et al. (2014) and Larcker et al. (2012))

In the literature on personal branding strategies, social media actors are referred to as recipients who may be participating in social media by simply consuming the social content, watching videos, or following others (passive usage), called ‘Spectators’ by Larcker et al. (2012). On the other hand they could also actively participate in social media, creating

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content such as blogs, sharing updates, or engage in microblogging (i.e. tweets), the ‘Creators’ (Hutton & Fosdick, 2011).

Professionalism can be described as the degree of ‘professional’ content publication

which arises from a person’s work, industry or organisational role targeted to a wide variety of audiences (Jameson, 2014). This could also be referred to as ‘thought leadership’: a thought leader has expertise in a certain area of specialty and is recognised as an authority in this area. By communicating this expertise, trends, and other work-‐related issues, thought leaders can stay ahead of the competition by engaging their audience, and therewith enhance their own and the company’s credibility (Heath, Singh, Ganesh & Taube, 2013; BRANDfog, 2014; Weber Shandwick, 2013; Ozuem, O'Keeffe & Lancaster, 2015).

On the other hand ‘personal’ content can enhance involvement and engagement by recipients. In order to develop a relationship with someone active commitment is desired. In social media this is no different, consider the blogs kept by the CEO of Sun Microsystems, whom is discussing corporate strategy and values, new developments on a regular basis, and also replies immediately to new messages (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).

The levels a CEO’s social activities are measured along several variables, such as how they build their networks, how they converse within in their network, how often they update their profiles through shares, blogs and tweets, and what kind of content they publish. Active users Creators are those who create social content by sharing, posting, and blogging, passive users Spectators are the ones merely consuming social content, such as reading, watching videos and following people (Larcker et al., 2012; Ashley & Tuten, 2015).

In order to find out if personality traits lead to different personal branding strategies, it is important to have a clear view of the different types of personalities. In this sense it is important to make an assessment on how executives with certain leadership styles and personality traits act on different social media platforms. If this difference can be established successfully by this study, it might be possible to support other CEOs to become successful in using social media for personal branding purposes. Especially since previous academic and industry studies have established that it can be very beneficial for companies to have a social CEO (Freberg et al., 2011; BRANDFog, 2013; Weber Shandwick, 2013; Alghawi et al., 2014).

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As psychological attributes can have impact on the perception of information cues used in social media and how they are interpreted, it is of interest to assess whether personal traits impact CEO’s social strategies, which will be discussed in the following topic (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010).

2.4 Personal attributes

“I think to be good at social media you really have to want to share… So you have to be a little bit extravert.” – Case I

In his book “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” Cooper (1999) already developed the concept of personas, which was originally designed for the technology community, in order to make a representation of the goals and behaviour of a certain group of people. Cooper created virtual characters which represented different types of people with diverging demographics or attitudes which might affect their behaviour towards a certain product or brand in similar ways. This concept is very suitable in guiding firms with decisions about products, services, visual designs, campaigning et cetera (Grudin & Pruitt, 2002). Typically, personas are created from collected data, gathered during user interviews with descriptions of inter alia behaviour patterns, attitudes, environment and skills (Sasaki, Kunigami, Yoshikawa & Terano, 2014).

In this perspective, this research will be studying CEO’s psychological attributes, as these are very robust in predicting or interpreting what really ‘drives’ CEO behaviour (Carpenter, Geletkanycz & Sanders, 2004). Subsequently, according to McKenna & Bargh (2000) the behaviour on social media reflects a person’s behaviour and personality. A significant amount of research has studied the link between personal branding or the way people present themselves on social media and personality (Amichai-‐Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Gosling, Augustine, Vazire, Holtzman & Gaddis, 2011; Moore & McElroy, 2012).

Moreover, it is important to assess certain personality traits of CEOs as previous studies have shown that psychological attributes affect their strategic decisions-‐making-‐process (Miller & Toulouse, 1986; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010; Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2011). Furthermore, previous research suggests that variables like extraversion and openness to experience are related to the level of activity on social media (Zywica & Danowski, 2008; Ross et al., 2009; Correa, Hinsley & Zuniga, 2010). And subsequently, that neuroticism can be linked to a preference for face-‐to-‐face contact (Ehrenberg et al., 2008).

Convincingly, personal traits do affect people’s decision making with regards to the phenomenon of social media. It is therefore interesting to examine this effect further with

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regards to CEOs’ social media strategies.

For this study author will use the ‘Big Five model’ as designed by McCrae & Costa (1987), as it is a well-‐known, and proven model for testing personality traits. The five characteristics embodied in this model are: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experiences, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (John & Srivastava, 1999).

The model suggests that individual differences in personality can be classified into five personality traits that the ‘Big Five model’ represents (Gosling, Rentfrow & Swann, 2003). Several studies have proven the general structure and integrity of the ‘Five-‐factor-‐model’ in different settings and it is regarded a cohesive and solid conceptual framework for personality traits (McCrea & Costa, 1987; Digman, 1990).

Each personality trait consists of specific aspects, for example extraversion comprises more specific personality traits, such as ‘assertiveness’ or ‘being energetic’. Furthermore, these characteristics are bipolar in nature, which means that for example surgency or extraversion contrasts with introversion (Gosling et al., 2003).

Subsequently, neuroticism can be linked to a preference for face-‐to-‐face contact rather than social media usage, which might stem from the fact that this kind of communication might give them more time to consider their response (Ehrenberg et al., 2008).

Reviewing prior research on personality and social media, it can be concluded that three personality traits are crucial: openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability (Zywica & Danowski, 2008; Ross et al., 2009). However, this study will investigate all five personality traits in order to achieve a complete view.

