Social performance and social media activity in times of pandemic: evidence from COVID-19-related Twitter activity

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine corporate disclosure stakeholder-oriented actions on Twitter in response COVID-19 during the pandemic outbreak and empirically investigate whetherfirms’ social performance their financial resilience impact engagement in, communication of, actions. Design/methodology/approach This scrapes a sample tweets communicated by major global listed firms between March 1, 2020 April 30, identifies disclosures that mention firm pandemic. Cross-sectional regression analysis used relationship firms’ number they post about Further, examined as moderating factor relationship. Findings results show with better are more likely engage and, hence, communicate for Twitter. Moreover, it evident only when belong industries have not been severely impacted Originality/value has two important contributions. First, provides contemporary evidence initial period. Second, reveals insights into what characteristics drive costly responsibility (CSR) activities, promote them media, period characterized high economic uncertainty.