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Face is the most intuitive and representative feature at the individual level. Many studies show that beautiful faces help individuals and enterprises obtain economic benefits and form a high economic premium, but the discussion of their potential social value is insufficient. This study aims to focus on the impact of the personal characteristics of executives. It mainly analyzes the impact mechanism of CEO facial attractiveness on corporate social responsibility (CSR) decision-making, clarifying the social value of beauty from the perspective of CSR.

The authors use the regression model to analyze the panel data set, which was conducted by a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2016 to 2018.

The study found that CEOs with high facial attractiveness are more active in fulfilling CSR, which can usually bring higher social benefits. CEOs with beautiful faces are prone to overconfidence, are optimistic about their ability and the future development of the enterprise and are more willing to increase their investment in CSR. CEO duality can positively regulate the positive correlation between a CEO’s facial attractiveness and CSR.

Based on the perspective of upper echelons theory, this paper explores the mechanism of CEO facial attractiveness on CSR. This study enriches the perspective of the upper echelon’s theoretical research and has essential enlightenment for CEO selection and training practice.

Pulchronomics studies the economics of beauty. The purpose of this paper is to research CEO pulchronomics by examining whether a beauty premium exists in CEO compensation and whether this beauty premium is justified by differences in CEO performance.

The authors calculate a facial attractiveness scores (FAS) based on facial symmetry, facial structure and the golden ratio. The authors then perform OLS regressions to examine the effect of CEO beauty on CEO compensation and firm performances.

The authors find that base salaries for attractive CEOs are higher than those for unattractive CEOs, but incentive pays for attractive CEOs are not different from those for unattractive CEOs. The latter is likely due to the fact that attractive CEOs do not outperform unattractive CEOs in operations, innovation, corporate social responsibility and financial reporting quality.

Since the CEO beauty premium is not supported by the superior performance of attractive CEOs, this paper provides new evidence of appearance discrimination in CEO compensation.

The authors study whether CEO beauty influences management guidance.

The authors calculate an attractiveness score based on facial symmetry and perform regression analyses to examine the relation between CEO beauty and management guidance.

The authors find that attractive CEOs are more likely to issue voluntary management earnings guidance. After controlling for this appearance-based self-selection, the authors document that management forecasts provided by attractive CEOs are more optimistic yet less precise. Consistent with this result, the authors find that analysts' consensus forecast error following management forecasts made by attractive CEOs is larger than such error following management forecasts made by unattractive CEOs. The authors further find that the perceived credibility of management forecasts by attractive CEOs is not different from that by unattractive CEOs.

These findings suggest that attractive CEOs are more active but less skillful in issuing management forecasts. This adds to the emerging accounting literature on the relation between facial appearance and information delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of head-and-shoulder photos of CEOs appearing in a publicity item to influence reader regard for the corporation linked to the CEO.

Study 1 investigated three factors, face of a male CEO (trustworthy versus less trustworthy), headline framing of a corporate merger (tax-dodge vs specialization strategy) and respondent gender, whereas Study 2 explored two factors, face of a CEO (male vs female) and headline framing. The primary dependent variable was respondent regard for the firm.

Study 1 resulted in a significant three-way interaction. Face of a male CEO moderated a two-way interaction between the gender and the headline. Women, as compared with men, responded particularly unfavorably to the combination of an untrustworthy face and a tax-dodge headline. In Study 2, a firm headed by a male CEO and engaged in a tax-dodge action was poorly regarded, whereas a firm headed by a female CEO pursuing the same action did not suffer a loss of regard.

Only one framing device (headlines) was studied when there are multiple such devices. Also, overall regard for the firm is influenced by multiple factors.

Of the factors investigated (facial image, headline and reader gender), only one is controlled by the corporation – the image of the spokesperson presented to the media. Findings suggest less downside risk to reputation if the company uses only trustworthy-looking spokespersons. Also, a female CEO may be a reputational asset. Women reported significantly more positive feelings toward a corporation headed by a female CEO than a male CEO.

