The body, identity and gender in managerial athleticism

Abstract

We argue that the healthy, fit and athletic body plays an essential role in the way contemporary managerial identities are construed. Drawing on insights from Judith Butler, we study these bodily identities as a form of regulation in organizations. We identify the cultural basis of regulation, show how it operates through specific norms, and detail how it implies gender. Based on an empirical study of men and women in management who are passionate about their healthy and fit bodies and athletic lifestyles, we demonstrate how norms set by managerial athleticism – understood as a particular regulative regime – operate through three discursive practices: perfecting the body, advocating against non-fit bodies, and becoming a role model. We show how the norms operate in both explicit and abject fashion and how they are implied in masculine language and materialized in physical (athletic) bodies. We offer new insights on how bodily identity regulation occurs and elucidate the gendered complexity and contradictions inscribed in managerial athleticism.

Full text

https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716685161
human relations
2017, Vol. 70(9) 1141 –1167
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0018726716685161
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human relations
The body, identity and gender
in managerial athleticism
Janet Johansson
Stockholm University, Sweden
Janne Tienari
Hanken School of Economics, Finland
Anu Valtonen
University of Lapland, Finland
Abstract
We argue that the healthy, fit and athletic body plays an essential role in the way
contemporary managerial identities are construed. Drawing on insights from Judith
Butler, we study these bodily identities as a form of regulation in organizations. We
identify the cultural basis of regulation, show how it operates through specific norms,
and detail how it implies gender. Based on an empirical study of men and women
in management who are passionate about their healthy and fit bodies and athletic
lifestyles, we demonstrate how norms set by managerial athleticism – understood as
a particular regulative regime – operate through three discursive practices: perfecting
the body, advocating against non-fit bodies, and becoming a role model. We show
how the norms operate in both explicit and abject fashion and how they are implied in
masculine language and materialized in physical (athletic) bodies. We offer new insights
on how bodily identity regulation occurs and elucidate the gendered complexity and
contradictions inscribed in managerial athleticism.
Keywords
body, fitness, gender, health, identity, management, managerial athleticism, regulation,
sports
Corresponding author:
Janne Tienari, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland.
Email: jtienari@hanken.fi
685161HUM0010.1177/0018726716685161Human RelationsJohansson et al.
research-article2016

1142 Human Relations 70(9)
Introduction
Thinking of my lifestyle, I link it to my professional role as a manager. I am willing to be the
role model for others. Hence my healthy lifestyle does not concern me alone. It becomes an
influence on my co-workers … Even though it is important that the leader demonstrates her
competence at work, it is equally important that she retains a fit stature. People not only seek
the inner quality of a person but the appearance, too. A healthy and fit appearance makes
others admire you. I believe that people today judge their leaders in a completely different way
than before.
This is how Lucy,1 the director responsible for the Nordic region in a multinational cor-
poration, reflects on the connections between her lifestyle and managerial work. She is
arguably an example of contemporary corporate elites who enact an identity that draws
on a healthy and fit body that others recognize as such. Extant research suggests that the
pursuit and promotion of healthy and fit lifestyles are gaining prominence in professional
life more generally (Holmqvist and Maravelias, 2011; Kelly et al., 2007; Maravelias,
2009; Michel, 2011; Riach and Cutcher, 2014; Sinclair, 2005, 2011; Waring and Waring,
2009; Zoller, 2003), as is the bodily appearance that signifies these lifestyles (Kenny and
Bell, 2011; Meriläinen et al., 2015; Trethewey, 1999). Although health, fitness and sports
are a way for people who are under immense pressure to relieve stress (Waring and
Waring, 2009), recent studies show that health and fitness orientation takes passionate
athletic forms among managers and professionals (Connell and Wood, 2005; Costas
et al., 2016; Sinclair, 2011; Thanem, 2013).
Managerial identities based on passionate preoccupation with the body are actively
debated, and increasing attention is being paid to how health and fitness work as regula-
tion in organizations through management techniques and as a form of self-control.
However, the place of gender in this bodily identity regulation has been largely ignored.
In earlier research, gender is either glossed over (e.g. Kelly et al., 2007; McGillivray,
2005; Maravelias, 2009) or assumed rather than analyzed (e.g. Costas et al., 2016;
Waring and Waring, 2009). In this article, we analyze the enactment of passionate bodily
managerial identity as a form of regulation in organizations by identifying its cultural
basis, detailing how it operates, and elucidating how it implies gender. To grasp these
regulative dimensions of passionate preoccupation with health, fitness and sports, we
propose an integrative concept that we call managerial athleticism.
Drawing upon Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993) work, we theorize managerial athleticism
as a regulative regime that provides norms that define the legitimate bodily identities that
can be enacted in particular contexts. This regime is based upon cultural meanings
inscribed in discourses of health, fitness and sports, that of management, and of gender.
In our empirical study of men and women in management who are passionate about their
healthy and fit bodies and athletic lifestyles, we detail how norms set by managerial
athleticism operate through discursive practices, and elucidate the gendered complexity
and contradictions inscribed in this regime. We argue that whereas the operation of
norms inscribed in managerial athleticism may occur in an explicit manner – for exam-
ple, in organizational practices that work to control health and fitness – the regulation of
gender operates in a more covert fashion through abjection, which reinforces the preva-
lent symbolic order surrounding bodily managerial identities. We show how norms that

