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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sharon MavinORCiD, Dr Marina YusupovaORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This study addresses the lack of research into social processes of competition in organizations and explores women leaders self-positioning in relation to the discourses of gendered competition and neoliberal competition. The discourses carry contradictory obligations for women. While the gendered competition discourse socially punishes competitive women, the neoliberal competition discourse expects competition. Through a feminist approach and Critical Discourse Analysis of narratives from 52 women leaders we make two central contributions. First, we outline how the two discourses jostle together, fighting for attention and contradicting each other, provoking social ambiguity. We demonstrate how the women leaders adopt paradoxical self-positioning as ‘competitive - not competitive’ using four interconnected strategies of ‘Denying’, ‘Masking and Reframing’, ‘Moving On’ from, and ‘Diverting’ competition. Second, we extend studies of liminality and theorize how the discourses create liminality for women leaders. We elucidate how the women take up and disrupt the discourses by continually oscillating in-between paradoxical positions of being competitive, perceived as competitive, not competitive, no longer competitive, and competitive for organizations. Competition is identified as a toxic, gendered process, which is both harmful and aspirational, and both a liminal challenge and opportunity for women leaders. We extend understandings of those who experience liminality in organizations, to women leaders and demonstrate how their paradoxical self-positioning affords them opportunities to discursively present as competitive.
Author(s): Mavin S, Yusupova M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Organization Studies
Year: 2024
Volume: 45
Issue: 6
Pages: 801-823
Print publication date: 01/06/2024
Online publication date: 20/02/2024
Acceptance date: 10/12/2023
Date deposited: 01/01/2024
ISSN (print): 0170-8406
ISSN (electronic): 1741-3044
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406241236606
DOI: 10.1177/01708406241236606
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/54pe-7f05
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