Analyzing Gender Discourse in Corporate Blogs Analyzing Gender Discourse in Corporate Blogs using Content and Correspondence Analysisusing Content and Correspondence Analysis

José Esteves & Víctor BohórquezJosé Esteves & Víctor BohórquezInstituto de Empresa Business School,

Madrid SpainMadrid, Spain

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Agenda

Introduction

Background

Research Methodology

Findings

Di iDiscussion

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Introduction

• Politics and strategies related with gender and diversity.

• Same opportunities within organizations.

• Proliferation of research studies related with how sexes differ in a variety ofways in an organizational environment (e.g. Calas and Jacques, 1988).

• Sociologists recognize that gender is an institutionalized system of socialS g g g ypractices (Ridgeway and Correll 2000).

• According to the traditional gender stereotypes (Öngen 2006):According to the traditional gender stereotypes (Öngen, 2006):• Men: independent, competitive, assertive, aggressive, and masters of the

environment.• Women: nurturing passive dependent warm and not aggressive

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• Women: nurturing, passive, dependent, warm, and not aggressive.

Background

ERP 1Blogs Overview:

• One-way communication vs. Bi-directional communication.

• Corporate blogging.p gg g• Companies have to take advantage of this new communication tool to

reach their target audience with the right message according to theobjectives of the company.objectives of the company.

• Bloggers bypass the corporate media gatekeepers to say and showpractically anything they could think of to tens of millions of computerusers around the worldusers around the world.

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Research Methodology

 

Fortune 100 

Gender rolesGender roles 

vs. Topics

GenderDi i

CompaniesBlogs

Content Analysis

CorrespondenceAnalysis

Companies vs. Gender roles

Related Topics

Discourse in CorporateWorld

CommunicationTool

Gender roles

Relationships? Perceptual Maps?What Role? What topics?Communication Strategy

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Data Collection

• Fortune 100 corporate blogs.

• Classify Fortune 100 companies according to their communication strategyand discourse shown in their corporate blogs.

• Sample: 17 corporate blogs from the Fortune 100.

• Periods analyzed: 2004-2007.y

• Topics analyzed: related with gender.

Despite that this is a small number of corporate blogs; our sample covers thecomplete population of the current corporate blogs in Fortune 100companies

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companies.

Data Analysis

• Corporate blogs posts represented a substantial amount of mostly qualitativeCorporate blogs posts represented a substantial amount of mostly qualitativedata.

• Challenge: Identification of the main gender issues which could be used in• Challenge: Identification of the main gender issues which could be used informulating a theory.

• Th l i di id d i t t• The analysis was divided in two steps:• Content Analysis.• Correspondence Analysis.

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Content Analysis Step

• Structured Content Analysis is a useful technique to determine the meaningand effectiveness of this information to its users and the research community.

• Collect all the posts and comments done in our sample of Fortune 100corporate blogs.

• TextAnalyst software (Megacomputer, 2003) to obtain words frequency.

• Identify the relative importance of the words and word combinations in thedocument being analyzed.

• Based on words frequency, we have identified specific gender roles in theorganization discourse and we obtained also their related topics consideringrelated words with higher frequencies

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related words with higher frequencies.

Correspondence Analysis Step

• Correspondence Analysis consists of the analysis of cross-classifiedcategorical, ordinal or mixed data to portray patterns of associations amongro and col mn objects mapping that correspondence in a joint spacerow and column objects, mapping that correspondence in a joint space(Greenacre, 1984) and producing a visual representation of the relationshipsbetween the row categories and the column categories in the same space;h f f ili i i d ditherefore, facilitating its understanding.

• According to Remenyi (1992), there are two important results in this step:inertia report and perceptual map.

• Inertia is defined as a measure of the total variability in the original data sety gand is useful to determine the number of dimensions required to explain theoriginal data set.

• Perceptual map shows the relative position of the different concepts and the

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Perceptual map shows the relative position of the different concepts and thedifferent participating informants (in this case the corporate blogs of Fortune100).

Findings

Words Man Woman Son Daughter Dad Mom Boy Wife

Car 16 15 6 5 5 7 6 13Child 10 56 6 12 10 12Child 10 56 - 6 12 10 - 12

College - 9 6 10 - 0 - -Community - 8 - - - 9 - -Company 7 46 7 - - 7 12 6Customer - 11 - - - 5 - -

F il 18 7 7 16 9Family - 18 - 7 7 16 - 9Life 6 16 - 9 - 5 - 8

Money 12 6 6 7 - 5 - 7yOffice - 7 - - - 0 - 5System - - 6 - - 6 - -

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Vehicle - 9 - - - - - 5

Correspondence table considering words related with specific gender roles.

CA table considering Fortune 100 related with specific gender roles.