Johansson et al. 1143
enable and constrain the performance of managerial identities are not only implied in
masculine language, but also materialized in physical (athletic) bodies.
This article is structured as follows. We first discuss health, fitness and sports as a
basis for managerial athleticism and specify our conceptual frame of the body, identity
and gender. Next, we outline our research design and offer our key findings. Finally, we
discuss our contributions, consider the limitations of our study, and suggest ideas for
future research.
Health, fitness and sports as a basis for managerial
athleticism
The body is valorized in contemporary preoccupation with managing health and fitness.
Studies show that western organizations today employ programs and initiatives that tar-
get a systematic approach to managing the health of their members, which is regarded as
an indicator of efficiency and productivity (Cederström, 2011; Holmqvist and Maravelias,
2011; Kelly et al., 2007; Lupton, 1995; McGillivray, 2005; Maravelias, 2009; Thanem,
2009, 2013; Zoller, 2003). Health, however, is an elusive concept (Arnold and Breen,
2006; Lupton, 1995) that is often equated with wellness (McGillivray, 2005) and fitness
(Kelly et al., 2007). Critical research elucidates that this triad can be turned into all-
embracing techniques for management control, and that monitoring physical aspects of
the body becomes a way of creating and expressing new expectations for an ‘ideal’
organizational member (see Acker, 1990). Studies also show that inscribed norms of
health and fitness encourage organizational members to self-control their physical
appearance and its fit with the particular context (McDowell, 1997; Michel, 2011; Riach
and Cutcher, 2014; Waring and Waring, 2009).
Today, there is evidence to suggest that the pursuit of health and fitness takes notably
passionate2 forms. Managers are ‘extremely health conscious’ and treat their bodies ‘as a
thing to be managed’ in a life that is ‘constituted as an enterprise’ (Connell and Wood,
2005: 355). They are prepared to sacrifice their bodies and lives to their professional
careers, which they pursue with passion (Michel, 2011). The passion for healthy living is
highlighted in Thanem’s (2013) study in an organization that implemented an ambitious
health initiative. Managers who were passionate about the initiative described how exer-
cise and keeping a healthy diet developed into habits that structured their daily lives.
Costas et al.’s (2016) study, in turn, illustrates how management consultants are passion-
ately engaged in extreme sports to perfect their bodies and to construct their professional
identities as both ambitious and autonomous – just like athletes.
An important source of bodily passion in management are sports, which carry an array
of connotations that are valued in corporate life such as competitiveness, strength, endur-
ance, energy, achievement and performance. The backgrounds of managers in sports are
likely to influence how they view themselves and their work (Knoppers, 2011), and sport
metaphors are widely used in describing professionalism and management (Messner,
2002). Sinclair (2005) maintains that sporting prowess, or a history of it, is an important
source of status in managerial work, and that a shared passion for sport forms a basis for
forging business alliances. Sports also matter as an actual practice in organizations – for
example, in the form of corporate marathon running clubs (Ellehave, 2005). As such, the

