Executive Doxing and Organizational Image: How Attacks Directed at Executives Affect Perceptions of the Firm

Executive doxing, the malicious disclosure of firm leaders’ personal information, constitutes a growing digital threat to organizations. 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, expected retaliation, and perceived vulnerability. We begin testing this framework in a 2x2 online experiment that manipulates the executive’s reputation (ethical vs. unethical) and type of organization format (for-profit vs. non-profit). Study 1 examines (1) whether executive doxing increases suspicion of the organization and (2) whether suspicion of the organization affects other perceptions of the firm. This research introduces executive doxing as a distinct organizational crisis and contributes to research on doxing, organizational image, and cybersecurity by theorizing how individual-targeted attacks can produce negative consequences at the organizational level.