Rhetorical Analysis of Field Artifacts on Entrepreneurial Leadership (2)
Rhetorical Analysis of Field Artifacts on Entrepreneurial Leadership
Cullen Strady
Florida State University
ENC 2135: Research, Genre, and Context
Andrew Zolot
July 16, 2022
Rhetorical Analysis of Field Artifacts on Entrepreneurial Leadership
In the contemporary entrepreneurship literature, gender roles in leadership remain a hotly debated concept. Within this conversation, the involved discourse community professionals have presented varying arguments, perspectives, and conceptualizations of this construct. There seems to be a consensus among most of them that women entrepreneurial leaders have frequently been given an inferior position vis-à-vis their performance and engagement in entrepreneurial leadership. Despite this unanimity, controversies regarding the concept and criticisms of models and theoretical frameworks used to conceptualize and recontextualize gender roles in entrepreneurial leadership (especially women’s roles) continue to emerge. This occurs as more outlooks surface and more researchers join the conversation. Consequently, more scholars in the conversation mean more field artifact genres and rhetorical situations about gender roles in entrepreneurial leadership. This sparks more debates about the masculine-feminine and male-female dichotomies that permeate the frameworks of intellectualizing gendered leadership. The two field artifacts selected for this rhetorical analysis are a journal article and a video in this discourse community.
Genre #1 Analysis: Scholarly Article
“Recontextualising Gender in Entrepreneurial Leadership” contributes expressively and meaningfully to the debate on gender roles in entrepreneurial leadership. This article does so by deconstructing the fixed, homogenous conceptualization of entrepreneurial leadership frequently apparent in entrepreneurship and leadership literature wherein Anglo-Western paradigms prevail (Kimbu et al., 2021). Based on the learnings on genres and rhetorical moments, this field artifact’s genre is a peer-reviewed journal article. This genre involves a paper developed from research outcomes, submitted for review of facts by professional peers and scholars, and accepted for publication in a journal after the appraisal. Therefore, one justification for inferring that the genre for the field artifact by Kimbu et al. (2021) is a peer-reviewed journal article is that it has been accepted following the scholarly review. The second is that it has been published in Annals of Tourism Research, a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes academic inquiries into tourism. Peer-reviewed material in this journal guides professional discourses dealing with entrepreneurship in tourism and attendant topics. A thematic evaluation of themes, theoretical models, and theories applied by Kimbu et al. (2021) and related publications justifies this assertion. Besides, the article’s literature review section proves that the material targets tourism entrepreneurship experts.
Other genre conventions in this discourse area exemplify why the artifact’s genre is justified as a peer-reviewed journal article. For instance, Kimbu et al. (2021) clarified the article’s purpose in the abstract: exploring how gender shapes entrepreneurial leadership and performance in tourism enterprises. Further, the genre’s contexts are well-defined. The general context is the tourism discipline, and the specific context is tourism entrepreneurship in Nigeria and Ghana (Kimbu et al., 2021). This genre is typical of professional language, observance of conventions of academic citations and referencing style (APA), and the employment of IMRaD research format as its common elements. The IMRaD research format encompasses a paper structure that reflects four main sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. In this genre, there are additions of a Literature Review, Research Context, and Conclusion (Kimbu et al., 2021). The artifact’s design is typical of textual content with no visuals (images, graphs of statistical data, and diagrammatic representations). Its medium involves print and digital. Digital and printed versions of this article are available on the Elsevier database.
Concerning the genre’s style, it adopts one characterized by a scholarly and formal tone, as conventionally expected in professional writing. There are no indications of colloquialism, informal diction, and metaphorical language. Essentially, this depicts a specialized formality level. Further, the article’s style also involves Kimbu et al. (2021) leveraging both active and passive voices in different sections of the artifact to clarify points and methods. One passive voice example from the article is: “A gendered bias has been found to persist, further influencing conceptualization of entrepreneurial leadership (p. 2). An active voice example is: “…we seek to highlight individualized experiences and do not attempt to claim generalizability for women’s entrepreneurial leadership…” (p. 5). Concerning the sources, this peer-reviewed journal article drew from academically authoritative, sound, and credible resources in the discourse community.