1144 Human Relations 70(9)
notion of ‘corporate athlete’3 has been employed to encapsulate idealized behaviors and
dispositions under the name of health and fitness – those that presuppose strain and pain
and the perfection of one’s body so that it is able to perform like that of an athlete (Kelly
et al., 2007; Sinclair, 2005, 2011). Overall, extant research suggests that discourses of
health, fitness and sports and those of management and professionalism blend in contem-
porary organizations. This provides a cultural basis for understanding how managerial
athleticism functions, and renders understandable the role of the body in it.
The body is an essential conduit for identity construction when health, fitness and
sports are passionately embraced (see Hassard et al., 2000). This draws our attention to
identities as temporary and evolving constructions; identities are enacted in social inter-
action rather than being the fixed essence of an individual or a group (Alvesson, 2010;
Brown, 2015; Cerulo, 1997). Identities are also subject to regulation when people posi-
tion themselves relative to – and are positioned by – ideational notions of who they
should be(come) and how they should act (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Costas and
Grey, 2014). Physical bodily features such as weight (Levay, 2014) and height (Valtonen,
2013), skin color (Nkomo, 1992), biological sex (Trethewey, 1999) and ageing
(Ainsworth and Hardy, 2009; Riach and Cutcher, 2014) function as a basis for identity
construction. These bodily features – and the ideals that infiltrate them – are infused with
meanings through discursive coding, habituated scripts and images that are spread, for
instance, through popular media (Godfrey et al., 2012). Dominant discourses and prac-
tices invite people to modify their bodies and bodily appearances, and to evaluate those
of others (Crossley, 2005; Longhurst, 2001).
Extant research also highlights the contextual grounding of how bodies and identities
are mutually constituted. It is argued, for example, that making the right impression is at
the core of bodily identity construction. Signifying professional demeanor is to a signifi-
cant extent a question of appearance (Alvesson, 2001; Covaleski et al., 1998; Waring and
Waring, 2009), including the right attire (Haynes, 2012) and even smell (Riach and
Warren, 2015). It is also about the physical strength and skill through which features
such as endurance and mastering of movements are demonstrated (Costas et al., 2016).
As such, bodily performances play a significant role in defining the boundaries between
inclusion and exclusion in organizations. For instance, fit bodies may be elevated in
practices of recruitment and initiation (McDowell, 1997; Meriläinen et al., 2015; Riach
and Cutcher, 2014; Trethewey, 1999). Bodily identities are regulated as people are urged
to pay careful attention to the ‘right’ performance of their bodies.4 Also, identity regula-
tion is taken beyond organizational boundaries to encompass people’s lifestyles (see
Hancock and Tyler, 2004). When the ‘right’ lifestyle is pursued passionately, resources
such as exercise and rest (Hancock, 2008), that have traditionally been considered out-
side the realm of work, are mobilized to construct the comprehensive bodily managerial
identity (Thanem, 2013). Next, we discuss gender dynamism in health, fitness and sports,
and theorize on how the body, identity and gender are included in the regulative regime
that is managerial athleticism.
Gender in managerial athleticism
Feminist theorists challenge the practice in western societies and organizations to asso-
ciate women with the body and men with the mind (e.g. Grosz, 1994). Apart from

