Purpose This article aims to present an initial analysis of a new form of collective action related to gender issues emerging in the Brazilian corporate world. It is based on an empirical investigation through two networks of women executives that aim to encourage gender equity in organizations. The analysis was structured based on the following research question: What is the potential of these networks related to gender equity led by executive women to degender organizations? The findings help to understand the complexity of this phenomenon, with its ambiguities and contradictions. Originality/value The originality of the article resides in the proposition of the concept of postfeminist networks to understand this new form of collective action for gender equity in the corporate environment. This concept helps researchers in Organizations Studies better understand moderate corporate feminism, reflecting and deflecting feminism. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research of exploratory nature, whose investigation strategy was a multiple case study. Data collection occurred in two stages: documentary, and interviews. The interviews were with ten executives who lead and act directly in the management of two networks, both located in São Paulo, and aimed at increasing the representation of women in leadership positions in business. Findings The results show crucial limitations of these networks. They are related to a claimed distance from feminism and even a disdain for the feminist movement. They also do not consider the intersections between gender and other social markers of difference, such as race, class, and sexuality. Despite these limitations, this experience cannot be neglected. They represent a significant advance in individual strategies that women undertake to occupy spaces in the corporate world and those concerning affinity groups created by executive women within each company. These advances are even more critical in a business environment. There are typically very few women in upper management positions, and where male leaders have done very little in encouraging their presence in upper management.
Since the beginning of this century diversity management has been present as an important topic of studies in the field Administration in Brazil. However, research on this topic that focuses on the Black population is still scarce. In order to contribute to fill this gap, this article brings the results of a socio-anthropological investigation conducted through the biographical method and ethnographic fieldwork on the professional trajectories of two generations of Black businesswomen. These trajectories were analyzed from the societal contexts that framed them and considering gender, race and class in an intersectional perspective. The results reveal that the career paths of the second generation were built in a much more favorable societal context. However, they also show that we are still very far from gender and racial equality in the Brazilian corporate world.
This paper analyzes how migrants representing the new Black diaspora, even having arrived in SP in adverse conditions, emerge as entrepreneurs and understand how this entrepreneurship contributes to position racial and migratory problems - involving this ethnic community as a public problem in the public and political arenas in which this phenomenon is included. In it I adopted a theoretical-epistemological posture anchored in French pragmatist sociology, especially in its unfolding in terms of a Sociology of Public Problems. About the methodological approach, I combine the use of life narratives, comprehensive interviews, direct and participant observation and document analysis. Consistent with the pragmatist posture, ethnography allowed me to conduct the investigation from the perspective of the actors before their experiences and realities. However, due to the worldwide pandemic context, I made an adaptation of the ethnographic method, using netnography. The results of the research show that the subjects who compose this new Black diaspora in SP emerge as entrepreneurs from a complex network of connections with human and non-human actors. Four main findings emerged in the netnographic field work as being strongly related to the beginning and continuity of their enterprises: the types of networks, agencies and connections that these subjects have and which ones they can achieve; the reason they chose to leave their home country and the context in which they are inserted in Brazil; the path taken for ethnic entrepreneurship and; the intersection between race and migrant identity with other social markers of difference. The way their businesses relate to controversies and conflicts that favor or block the emergence of racial and migratory issues related to this new Black diaspora in SP in the public and political arenas depends on the entrepreneurial profile of migrants. This investigation identified three categories, two analytical and one empirical, on these profiles: fragile or vulnerable entrepreneur, entrepreneur by necessity and entrepreneur by engagement. This research brings two relevant contributions. The new theoretical and analytical reading that establishes relationships between ethnic entrepreneurship and the new Black diaspora in SP allows advancing the theory about this phenomenon, until then anchored, above all, in a structuralist perspective, far from the actors' ability to action. In addition, the analyses presented could broaden discussions aimed at promoting new policy formulations concerned with mitigating negative effects and encouraging beneficial consequences for entrepreneurship and ethnic entrepreneur. These migrants are not only passive in this process, the object of these policies. Above all, they are active in building the public problem, capable of influencing the public policies that affect them. They are therefore part of public action
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