The purpose of this paper is to outline and discuss the main elements of the chief executive officer (CEO) that affect financial and non-financial aspects of companies. CEO reputation and corporate reputation and performance are intertwined concepts. It presents a conceptual framework, the “4Ps of the CEO branding mix”, and shows how they individually and collectively influence company reputation and performance.

An extensive inter-disciplinary research was conducted. Four primary elements of the CEO (performance, personality, prestige and persona) were identified that positively or negatively impact companies.

CEO reputation (prestige) can not only positively but also negatively impact companies and celerity CEO’s are no different. There are certain personality traits, such as honesty and humility, which are mostly associated with positive company outcomes, while other personality traits, such as machiavellianism and narcissism, seems to negatively impact companies. Certain aspects related to the CEO as a persona, such as CEO tenure (experience) and education, and also CEO’s physical appearance and facial expressions impact CEO’s image and, subsequently, company reputation and performance. Finally, this paper shows that CEO performance is more than company financial and market performance and includes aspects such as strategy execution or CEO succession planning.

The four ′P’s of the CEO branding mix provide a useful framework for CEO’s and the corporate communications department to developing a consistent and comprehensive CEO and corporate communication and branding strategy.

This paper contributes as it outlines the various aspects and elements which impact CEOs image and reputation. The four P’s serve as a useful framework for CEO’s as well as corporate communication departments to systematically measure and manage the CEO’s image and reputation and, consequently, company reputation and performance. It forms the basis for developing a consistent and comprehensive CEO and company communication and branding strategy.

The impact of image is widely investigated in various research fields. However, its effect in online health communities is rarely studied. In this research, the authors develop a theoretical model to assess the impact of physicians' image on patients' choices in online health communities.

The authors developed a web crawler based on R language program to collect more than 40,000 physicians' images and other related information from their homepages in Haodf.com–a leading online health community in China. The features of physicians' images are computed by Face++ Application Programming Interface (API) through the following variables: beauty, smile and skin status.

The empirical results derive the following findings: (1) physician's beauty or physical attractiveness has no significant effect on patients’ choice; (2) Smile has a positive effect on patients’ choices; (3) Physician's skin status also positively affects patients' choices; (4) Physician's professional capital strengthens the effect of beauty, smile and skin status on patients' choices; (5) Beauty and skin status are the substitutes for each other, and smile and skin status are the substitutes for each other too.

Also, this study provides implications for both physicians and online health community platform managers.

This study provides new evidence in understanding the impact of physician's online image and contributes to the literature on signaling theory, impression management theory and patients' choices.

In this paper the authors aim to argue that the existence of a strong corporate governance mechanism (a formal credibility-enhancing mechanism) and the presence of a more trustworthy-looking CEO (an informal credibility-enhancing mechanism) are substitutes.

By using machine-learning-based facial-feature-point detection technique, the authors construct a proprietary facial-trustworthiness database for a large-scale of CEOs in the US listed companies. First, the authors manually search for qualifying CEO image from websites and annual reports. Second, by following the neuroscience and psychology literature, the authors use the machine-learning-based face detector to identify the facial features in the CEO photos to calculate a rich and reliable set of facial-trustworthiness measures. The authors then construct a composite facial-trustworthiness index for each CEO. After obtaining accounting data, the authors’ final sample comprises 16,201 firm-year observations for 3,186 CEOs in the sample period of 2000-2018.

The results of the authors’ regression analyses show a negative association between board monitoring intensity and CEOs' facial trustworthiness, indicating that board directors may factor CEOs' facial trustworthiness into their monitoring decisions. Moreover, the authors find that these results are mainly driven by CEOs whose tenure is below the third quartile (i.e. eight years). The authors further find stronger results for externally hired CEOs than internally promoted CEOs. Finally, the authors’ results remain robust when using change models or subsample of CEO photos in recent years.