Johansson et al. 1145
perpetuating an arbitrary body–mind dualism, this leads to female bodies being over-
exposed and sexualized in organizations, whereas male bodies remain ‘invisible’
(Sinclair, 2005: 90). Such a conventional way of thinking and talking about female and
male bodies can be traced back to the heterosexual matrix (Butler, 1990) – a specific
framework of meaning and power in society – which affects men and women differently
(Acker, 1990; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005; Sinclair, 2011). This matrix underlies
the regulative regime of managerial athleticism, shaping both the opportunities to par-
ticipate in it and the practices through which it is performed by men and women.
In theorizing the body, identity and gender in managerial athleticism, we draw upon
Butler (1990, 1993) and consider gendering a dynamic process that takes place through
the repetition of acts and gestures (e.g. Meriläinen et al., 2015; Sinclair, 2005) in given
organizational spaces (e.g. Tyler and Cohen, 2010). The performance of these acts and
gestures generates the effect of a gendered identity that draws on femininity or masculin-
ity. Repeated over time, the performance of gender5 fixes and stabilizes what counts as
proper conduct for women and men. For Butler (1993), the body is the primary site of
gender. In considering the vividly debated relation between material and discursive
aspects of the body (Ashcraft et al., 2009; Dale, 2005; Hekman, 2008; Levay, 2014;
Meriläinen et al., 2015; Phillips and Oswick, 2012; Sinclair, 2005) she takes the view
that the material body is accessible only through language; any attempt to think, talk or
write about the body requires the use of language (Butler, 1993; Lloyd, 2007). Linguistic
constructions in particular discourses are ways for organizing and evaluating the body –
and for materializing it (Gill et al., 2005). Instead of materiality as such, then, Butler is
concerned with the process of materialization wherein particular ideas of the body begin
to order reality (Butler, 1993: 9; Lloyd, 2007: 73). In aligning matter with value, her
stance is primarily political: ‘she is concerned with why some bodies matter more than
others and why some are accorded a legitimacy that others are denied’ (Lloyd, 2007: 83).
Hence, while the body is a body in the flesh, and sexually and physically specific, it
is always culturally fabricated (Grosz, 1994). Regulatory norms define what kinds of
physical bodies are recognized as valuable and legitimate in particular contexts, govern-
ing their materialization (Butler, 1993: 2). These norms may be notably strict as
Trethewey’s study on the embodied identities of professional women illustrates; the
body that is recognized must be ‘fit, not fat’ (Trethewey, 1999: 430). Conforming to body
norms is driven by desire for recognition, but it requires an intimate understanding of the
associated discourses and practices (Laine et al., 2016: 517). Body norms may also deny
certain bodies recognition – for instance, because of ethnicity or age (Ainsworth and
Hardy, 2009; Nkomo, 1992).
The above illustrates how regulation occurs at the level of bodily identity: the very
enactment of an identity – striving for recognition – is simultaneously an act of regula-
tion (Butler, 1997). In our case, the regulative norms that govern the signification of
physical bodies are grounded in health, fitness and sports, which contain contradictions
in terms of gender. Health and fitness have conventionally been considered feminine
issues, as they assume constant care of the body and concern for bodily appearance and
display, although today men are increasingly showing interest in these issues (Maguire,
2008). In contrast, sports have historically been dominated by men (Acker, 1990).
Although women increasingly participate in a range of sports activities, gender inequali-
ties remain at its heart as the physical capacities and activities of men and women are

