What does this research mean for the field?

Corporate gender equality discourse in major Turkish companies is predominantly symbolic and performance-oriented, serving to legitimize institutional identity without dismantling the structural barriers of the glass ceiling. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine how corporations deploy gender equality as a strategic communication discourse while simultaneously sustaining structural barriers that limit women from entering senior leadership.

September 2, 2026Gender in Management An International Journal

Gender equality as a strategic corporate discourse: a critical analysis of the glass ceiling

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Authors

ÖÖÖzden ÖZLÜMaltepe University

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Implication

Discourse analysis reveals symbolic corporate equality commitments in Turkish firm reports, indicating strategic reputation management without structural dismantling of the glass ceiling.

Key Points

To examine how corporations deploy gender equality as a strategic communication discourse while simultaneously sustaining structural barriers that limit women from entering senior leadership.
Applied Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis to examine the 2024 annual and sustainability reports of five major corporations across diverse sectors in Türkiye.
Contextualized organizational texts using national and global leadership equality benchmarks from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report.
Demonstrated that corporate gender equality rhetoric functions predominantly as a normative, symbolic, and performative tool for reputation building rather than transformative institutional reform.
Showed that equality narratives within hybrid patriarchal and corporate environments legitimize organizational identity without directly confronting underlying gendered power asymmetries or structural glass ceilings.

Cite This Study

Özden ÖZLÜ (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a97e275c562ede874ec6a1d https://doi.org/10.1108/gm-12-2025-0785

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Implication

Discourse analysis reveals symbolic corporate equality commitments in Turkish firm reports, indicating strategic reputation management without structural dismantling of the glass ceiling.

Gender equality as a strategic corporate discourse: a critical analysis of the glass ceiling

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Gender equality as a strategic corporate discourse: a critical analysis of the glass ceiling

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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