CEO talk under scrutiny: visibility and rhetorical impression management in sustainability narratives

What is it about?

This study looks at how CEOs write about sustainability in their company reports, especially when their companies are more visible to the public. We focus on two kinds of visibility: (1) General visibility (such as operating in sensitive industries often watched by the public, such as oil or chemicals); and (2) issue visibility (when a company has been involved in sustainability-related controversies). We analyzed over 2,100 CEO letters from sustainability reports and found three common styles of writing: Formal-analytical: clear and logical, focused on facts and reasoning. Assertive: confident and leadership-driven language. Defensive: more cautious and reactive, often explaining or justifying actions. Our findings show that: CEOs in less visible industries tend to use more assertive language, likely to present themselves as strong leaders. CEOs in highly visible industries prefer a more analytical tone, which may help them appear credible and aligned with public expectations. When these highly visible companies face sustainability controversies, their CEOs tend to write more defensively, directly addressing the issues to protect their company’s reputation. What’s new in our research is the detailed look at different ways CEOs use language to manage their image, depending on how much attention their company gets. We also consider how the CEO letter works with the full report and how readable the letter is based on the writing style. Finally, we show that these patterns can vary across different capital markets.

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