1146 Human Relations 70(9)
represented, evaluated and valued differently (Birrell and Cole, 1994; Messner, 2002).
As a regulatory regime, managerial athleticism draws from these contradictory gendered
meanings inscribed in health, fitness and sports. Male bodies are valorized in new ways,
and new meanings are assigned to female bodies (Meriläinen et al., 2015).
In order to fully understand how gendered bodily identities are enacted and regulated,
one more concept needs to be added to our framework; this is ‘abjection’. The notion of
abject is used to describe something that is put in the shadows and barred, but that nev-
ertheless remains there, threatening the stability of the prevalent symbolic order (Fotaki,
2013).6 Abjection concerns male and female bodies in organizations in different ways.
Paradoxically, female bodies are simultaneously ‘over-exposed and erased’ (Tyler and
Cohen, 2010: 192); they are valorized and sexualized, but denied access to influential
positions because of ‘the supposed disorder they bring’ in male management practices
(Höpfl and Matilal, 2007: 200). In her study on women in academia, Fotaki (2013) shows
how masculine language works as a means of excluding women from active subject posi-
tions and symbolic representations, and how this results in their de-intellectualization –
denying their cognitive and intellectual capacities. In the masculine symbolic order, the
female body is construed as an abject body – one that fails to materialize the norm.
However, abject bodies are a necessary condition for ‘normal’ bodies as they are the
‘other’ against which legitimate bodies are made intelligible (Butler, 1993: 16).
In a study of an organization where a discourse of ethical living prevails, Kenny
(2010) detailed how actions that were not in line with the dominant discourse were ren-
dered abject, but they were yet needed for maintaining that very discourse. The exclusion
of ethically unsound others accompanied the ongoing constitution of selves as ethically
sound. As the desire for recognition and the fear of being abjected are powerful, people
may subject themselves to norms even when this is hurtful (Butler, 1993; Kenny, 2010).
Recognitions and exclusions in organizations are experienced as passions (Kenny, 2010:
864), and passionate attachments are important as they provide us with the ‘possibility of
apprehending the fundamental sociality of embodied life’ (Butler, 2004: 22).
In addition to gendered and sexually specific bodily characteristics such as pregnancy
(Grosz, 1994), excess weight, ageing and injury are likely to involve abject characteristics
in the regime of managerial athleticism. Excess weight is to be avoided as it signifies
unprofessionalism both for women (Bordo, 1993; Trethewey, 1999) and for men
(Meriläinen et al., 2015). Ageing, too, may hinder career-making, and it is thus something
to be actively managed by strict body performances (Riach and Cutcher, 2014). The risk
of injury is another threat, as the ‘broken professional body marks a double failure, namely
of not being able to display and enact neither autonomy nor ambition’ (Costas et al., 2016;
emphasis in original). Gaining weight, ageing and getting injured lurk in the shadows as
possibilities, posing a threat and causing fear and anxiety, and effectuating a range of cop-
ing strategies. Overall, the notion of abject helps us to foreground the inherent (but hid-
den) ways in which the regulation of gendered bodily identities occurs.
In summary, we aim to complement the extant research on identity regulation in organ-
izations in two ways. First, we develop the integrative concept of managerial athleticism,
which represents an ideal that valorizes the physical aspects of bodies and offers a way for
managerial identities to be enacted and regulated. This contributes to our understanding of
the materiality of the body in managerial identity construction (McDowell, 1997; Michel,

Johansson et al. 1147
2011; Riach and Cutcher, 2014; Waring and Waring, 2009). Second, we aim to show that
managerial athleticism has important implications for understanding how gender is per-
formed in management. Earlier studies have elucidated how women (are compelled to)
dress up and act in masculine ways in order to be considered as credible managers (e.g.
Marshall, 1984; Wajcman, 1998); how women subscribe to discourses of competitive
masculinity (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993) and thereby become ‘honorary men’ or ‘one of
the boys’ (e.g. Höpfl and Matilal, 2007; Martin, 1990); and how they run the risk of being
evaluated negatively when they modify their behavior in order to manage like men (e.g.
Heilman, 2001; Mavin, 2008). The concept of managerial athleticism draws our attention
to the complexities and contradictions in how women and men perform gender in man-
agement and, in particular, to the way the body in its very physical sense is implicated in
this performance. For studying this phenomenon empirically, we ask the following
questions:
How does passionate health, fitness and sports orientation play out in management, and how
does it give rise to bodily identities and identity regulation? And how does it operate as a
gendered regulative regime?
Research design
Societal setting
Our fieldwork was carried out in Sweden, an industrialized European democracy.
Sweden became one of the most prosperous countries in the world by developing a wel-
fare society model based on state-coordinated capitalism and egalitarian ideals (Esping-
Andersen, 1990). Although a collegial and democratic approach came to characterize
management in Sweden (Jönsson, 1995), and although the Swedish welfare state gave
rise to a heightened awareness of gender equality (Dahlerup, 1998), white, heterosexual,
middle-aged and (upper) middle class men continue to dominate the business elite in
Sweden (Holgersson, 2013). Since the 1990s, Swedish society has been influenced by
the transnational economic processes of neo-liberalism. Although it is argued that ‘con-
sensus-building dialogue, trust, and a dispersed sense of responsibility’ remain character-
istic of Swedish organizations, managers are now expected to act as ‘transformational
leaders’ by setting an example and by ‘inspiring’ their employees to ‘perform with excel-
lence’ (Tengblad, 2006: 1442).
In the changing societal setting, the health and fitness orientation of top management
is making headlines. The popular media and business press in Sweden report on enthusi-
astic engagement in sports by corporate executives. For example, the daily newspaper
Dagens Nyheter (21 November 2012) writes about ‘bosses who train hard and provoke
others’, implying that ‘a new type of individual’ has emerged in Swedish society. It main-
tains that these ‘provocateurs’ shape their lifestyle – exercise, dietary habits and rest – to
conform to that of top athletes. Dagens Nyheter notes that they are 30–50 years of age
and proudly display their athletic merits, and contends that these ‘elites’ are the symbol
of a ‘new and growing health and fitness trend’ among managers in Sweden. In the light
of extant research discussed above, we propose that it is important to study these

