Start afresh:breathe life into your marketing

Strategy may be defined as the pattern of activities that leads to achievement of your goal. In pharma companies our goals are normally ascribed to sales targets, with turnover being seen as a proxy for profit. Managers that fail to achieve their sales targets, however, often fail to follow a rational process to investigate possible causes. This is a necessary step to remedy the situation and if they were to do this, they would save time, money and effort.

Coping with uncertainty:gender and leadership identities in UK corporate life

Within corporate contexts, senior leaders must construct credible leadership identities if they are to demonstrate effectiveness in achieving business goals. This is a particular challenge for women, who have struggled historically to gain senior leadership positions. This chapter explores the identity struggles experienced by Karen, a woman Human Resources director within a management meeting as she delivers bad news about ‘company restructuring’ to her colleagues. Using Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA), I show how this leader struggles to maintain a professionally competent identity as she negotiates the bad news. The analysis reveals that despite the demands of her role, Karen demonstrates extraordinary linguistic competence in managing her team within a turbulent business world that continues to remain inhospitable to female leaders.