From an analytical stance, this article comprises a rhetorical moment in which the three elements of a rhetorical situation are categorically apparent. These elements are constraints, exigence, and audience (Braziller & Kleinfeld, 2021; Paskey, 2021; Carroll, 2010). Essentially, the rhetorical situation that Kimbu et al. (2021) respond to using this artifact is an academic conversation revolving around gendered leadership. The artifact’s exigence is these authors’ drive and resolve to establish a framework for recontextualizing the nexus between gendered perspectives, entrepreneurial leadership, and entrepreneurial performance. Thus, the potential audience encompasses experts and researchers in entrepreneurship. The article’s constraints include reliance on textual content only, theoretical assumptions influencing the arguments, and a focus on tourism-related entrepreneurship.
Aside from the elements of a rhetorical situation, two rhetorical appeals are evident in the article. First, appeals to logic (logos) are illustrated by the authors’ use of descriptive evidence and the systematic organization of the article’s textual content. The appearance of adequate scholarly evidence, suitable paper structure, and logically organized content help fulfill this artifact’s purpose meticulously. Specifically, logos, characterized by logical points, a carefully organized structure, and objective descriptive evidence, appeals to the article’s entrepreneurial audience concerning the nexus between entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial performance, and gender (Kimbu et al., 2021). Finally, the appeals to credibility (ethos) manifest as the credibility of the descriptive and evidence. Specifically, using ethos allows this artifact to integrate evidence from multiple professional and academic sources to respond effectively to the rhetorical situation about gendered leadership. This helps generate reliable, cogent, and fluid arguments about women’s position in present-day entrepreneurial leadership.
Genre #2 Analysis: Video
The second artifact in this rhetorical analysis is a video. The video posted by Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (2021) involves Helen McEachern, the Foundation’s CEO, hosting a “Women Entrepreneurs Mean Business” summit. She presents research findings concerning the gender stereotypes, discrimination, and the social, economic, and legal barriers women face when venturing into entrepreneurship. She also presents recommendations for dismantling these gender stereotypes, sustaining that women have refused to wait any longer to close the economic gender gap. This artifact contributes to the discourse about gender roles in entrepreneurship by highlighting that the gender stereotypes and discrimination against women entrepreneurs have been sustained by biased assumptions. The assumptions are that entrepreneurial establishments would be more successful when run by men because men are good at these endeavors or women are not trustworthy entrepreneurial leaders (Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, 2021, 6.20). This way, these assumptions reaffirm the male-female and masculine-feminine dichotomies that surface when considering women’s roles in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial leadership.
The video’s genre integrates the elements of a live-action video, a kinetic typography video, and a vlog. This conclusion is made from the artifact’s design: the speaker video-records herself in a real location (live-action video), uses statistical excerpts, onscreen textual content, and movement to express her ideas (kinetic typography video), and embeds supporting images, text, and metadata to support points (a vlog). From a critical analysis, four features confirm this video as an appealing rhetorical moment. The first feature is the clarity of images, the speaker, textual, and other metadata. These components have a good visual timbre, are effectively color-corrected, and are adequately color-toned for clarity. Further, the video’s content (images, the speaker’s person, onscreen texts, and data) exhibits ample chrominance adjustment. The video’s visual value, viewing quality, and filmic clarity imply an exemplary and high-quality cinematic creation. The video’s filmic clarity also designates its exceptional cinematic functionality and eminence as a visual resource in the debate about gendered entrepreneurial leadership.
The video’s second feature, as a rhetorical moment, is its voice and sound balance and consistency. When listening to the speaker and watching the video, it was easy to notice her well-adjusted voice level and well-toned pitch strength. The loudness of all sounds and voices remained consistent throughout this video. Also, there were no background noises. Rhetorically, this simplified the intended audiences’ work of listening to the video’s audio aspect and making meaningful connections with its visual content. The video’s third feature is its luminance. Conscious scrutiny of this eleven-minute video reveals that its contrast, brightness, and graphical resolution have been adequately attuned and normalized. This ensures that the luminance compression and display are amply calibrated for lucid and sustained luminance adjustment. Further, its color darkness, saturation, and hue are well-balanced to reflect an efficient luminance balance. The last feature typifying the video as an effective rhetorical moment is content pacing. The pace of the video’s content remains consistent throughout, making it easier for the intended audiences to connect with the visual and audio onscreen material presented. These four aspects of the video depict it as an artifact observant of the principles of standard cinematography.