1148 Human Relations 70(9)
individuals as they may be spearheading a profound change in management, organiza-
tions and society by embodying a new managerial ideal and elite.
Empirical materials
Our fieldwork was carried out in 2010–2012. The first author conducted a pilot study of
five corporate executives (four men and one woman) who were active in promoting a
healthy and fit lifestyle. Insights from the pilot interviews led us to a specific research
design. First, media texts were collected to see how health and fitness were discussed
vis-a-vis management in Swedish public discussion (the period covered was 2010–2012).
The media debate, briefly referred to above, enabled us to develop an understanding of
the societal setting where the accounts and actions of managers gain their meanings.
Second, the first author set out to locate more interviewees in companies and other
organizations based in Sweden. In 2010–2011, 20 executives (12 men and 8 women)
engaged in the promotion of health and fitness in their organizations were interviewed
(Table 1). The narrative interviews covered themes such as how the interviewees per-
ceive management, a healthy lifestyle and how it influences their work, and how they
bring health and fitness to the workplace. All interviews were recorded and transcribed
verbatim.
Third, the first author negotiated access to ‘shadow’ all but one of the research partici-
pants in their daily work. Shadowing refers here to a fieldwork technique that allows
researchers to follow and study individuals who are constantly on the move (Czarniawska,
2007). Notes were kept of this fieldwork, describing activities that the executives were
engaged in (including their habits of talking with others about health, fitness and sports)
and of their use of a range of artefacts such as heart rate monitors and GPS sports watches.
In the case of most research participants, shadowing consisted of the first author attend-
ing events such as management meetings and meetings with customers and investors, as
well as meals and coffee breaks (amounting to approximately 128 hours). The first author
then extended the shadowing beyond work by focusing on Adam, the CEO of an engi-
neering consultancy company. At the time, Adam was active in organizing sports events
for executives in Sweden. The first author took part in these events, kept a field diary,
interviewed some of the participants, and took photographs and video-clips of the execu-
tives in action in their climate-controlled, tight-fitting sportswear. These contributed
another 30 hours of material.
Analysis
Our research process evolved in an iterative manner, oscillating between analyzing the
empirical materials and developing the conceptual framework. The analysis proceeded
in four main phases. In the first phase, following a process of open coding we discerned
common themes from the interview transcripts. We focused on how our research partici-
pants talked about their lifestyle, how they indicated that it shapes their work, and how
they elaborated on the ways in which health and fitness matter in the organization.
In the second phase, we explored how our research participants enact particular iden-
tities as managers. We sought to discern dominant storylines and discursive patterns

