Disseminating Information and Rendering Evaluations: How Media Influence and are Influenced by Firm Strategies and Behaviors

The influence of media coverage on organizational strategy has received significant attention in recent years. Scholars in management and strategy have endeavored to understand the impact on firm strategies of media coverage in its several roles as information disseminator, evaluator, and investigator. However, prior research did not decompose the multifaceted nature of strategic change, and consequently was unable to determine whether and how media coverage influences strategic change in domains with different time horizons. Underestimated in the literature is the effect of positive media coverage that may also drive strategic change in different ways. Moreover, although management and organizational research have advanced understanding of media’s role as a form of external corporate governance in monitoring and deterring corporate wrongdoing, not enough is yet known about how wrongdoing attracts media attention and induces disapproval. There is as yet no research linking literature on media and corporate social performance (CSP)- corporate financial performance (CFP) relationship to inquire whether positive media coverage, being a strong indicator of social approval, transforms a higher level of CSP to a higher level of CFP. My thesis examines both outcomes and antecedents of media (dis)approval, including how media (dis)approval influences strategic changes and financial performance, and why and how firm wrongdoings or social activities cause heterogeneous media (dis)approval. This thesis comprises three empirical studies that address these research gaps. To test the proposed models, a panel data set of publicly listed firm in China from 2012-2017 was compiled with data collected from various sources