Journal article
Seedlings in the Corporate Forest: Communicating Benevolent Sexism in Dow Chemical's First Internal Affirmative-Action Campaign
MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY, v 37(1)
Feb 2023
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Organizational affirmative-action programs have often failed to reach their goals, especially in the context of STEM professions and companies. Our study analyzes one of the first internal affirmative-action initiatives, Dow Chemical's Know More in '74 (KMi74) campaign, to explore discursive components that may play a role in this problem. An exploratory analysis of the campaign's pamphlets revealed that KMi74 upheld a framework of benevolent sexism. In subsequent analysis, we found that KMi74 communicated benevolent sexism through appeals espousing: (a) vagueness via generalization and absurdity, (b) circularity via redundancy and buzzwords, and (c) disingenuity via bait and switch argumentation. We suggest, given the government's public recognition of KMi74 as legislatively compliant, these appeals functioned historically as organizational scripts for inclusion initiatives in the years that followed, scripts that upheld (and continue to uphold) the law but not the changes in practice necessary for the achievement of meaningful inter-organizational opportunity and equity.
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Details
- Title
- Seedlings in the Corporate Forest: Communicating Benevolent Sexism in Dow Chemical's First Internal Affirmative-Action Campaign
- Publication Details
- MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY, v 37(1)
- Publisher
- SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC; THOUSAND OAKS
- Grant note
- The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Science History Institute Othmer Library Travel Grant.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000827211000001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85134604612
- Other Identifier
- 991021861209104721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Communication
- Management