Gender differences in approaching sustainability: An analysis of multinational CEOs on LinkedIn

Title (eng)
Gender differences in approaching sustainability: An analysis of multinational CEOs on LinkedIn
Author
Roberta Ramos
Advisor
Marguerite Barry
Advisor
Kay Mühlmann
Description (eng)
In an era where corporate sustainability is both a moral imperative and a performative practice, executive communication plays a pivotal role in shaping public expectations, institutional legitimacy, and imagined futures. This thesis investigates the differences in how men and women in CEO positions develop and communicate sustainability leadership on LinkedIn, a platform where visibility is currency and leadership is continuously performed. Drawing on a dataset of 682 original posts by 40 global CEOs, the study applies a hybrid analytical framework that combines directed content analysis and thematic analysis, identifying ESG categories (then divided into Sustainability Priorities and Sustainability Language), Narrative Tone, Leadership Style, and Future Framing. Findings reveal that while both men and women in executive positions engage deeply with sustainability discourse, they do so through distinct rhetorical strategies. Women CEOs more frequently frame sustainability as a disciplined exercise in innovation, performance, and accountability, favoring strategic tone, technical language, and long-term planning. Men CEOs, by contrast, tend to adopt visionary and emotional styles, positioning themselves as narrators of purpose and collective ambition. These are not merely stylistic choices; they are gendered strategies for credibility, shaped by platform rules and social norms. Women appear more constrained by a logic of justification; men are more socially licensed to inspire. The study offers a methodological blueprint for assessing sustainability narratives, presenting tools to decode what is said about ESG, as well as how legitimacy is constructed through language. It also demonstrates the symbolic asymmetries embedded in digital leadership performance, where emotional authority and strategic vision are not equally distributed. By revealing the gendered contours of future-making in corporate discourse, the thesis calls for a broader rethinking of how we define leadership, value voices, and perform sustainability in the digital public sphere.
Keywords (eng)
gendered leadershipsustainability communicationLinkedInESG discoursedigital platformsperformative leadership
Type (eng)
Master theses
Language
[eng]
Persistent identifier
https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:5741
Date created
2025
License
All rights reserved