Open AccessThe relationships between organizational context and CEO’s use of psychological words in speeches
Author(s) -
Won Jin Lee,
Myungun Kim
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
han'gug simlihag hoeji. san'eob mich jo'jig/korean journal of industrial and organizational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2671-4345
pISSN - 1229-0696
DOI - 10.24230/kjiop.v24i4.759-783
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , social psychology , organization development , officer , chief executive officer , organizational commitment , organizational behavior , organizational effectiveness , public relations , management , political science , paleontology , law , economics , biology
This study examined the relationships between organizational context and the chief executive officer (CEO)’s psychological statements. To this end, using a linguistic analysis program of K-LIWC, content analyses were conducted on three major speeches-the New Year’s addresses, the founding day addresses, and the year-ending farewell Address-which had been presented between 1969 and 1992 by the founder and chief executive officer of POSCO. This study analyzed two kinds of organizational context; the number of critical events within and outside the organization and the three stages of organizational development. With respect to the number of critical events measured as one aspect of organizational context, it was found that the greater the number of critical events, the more the CEO used words with both positive emotion and negative emotion. In relations to the organizational development stage measured as another aspect of organizational context, psychological statements related to both emotional and social processes were made significantly more often during the entrepreneurial stage and growth stage compared to the expansion stage. The findings suggest that the outstanding CEO tend to adjust the use of psychological words according to the change in organizational context in communicating with organization members through speeches. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications and limitations of the current study were discussed.