The speaker clearly articulates the video’s purpose: hosting a women’s summit on “women entrepreneurs mean business.” As a rhetorical moment, the video embodies the three elements of rhetorical situations (constraints, audience, and exigence) provided by Braziller and Kleinfeld (2021) and Paskey (2021). The video’s audience is women entrepreneurs globally. Its exigence is women’s unwavering desire to censure gender discrimination and stereotypes against their roles in entrepreneurship and attendant leadership, as echoed by McEachern. One constraint of this artifact is a transcript-based presentation by the speaker: Mrs. McEachern is seemingly reading her presentation from a written transcript. The video’s second constraint is complete thought expression by one speaker to a virtual audience, yet it was dubbed a summit. However, the video is up-to-date: it was published in 2021. Concerning its formality, the speaker and content developer is a known personality, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s CEO.
The medium of this artifact is digital, seeing that its content is captured and presented digitally using video technology. The video’s structure is excellent, as it exhibits a good flow of presentation points, coherent articulation of facts, and an attention-grabbing layout of allocution aspects. While no metaphorical language is evident in the video, the speaker leveraged both passive and active voices, although the active voice was dominant. A passive voice example is: “in low- and middle-income countries, this was circulated widely through our networks” (Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, 2021, 3.00). An active voice example is: “… we call on others to raise awareness about gender stereotypes particularly…” (Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, 2021, 9.32). In this video, the content organization and tone of the presentation are formal.
Finally, the video integrated all three rhetorical appeals. Pathos (appeals to the audience’s emotions) manifests in the speaker’s articulation and clarification of why fighting against gender stereotypes and discrimination against women in entrepreneurship is a priority. A striking hook “why does it matter, why should we care about all this” further exemplifies pathos. Ethos (appeals to credibility) reflects in that the statistical data used to corroborate the speaker’s arguments are from reliable research foundations and sources. Lastly, logos (appeals to logic) appear in the graphical, statistical, and descriptive evidence broadcasted by the speaker revealing numbers that emphasize the need to combat gender stereotypes and discrimination against women in entrepreneurship.
Brief Comparisons and Conclusion
The two artifacts differ in their purposes, audiences, designs, exigencies, and a little in their use of rhetorical appeals. Vis-à-vis purposes, Kimbu et al. (2021) addressed the gender, entrepreneurial leadership, and entrepreneurship performance nexus, while Mrs. McEachern addressed gender stereotypes and discrimination against women entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial leaders. Regarding audiences, the target audience of Kimbu and colleagues was entrepreneurship experts and researchers, while that of Mrs. McEachern was women entrepreneurship. The article’s design was textual, while the video’s design integrated onscreen textual, movement, statistical excerpts, metadata, movement, and supporting images. The exigence of Kimbu et al. (2021) was the recontextualization of gendered perspectives in entrepreneurial leadership, while that of Mrs. McEachern was about curtailing gender stereotypes and discrimination in entrepreneurship. Lastly, the article only used ethos and logos, while the video incorporate all three rhetorical appeals to grab their audiences’ attention.
Analyzing these two artifacts rhetorically mattered because both capture the role of gendered notions that permeate the conceptualization of women’s roles in entrepreneurship. The two exemplify that within discourses relating to gender roles in entrepreneurial leadership, dichotomous perspectives often entrenched in frames of perceptions that view men and masculinity as superior to women and feminine persist in the literature. So, the two sources show that as the conversation on gender roles in entrepreneurial leadership continues to broaden, it might be impossible to keep such dichotomies and biased assumptions out of the rhetoric.
References
Braziller, A. & Kleinfeld, E. (2021). The Bedford book of genres: A guide & reader for Florida State University (3rd Ed.). Bedford/St. Martin. E-book ISBN: 781319470104.
Carroll, L. B. (2010). Backpacks vs. briefcases: Steps toward rhetorical analysis. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, 1, 45-58.
Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. (November 19, 2021). On women entrepreneurs and the impact of gender stereotypes | women entrepreneurs mean business [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Zt4JVkDoY.
Kimbu, A. N., de Jong, A., Adam, I., Ribeiro, M. A., Afenyo-Agbe, E., Adeola, O., & Figueroa-Domecq, C. (2021). Recontextualising gender in entrepreneurial leadership. Annals of Tourism Research, 88, 103176, 1-12. Doi: 10.1016/j.annals.2021.103176.
Paskey, S. (2021). Reframing law’s domain: Narrative, rhetoric, and the forms of legal rules. Narrative, 29(2), 178-191.
