Investigation of impression management tactics exhibited by powerful businesswomen in Turkey by content analysis

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the post sent by businesswomen who are managers in different sectors by using social media in terms of impression management. In accordance with the study aim, the official Twitter accounts of 50 businesswomen in the list of the most powerful 50 businesswomen of business life in 2020 prepared by Fortune Magazine including the dates of March 11, 2020-January 28, 2021 through the content analysis method. In the study, it was presented the date the businesswomen joined Twitter application, the number of their followers and the accounts they follow, and their number of posts. The posts sent by the businesswomen were grouped according to contents, and the groups were designated according to impression management tactics. The posts in the accounts were interpreted in terms of aggressive and defensive impression management tactics, and it was found in the study that the businesswomen have generally been using the impression management tactics of Self-promotion (SP), Ingratiation (IN), and Exemplification (EX) among the aggressive and defensive impression management tactics. It can be said that the studies in this scope have importance in terms of increasing and supporting the participation of women to business world by presenting the influence of women in business world. Besides, because of that the Covid-19 period is a period during which the institutions face crisis economically, analyzing the attitude of businesswomen at this point has importance also in terms of management.