Abstract
Executive doxing, the malicious disclosure of firm leaders’ personal information, constitutes a growing digital threat with organizational consequences. Because executives serve as symbolic representatives of their firms, attacks directed at them blur the boundary between personal privacy and organizational risk. Drawing on Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and the integrated suspicion model, we theorize that executive doxing triggers stakeholder suspicion as an adverse firm event, which in turn undermines perceptions of organizational image, retaliation, and vulnerability. We propose testing this framework in two online experiments that examines the impact of an executive dox on organizational perceptions. The studies will manipulate the executive’s reputation (ethical vs. unethical) and type of organization (for-profit vs. non-profit) to test how the reputational damage may differ across conditions. This research will establish executive doxing as a distinct organizational crisis and contribute to research on doxing, organizational image, and cybersecurity by theorizing how individual-targeted attacks produce negative consequences at the organizational level.
Recommended Citation
Bryant, Mattie and Thatcher, Jason, "Executive Doxing and Organizational Image: How Attacks Directed at Executives Affect Perceptions of the Firm" (2025). WISP 2025 Proceedings. 9.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/wisp2025/9