2.4.1 Openness to experience

The personal trait of openness to experiences consists of having broad interests, being curious, intellectual and open-‐minded. People with this psychological trait do not need convention and familiarity (McCrae & Costa, 1987). These people are often looking for novelty and might therefore be more likely to look for thought leadership and trends. Subsequently, according to McElroy, Hendrickson, Townsend and DeMarie (2007) openness has been shown to have effect on information seeking. Furthermore, openness to experience is positively related to social media usage, and these people are likely to spend more time online and have more friends added to their profile (Schrammel, Köffel &Tscheligi, 2009; Correa et al., 2010).

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In the context of CEO social media behaviour it would be an interesting insight considering that these people are often looking for novelty, it would be logical that they would be browsing the web for new trends and possibly ‘thought leadership’.

Conclusively, it would be interesting to understand whether CEOs with high levels of openness to experience would not only be likely, to consume knowledge, but also whether these people are likely to contribute. Due to the tendency of curious people to explore new activities and look for novelties, these individuals are expected to engage earlier in social media and provide more information; as giving information is often a prerequisite for making new experiences (Schrammel et al., 2009). Based on these assumptions this study has come up with the following propositions:

P1a: CEO’s openness to experiences has a positive influence on consuming professional content (thought leadership) on social media (spectator).

P1b: CEO’s openness to experiences has a positive influence on creating professional content on social media (creator).

2.4.2 Extraversion

People with the extraversion trait are often assertive, talkative and energetic people (John & Srivastava, 1999). These people seek out social interaction and are frequently adventurous and sociable. The level of extraversion clarifies the extent to which a person is contented to engage in direct social relations. On the other hand people with the introversion trait are typically quiet and shy (McCrae & Costa, 1992).

According to previous research it is more likely to experience benefits from social media usage as an extravert than as an introvert (Steinfield, Ellison & Lampe, 2008). Furthermore, extraverts are likely to have many connections and larger networks via social networking sites and are likely to report their activities online. (Bibby, 2008; Tong, van der Heide, Langwell & Walther, 2008; Zywica & Danowski, 2008; Michikyan, Subrahmanyam & Dennis, 2014). According to Lee, Ahn & Kim (2014) extraversion was a significant predictor for frequently uploading photos and updating statuses on Facebook.

Extraversion has been found to be the most significant personality trait in predicting social media usage amongst the big five, a positive relationship was found between extraversion and social media usage (Amichai-‐ Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Correa et al., 2010; Gosling et al., 2011).

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These previous studies suggest that extraversion is positively related to social media creation. Although most mentioned studies investigate young adults or students it would be interesting to see the effects on CEOs with this trait. Therefore extraversion is an interesting trait to consider in this research. In this sense, author theorizes that extravert CEOs are more likely to create content and have high online activity.

P2a: CEO’s extraversion has a positive influence on creating content on social media (creator).

P2b: CEO’s extraversion has a positive influence on social media consuming (spectator).

2.4.3 Emotional Stability

Emotional stability measures the level of emotional control. The other side of the coin is neuroticism. People with a high level of neuroticism have a tendency to worry a lot and can be described as nervous and sensitive. Whereas people with low levels of neuroticism are usually emotionally stable, calm and not very easily upset (McCrae & Costa, 1987). According to previous research, people with high levels of neuroticism are usually more likely to engage in social media usage often for social reasons (Amichai-‐Hamburger & Ben-‐ Artzi, 2003; Butt & Phillips, 2008; Correa et al., 2010). Subsequently, they are more likely to update their own status according to research done by Wang, Jackson, Zhang & Su (2012). Furthermore, neurotic individuals appear to be more motivated by self-‐presentational needs, predominantly the need to show-‐case different facets of the self (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012; Seidam, 2013). Considering that people with high levels of neuroticism want to stay in control, it is less likely that they would create content which is open to everyone. These findings suggest that CEOs with high levels of neuroticism are more likely to engage with personal content rather than professional content, as they want to feel accepted within their personal social environment.

On the other hand according to Ehrenberg et al. (2008) suggested that people with high levels of neuroticism might not be likely to actually react to content, as they might need more time to contemplate a response. Therefore, this study proposes that CEO’s with high levels of neuroticism are less likely to create content, especially not on open social networks from the likes of Twitter. They will rather consume content in order to stay updated on what is happening around them.

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P3a: CEO’s high levels of neuroticism are positively related to creating personal content. P3b: CEO’s high levels of neuroticism are negatively related to engaging in professional content creation.

P3c: CEO’s high levels of neuroticism are positively related to consuming content (spectator).

2.4.4 Conscientiousness

Conscientious individuals can be described as responsible, dependable, productive, achievement oriented, organized and persistent (McCrae & Costa, 1992).

In a research done by But & Philips (2008) people with high levels of conscientiousness will avoid social media as it can be a distraction. Subsequently, Ryan & Xenos (2011) found a negative correlation between conscientiousness and the frequency of Facebook usage. Considering the risks of inefficiency that social media can potentially bring, conscientiousness probably has negative influence on social media activity by CEOs.

P4a: Conscientious has a negative influence on creating branded content. P4b: Conscientious has a negative influence on consuming branded content.

2.4.5 Agreeableness

Agreeableness can be seen as a measure of friendliness, or how people-‐oriented a certain individual is. High ratings can be associated with kind, sympathetic and warm individuals (McCrae & Costa, 1992). To the best of author’s knowledge there is little research that supports any relation between agreeableness and social media behaviour. (Ross, et al., 2009; Amichai-‐Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Correa et al., 2010). Therefore, agreeableness can be expected to have no influence on social media activity. Consequently, the null hypothesis will be proposed. Considering the fact that the level of professionalism is only an issue in the event of social media usage, this will not be proposed.

P5a: Agreeableness has no influence on consuming content on social media P5b: Agreeableness has no influence on creating content on social media.