Brief description

Digital media are creating new avenues for leaders to gain visibility. On social media and digital platforms, leaders are increasingly presenting themselves in multimedia-rich and expressive ways. This everyday interaction can be viewed as a strategic activity on the part of leaders. Here, female entrepreneurs (who represent a form of leadership) are also becoming visible in new ways. They present themselves in an emotional manner, which challenges conventional, rational, and male-dominated notions - though this has only been tentatively captured as “affective entrepreneurship.” This phenomenon is of interest because women are underrepresented in leadership positions and there is a lack of female role models. This project is based on the assumption that the affective dimension - which is often overlooked - plays a role in the construction, appropriation, and transformation of female role models that has not yet been adequately addressed. The project examines how female entrepreneurs are socially constructed as role models conveyed through the media, how meaning is attributed to them in the process of appropriation from the analytical perspective of identity work, and to what extent they can transform existing notions of female leaders. It adopts a social constructionist, interpretive perspective within leadership- and gender-related management research and integrates praxeological perspectives on affect from other disciplines to advance the field theoretically and methodologically.

In addition to the analysis of qualitative interviews, digital ethnography, reception-aesthetic approaches, and praxistheoretical analysis, the project employs interdisciplinary artistic research that utilizes audiovisual and digital methods as well as generative AI to explore role models “in digital media.”

The findings fundamentally advance management research in terms of design (strategic action) and gender theory (female role models), leadership (socio-material behavior), methodology (qualitative and artistic approaches that can make affective processes and structures accessible), pedagogy (identity work in education and training), and practice (presence and interaction in digital media).

Project duration: 09/2026 - 08/2029

Funding provider: German Research Foundation (DFG)

Funding volume: € 453.000,00

Project partners: 

• Institute for Continuing Education in the Creative Industries (IWK)
• Dr. Laura Lee (University of Winchester, UK – Lecturer of Music Performance and Production, Artistic Researcher) 
• Prof. Dr. Dirk vom Lehn (King’s College, London, UK – Professor of Organisation and Practice)
• Björn Krass-Koenitz (SRH Innovations- & Startup-Lab, Gründerzentrum – leader)
• Prof. Dr. Jürgen Weibler (FernUniversität in Hagen – Holder of the Chair in Business Administration, specialising in Human Resource Management and Organisation)