Gendered Identification: Between Idealization and Admiration

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2012.00834.x
Date01 January 2014
AuthorAlice Mah,Elisabeth K. Kelan
Published date01 January 2014
Gendered Identification: Between
Idealization and Admiration*
Elisabeth K. Kelan and Alice Mah1
Department of Management, King’s College London, 150 Stamford Street, SE1 9NH, UK, and 1Department
of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Corresponding author email: Elisabeth.kelan@kcl.ac.uk
While much of the literature on gender focuses on role models, this paper extends the
understanding of gendered professional identification processes by exploring these proc-
esses through the lenses of idealization and admiration. Using the method of discourse
analysis to analyse MBA students’ accounts of people with whom they identify, this
paper explores discourses of idealization, defined as aggrandizing a person, and of
admiration, which means discussing positive as well as negative and neutral character-
istics of a person. It is shown, first, that most male and female MBA students idealized
the self-made ‘authentic’ CEO or founder of an organization and, second, that women
mainly admired other women through naming their positive, neutral and negative
attributes. The paper thereby adds to understanding of how gendered identification
processes are structured by idealization and admiration.
Introduction
Professional identification is said to be central for
women in business because it allows women to
find role models that they can emulate (Dryler,
1998; Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2008; Gibson and
Cordova, 1999; Mavin, 2008; Sealy and Singh,
2006, 2010). Role-modelling is, however, only one
form of gendered identification that happens in
the work context. Identification can be seen as the
processes through which individuals construct
their identities, often through comparing and
contrasting themselves to others (Ashforth and
Mael, 1989; Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail,
1994). This is a dynamic process (Ibarra, 1999),
which can be explored by researchers through
analysing how the self is narrated (Ibarra and
Barbulescu, 2010). While there is ample research
on gender and role models, a fine-grained analysis
of various gendered identification patterns is still
missing from the literature. Such an analysis
would enable researchers to show the complexi-
ties that gendered identification patterns can take
in organizations and could help to highlight
potential conflicts in identification patterns that
can arise.
This paper explores gendered identification
processes by drawing on the social psychological
differentiation between admiration and idealiza-
tion: admiration means that identification with
the subject is split into different aspects, some
admired and others not; idealization, in turn, goes
hand in hand with an unrealistic aggrandizement
The authors would like to thank Rachel Dunkley Jones
for helping to collect the material. The research was
financially supported by the research consortium on
Generation Y, convened by the Lehman Brothers Centre
for Women in Business at London Business School. The
consortium included the following partner companies:
Accenture (Founding Partner), Allen & Overy, Barclay-
card Business, Baxter International, Cargill, IBM,
Johnson & Johnson and KPMG. Thanks also to Judy
Wajcman, Lynda Gratton and Julia Nentwich for their
constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper.
The authors would also like to thank the anonymous
reviewers and the Editor of the British Journal of Man-
agement for their patience in developing this paper.
*A free Video Abstract to accompany this article
is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
x89pxpuovnY&feature=youtu.be.
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British Journal of Management, Vol. 25, 91–101 (2014)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2012.00834.x
© 2012 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management © 2012 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.

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