Company Man Woman Son Daughter Dad Mom Boy WifeBoeing - 10 - - - - - -Cisco - 22 13 12 9 8 - 13Dell - 34 31 29 15 21 26 54Ford 19 43 9 - 11 - - 13Ford 19 43 9 - 11 - - 13

General Electric - 6 - - - - - -

GM 31 85 19 18 44 19 39 74Honeywell - - 6 - - 12 6 -

HP - - - - - 4 - -IBM - - 9 - - 0 - -Intel 7 8 - - - 0 - -Intel 7 8 0

Johnson Control - - - - - 0 - -

Microsoft - - 16 - - 0 - 20Motorola - 43 - - - 0 3 -

Sprint Nextel - - - - - - - -

Time

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Time Warner - 19 19 - - 11 29 -

Verizon - 6 - - 7 - 7 10Wellsfargo 24 43 20 18 19 19 19 26

Findings

Positioning of gender roles and topics in dimensions 1and topics in dimensions 1

and 2.

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Findings

Positioning of gender roles and topics in dimensions 1and topics in dimensions 1

and 3.

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Findings

Positioning of companiesPositioning of companies and gender roles in dimensions 1 and 2.

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Findings

P iti i f iPositioning of companies and gender roles in dimensions 1 and 3.

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Discussion

• The rationale behind our analysis is to consider gender as a social process.Hence, organizations can contribute to shape gender identityHence, organizations can contribute to shape gender identity.

• Compared with previous studies, we have identified enactments of non-traditional gender identities and behaviorstraditional gender identities and behaviors.

• This reversal may occur because:G d t t i l b k d l t diti l• Gender stereotypes may simply be weaker and less traditionalparticipants are simply reacting to them by behaving in a counterstereotypical manner (Dijksterhuis et al., 1998; Kray et al., 2001).

• Might be this is a gender communication strategy (see our theoreticalcontribution).

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Theoretical Contribution

WomenJob and careerrole salience

GenderStereotypeShift

Work and familyrole salience

Men

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Theoretical Contribution

P t h h di i i h d th i t f j b d li f• Past research has diminished the importance of job and career salience forwomen compared to family role salience (Marcinkus and Hamilton, 2006).

• They suggest that women experience a high important pressure to conformor disassociate from traditional gender roles in order to reach their identity.

• The main theoretical issue here is to identify how much of political discourseis within this new vision or whether it is a real change in gender vision.

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Discussion

• This line of discourse follows the new vision of contemporary managers.

• Contemporary managers are required to be caring and relationship-oriented.

Th di i l li /f i i hi h f l i / i i b i• The traditional masculine/feminine hierarchy of logic/emotion is beingreshaped by the imperative to be ‘passionate’ in the workplace (Hatcher,2003).

• From a conceptual perspective it will be interesting to evaluate if this newgender discourse focuses more on changing the masculine vision ofg g gmanagement to a ‘feminization of management’ (Rosener, 1990), or in fact, itattempts to establish a new real gender culture within organizations.

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Implications for researchers

• Additionally, to the above theoretical contributions, it is important to highlightAdditionally, to the above theoretical contributions, it is important to highlightthe research methodology used.

• Content analysis is useful to analyze documents manuscripts speeches or any• Content analysis is useful to analyze documents, manuscripts, speeches or anytype of communication.

• H th h ll th f d i th l i f th d t i h t• However, the challenge then faced is the analysis of the data in such a way toestablish principal concepts which could be used in formulating a theory.

• Correspondence analysis helps to identify clusters and to gain a greaterunderstanding of the data.

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Implications for practitioners

• Organizations should understand their role in society as a form of genderidentity and that this new communication channel (corporate blogs) bringsidentity and that this new communication channel (corporate blogs) bringsbenefits but also some hindrances.

• It is very critical to analyze and identify the message and discourse that these• It is very critical to analyze and identify the message and discourse that thesecompanies want to share and disseminate.

A bi i t t ti f t• Ambiguous messages may cause wrong interpretations of corporatediscourses.

• Companies should analyze their discourses not only in their corporate blogsbut also in the traditional media to convey the message that promoting non-discrimination, diversity and inclusion is a corner stone in their

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ycommunication’s strategy.

Directions for Further Research

• Test this exploratory theory using a larger sample and a more traditionalapproach incorporating a survey and statistical measuresapproach incorporating a survey and statistical measures.

• Conduct in-depth interviews with people in charge of corporate blogs tol h i i f h i i d b d d h iexplore the motivations of their creation and better understand their

communication purpose from a gender perspective.

• If the suggested trend in our findings is confirmed, where companies arechanging their attitudes because in their discourses they relate women roleswith topics such as CEO, corporation, education, business and so on:p , p , ,

Do the rest of Fortune 100 companies and other companies like SMEs will adopt this attitude to follow Fortune 100 companies with blogs?

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adopt this attitude to follow Fortune 100 companies with blogs?

Thanks!

Q i ?Questions?

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