From women’s leadership to gender complementarity. A feminist viewpoint at managerial discourses in Spain

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to identify the managerial discourses directed at women present in management literature written by women and published in Spain. The results obtained from previous analyses of Anglo-Saxon management literature will allow us to establish comparisons and discern whether the managerial discourses directed at women in this territorial context contain particularities. This analysis leads to the identification of two main axes of meaning. First, those that refer to the constitution of the neoliberal subject in its general sense. Second, those that speak directly to the development of leadership by women. An ambivalent discourse about women's leadership persists in Spanish management literature, aligned with the contradictory demands of neoliberalism. However, there is a slight discursive shift that advocates the convenience of complementing both dichotomous genders (male and female) in business organizations