Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Management
Committee Chair/Advisor
Dr. Amy Ingram
Committee Member
Dr. Chad Navis
Committee Member
Dr. Ronald Landis
Committee Member
Dr. Federico Aime
Abstract
This study examines how ideologically differentiated media tone in business and economic news relates to firm investment decisions and how CEO–media ideological alignment conditions this relationship. I advance an expectancy-based extension of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm in which media tone serves as an external informational signal that is interpreted through managerial cognition rather than directly influencing firm behavior. CEO political ideology shapes how media signals are interpreted and incorporated into managerial expectancies regarding future conditions.
To test these arguments, I construct firm-quarter measures of positive and negative media tone from business and economic news articles, disaggregated by outlet ideology. CEO political ideology is measured using a donation-based indicator (DIPI; Mannor & Busenbark, 2025). Using panel data on S&P 1500 firms from 2015 to 2019, I estimate Tobit models with firm and year–quarter fixed effects to examine capital expenditures (CAPEX) and research and development (R&D) as distinct forms of forward-looking investment.
The results indicate that media tone does not exhibit a uniform direct relationship with firm investment. Instead, the relationship varies with CEO–media ideological alignment and differs across ideological contexts. In some cases, alignment changes the strength of the relationship between media tone and investment outcomes; in others, it changes the direction of the relationship or determines whether a response emerges at all. Right-leaning media tone exhibits the most consistent alignment-conditioned relationships with investment outcomes, whereas left-leaning media tone exhibits more selective effects, concentrated primarily in positive tone and CAPEX relationships.
This study contributes to behavioral strategy by extending the Behavioral Theory of the Firm with an expectancy-based perspective on how external information influences firm behavior. The findings demonstrate that ideological alignment shapes when, how, and whether external informational signals become strategically relevant, thereby advancing understanding of how firms process information and make investment decisions under uncertainty.
Recommended Citation
Sevilla, Ondina, "An Expectancy-Based Theory of the Firm: How Media Tone and Ceo–Media Political Ideological Alignment Shape Corporate Investment" (2026). All Dissertations. 4388.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4388