Gender, Management and Market Discourse: The Case of Gender Quotas in the Swedish and Finnish Media

Abstract

In this article we present a comparative study of media texts in Sweden and Finland, two societies traditionally viewed as Nordic welfare states. Focusing on the controversial question of introducing gender‐based quotas on the boards of companies, we analyse how representations of gender and management are affected in Sweden and Finland by contemporary market discourse. We argue that market discourse takes different forms in the two societal contexts and that the space for questioning and criticizing it from a gender equality perspective remains different. Our analysis thus complements recent contributions stressing that both societal particularities and transnational processes must be considered in studies of gender and management ( Calás and Smircich, 2006 ).