Your body, your work: how organisations have used and represented the body image of the ideal employee

There has been work on how leaders have been depicted over time, for example through analyses of business magazines’ cover. What is missing, however, is an understanding how the body image of the ideal employee has been constructed and used in subtle way also to infer professionalism and competence. The dominant framework to analyse these processes is Erving Goffman’s work on stigma, life as performance, framing, and the distinction between the visible (front stage) and back stage (invisible). In terms of methods, it would be mostly qualitative and involve interviews and observations, if possible. In particular, this project would involve historical analysis of documents and images, so a background or interest in aesthetics and semiotics is recommended.