Over the past years, media coverage of firms has received significant scholarly attention. However, the resulting literature is spread across multiple disciplines and, therefore, varies with regard to its theoretical underpinnings and contextual settings. This makes it challenging for scholars to understand the contributions of this literature, to identify areas of inquiry, and to develop an encompassing research agenda. In this review, we address these issues by surveying the diverse literature on media coverage of firms to develop an integrative framework of the antecedents and consequences of media coverage that highlights paths for future research. Specifically, we identify the three theoretical perspectives—economic, institutional, and social-psychological—that the literature generally assumes on the news media. In addition, we highlight differences between strategy, finance, governance, and crisis contexts and review results from articles examining media coverage of firms in aggregate. In each context, we identify the primary functions of the news media as well as antecedents and consequences of media coverage. We proceed to develop an integrative framework for media coverage of firms by building on these findings and by examining the empirical methods used to measure media coverage, particularly regarding the measurement of specific coverage attributes. We highlight the gaps in current knowledge that our framework exposes and derive opportunities for future research that can further scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of firm media coverage.

Research Summary: Though research has focused on the ascent and acceptance of female CEOs, the postpromotion circumstances female CEOs face remain unclear. In this study, we focus on a critical postpromotion circumstance: the board chair-CEO relationship. Drawing on the gender stereotype literature, agency theory, and stewardship theory, we posit that firms appointing a female CEO are more likely to adopt a collaboration board chair orientation and less likely to adopt a control orientation. We further predict this effect is attenuated by female board representation. Using a sample of new S&P 1500 CEOs, we find support for our predictions regarding the collaboration orientation but not the control orientation. This research provides some evidence of benevolent sexism in the boardroom, with female directors acting as a countervailing influence. Managerial Summary: Whereas the notion that females encounter a glass ceiling on their path toward CEO is well documented, the conditions female CEOs encounter after promotion are less understood. The relationship between the board chair and the CEO is one important post-promotion condition. Board chairs can focus on monitoring and/or working together with the CEO. We suggest board chairs are more likely to work in close collaboration with female CEOs than with male CEOs. We attribute this to benevolent sexism, which explains that board chairs are more likely to collaborate with female CEOs because they view females as more conducive to, and in need of, this type of relationship. We also suggest this benevolent sexism is less prevalent when there are more females on the board. K E Y W O R D Sagency theory, board chair orientation, CEO gender, corporate governance, stewardship theory Received: 27 February 2017 Revised: 1 | INTRODUCTIONWhen General Motors Co. appointed Mary Barra as chief executive officer (CEO)-becoming the first major U.S. automaker with a female CEO-the Wall Street Journal published an article about the firm's incoming independent board chair, Tim Solso, and his orientation toward the job. According to the article, "Mr. Solso insists his job is to ensure Ms. Barra succeeds as the company's CEO":Mr. Solso makes clear he intends to be a hands-on player as well as a coach, advocate and resource for Mary Barra, the company's new chief executive…"I can take some of the load off management's back," he said. (Bennett & Lublin, 2014, p. B1) The article notes that Solso's statement seems to conflict with his reputation as a strict board monitor who "can be a tough boss and knows how to get his way," having previously engineered the ouster of a CEO while on the board of another firm (Bennett & Lublin, 2014, p. B1). Indeed, the board chair role described above is a clear example of what Krause (2017) identified as the "collaboration" board chair orientation, which consists of advising and guiding the CEO and reducing the CEO's job demands. Based on his history, though, the GM board chair also seems amenable to the "control" board chair orientation, which consi...

In this study, we examine the following question: What do executives gain from serving on boards? We propose that board service benefits non-CEO-level executives in the executive labor market by acting as a certification mechanism and by providing access to unique knowledge, skills, and connections. We argue that non-CEO executives who gain directorships will be more likely to be promoted to CEO both inside and outside their home firm, will be more likely to be promoted internally, and will receive higher pay from their home firms. To test our ideas, we employ propensity score matching to construct a longitudinal sample of 2,104 top executives of large, publicly traded companies in the United States over the period 1996 to 2012. The results provide consistent support for our theory.

Media coverage of earnings is consequential for firms. As such, firms work hard to ensure their performance beats analyst estimates to avoid negative coverage. However, the relationship between performance and coverage might not be as straightforward as firms assume because media coverage is a socially constructed process that reflects journalists’ social and cognitive biases while producing newsworthy content. With this in mind, we unpack the concept of newsworthiness and develop theory regarding how the media targets, in the earnings context, deviance that is socially significant for stakeholders or attaches a deviance frame to news of social significance. In doing so, we examine how the media’s pursuit of newsworthiness shapes the relationship between critical characteristics of earnings announcements—including the firm’s earnings performance, its press releases surrounding earnings, its prior reputation, and its prior media visibility—and media volume and tone. The results of our empirical tests are broadly consistent with our theorizing. Our theory and findings contribute to research on earnings, media coverage, and social evaluations.

Managing grand challenges demands a relational leader who encourages collaboration, coordination, and trust with various stakeholders. Although leaders appear to play a critical role in addressing grand challenges, relatively little research exists about the factors that inform stakeholder perceptions of leaders during a grand challenge. To address this limitation, we integrate implicit leadership theory and gender role theory to consider stakeholders’ gender prescriptive expectations when evaluating leader effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. We theorize that stakeholders advantage female leaders based on mental schemas of what is required in a pandemic—relational leadership—and stakeholders’ prescriptive expectations of female leaders as more relational. Using a laboratory experiment, we find that female leaders are perceived as more relational, and hence, more effective than their male counterparts. Our findings advance scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of strategic leadership, stakeholder management, and grand challenges.