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that adopts a large sample to provide systematic evidence on the directors' use of facial trustworthiness. This study extends the literature by documenting the impacts of CEOs' individual characteristics on the board monitoring intensity. Second, the results of this study emphasized the important role of perceptions based on executives' facial appearance in firm valuation, executive compensation and audit fee, and by presenting empirical evidence that CEOs' facial trustworthiness affects board monitoring intensity. Third, this study responds to the call for research on personalized trust by Hsieh et al. (2020).

The paper aims to explore the processes by which individuals make attributions about a leader's personality and effectiveness based upon information contained within a photograph of a leader's face.

A mixed methodology approach is taken which combines an individual survey with a follow‐up focus group conducted with five classes of MBA students. In the survey, respondents were asked to rate the photographic images of ten CEOs for personality traits and leadership effectiveness that were apparent in the face; in the focus group, they were asked to reflect upon the processes they had utilized in order to make their attributions.

The study demonstrated that the vast majority of the participants actively used the face to attribute personality traits of the leaders as well as their ability to lead. The survey revealed that perceived leadership effectiveness was positively correlated to perceived extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and narcissism. The focus group revealed three strategies that were used when placing these attributions on a leader. These were drawing on explicit facial traits, using the leader's non‐facial traits and general appearance, and telling stories about the leader.

This was an exploratory study set up in an artificial laboratory‐like environment featuring a limited and homogenous collection of CEO photographs and involving a limited and relatively homogenous group of participants. However, it does show that the face is an important and rich source of information from which individuals can make detailed attributions about a leader's personality and their potential leadership ability. The functionality of making such attributions as well as its moral and ethical basis needs to be properly examined and discussed.

The study highlights the leader's face and the visual portrayal thereof, as a potentially important, yet rarely analyzed, aspect of leadership. It foregrounds photographs of leaders, most notably those taken of CEOs, as organizational artifacts that have been largely ignored but worthy data sources. Leadership scholars could profitably focus upon both the production and consumption processes associated with the visual portrayal of leadership.

This study aims to investigate the impact of a salesperson’s babyface in his/her profile picture on the number of online reviews the salesperson receives. In addition to testing the direct relationship, this study explores the moderating roles of salesperson gender and consumer involvement.

Responding to the call for field-based consumer research, the authors test their theory using an experimental design and a field study. Study 1 employs an experimental design in high and low involvement service settings to test the effect of a babyface on consumers’ intention to write online reviews. Study 2 uses field data, utilising real estate salespeople’s online profile pictures to test the effect of salespeople’s babyface on the number of online reviews they receive. It does so by using an artificial intelligence facial recognition application interface.

A salesperson’s babyface results in fewer online reviews in situations in which consumers are highly involved in the purchase process. By contrast, a salesperson’s babyface engenders more online reviews when consumers purchase low involvement services. The adverse effect of a babyface on the number of online reviews, however, attenuates when a salesperson is female.

Limited information about salespeople, a skewed number of online reviews and blurry online profile pictures from a real-world data set constitute the study’s limitations.

When consumers are highly involved in the purchase process, salespeople should appear mature in their online profile photos to engender more online reviews. However, salespeople providing low involvement services should opt for online profile pictures reflecting babyish facial features to generate more online reviews.

Research has shown that salespeople’s physical appearance plays an important role in consumers’ perceptions of salespeople and their performance. Although abundant research and practice have shown the importance of online reviews, less is known about how online profile pictures affect online reviews. Thus, building on well-studied cases of an overgeneralization effect, this work examines the extent to which salespeople’s babyface features in their online profile picture affects the number of online reviews received in a real-world setting.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in management research is still nascent and has primarily focused on content analyses of text data. Some method scholars have begun to discuss the potential benefits of far broader applications; however, these discussions have not led yet to a wave of corresponding AI applications by management researchers. This chapter explores the feasibility and the potential value of using AI for a very specific methodological task: the reliable and efficient capturing of higher-level psychological constructs in management research. It introduces the capturing of basic emotions and emotional authenticity of entrepreneurs based on their macro- and microfacial expressions during pitch presentations as an illustrative example of related AI opportunities and challenges. Thus, this chapter provides both motivation and guidance to management scholars for future applications of AI to advance management research.