Johansson et al. 1149
Table 1. Interviewees.
Name
(pseudonym)
Position and field Gender
and age
Main sports focus Empirical materials
Adam CEO, engineering
consultancy
Male, 43 Running, skiing,
swimming, tennis
Interviews: 10:30:20 h
Shadowing: 30 h
Martin CEO, management
consultancy
Male, 44 Running, skiing Interviews: 2:20:20 h
Shadowing: 5 h
David Country manager,
engineering MNC
Male, 45 Running, karate Interviews: 7:35:30 h
Shadowing: 16 h
Joel Country manager,
engineering MNC
Male, 48 Running, skiing,
spinning
Interviews: 1:25:00 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Peter CEO, health services
company
Male, 50 Mountain climbing Interviews: 1:15:25 h
Shadowing: 3 h
Lucy Managing director,
Nordic region, IT MNC
Female, 46 Running, spinning Interviews: 3:30:20 h
Shadowing: 22 h
Susan Marketing director, IT
company
Female, 38 Martial arts Interviews: 1:33:00 h
Shadowing: 18 h
Valerie Subsidiary general
manager, IT MNC
Female, 39 Running, handball Interviews: 1:15:20 h
Shadowing: 18 h
Henry Regional manager,
public sector utility
(company)
Male, 55 Running, skiing Interviews: 2:25:00 h
Shadowing: 18 h
Mary CEO, food industry
company
Female, 47 Spinning, skiing Interviews: 1:15:20 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Sophie HR director and
owner, management
consultancy
Female, 42 Aerobics Interviews: 1:25:35 h
Shadowing: -
Matt CEO and partner,
management
consultancy
Male, 52 Running, skiing Interviews: 2:45:35 h
Shadowing: 6 h
Jenny CEO and owner, social
media company
Female, 35 Boxing, running Interviews: 1:55:25 h
Shadowing: 4 h
Mark CEO, sports equipment
company
Male, 55 Running, skiing Interviews: 1:35:30 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Vicky CEO and owner,
management
consultancy
Female, 48 Running, skiing Interviews: 1:25:35 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Chris COO, health
management
consultancy
Male, 48 Running Interviews: 0:45:20 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Michael HR director,
engineering consultancy
Male, 39 Running Interviews: 3:24:45 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Anna HR director, food
industry company
Female, 42 Gym Interviews: 0:56:20 h
Shadowing: 2 h
Thomas HRD director, food
industry company
Male, 44 Gym Interviews: 3:35:40 h
Shadowing: 4 h
Patrick CEO, executive search
consultancy
Male, 48 Running Interviews: 1:35:45 h
Shadowing: 2 h

1150 Human Relations 70(9)
(word choices, expressions, etc.) related to the questions ‘who am I?’ and ‘how should I
act?’ in the interview transcripts. We located a dominant discourse – a recurring way of
thinking and talking that constructs subject positions and identities (Butler, 1990, 1993)7
– that enabled our research participants to articulate who they are and what they are
doing and why. We refer to this as the discourse of the healthy, fit and athletic body,
which culturally inscribes the physical corporeality (Grosz, 1994) of ‘ideal’ organiza-
tional members (Acker, 1990; Meriläinen et al., 2015), or the ‘appropriate’ body (Butler,
1990, 1993), and enables our research participants to articulate and display a powerful
sense of self as a manager. We argue that this discourse forms the cultural basis of mana-
gerial athleticism and that it offers norms that both enable and constrain the construction
of the managerial self. Next, we organized the field notes from the shadowing, paying
particular attention to instances where the bodily identity of our research participants
seemed to play out in their interactions with others – for example, in the way they pre-
sented themselves to their peers.
In the third phase, we revisited the interview transcripts and field notes and elaborated
our conceptual framework. Reading the materials first through the lens of fanaticism
(Steiner, 2004) and then of passion (Costas et al., 2016; Thanem, 2013), we detailed how
our research participants regarded health, fitness and sports as self-evident parts of their
lives. We located traces of intolerance in their talk (such as ‘I cannot imagine being in
this position and being overweight’) and discerned extreme linguistic expressions (such
as ‘superhuman’, ‘perfecting’ one’s performance, or ‘correcting’ people who are ‘left
behind’). We chose the concept of passion over fanaticism because embodied forms of
passion can be discussed through both their pleasing and painful aspects (e.g. Linstead
and Brewis, 2007; Thanem, 2013). We analyzed how traces of passion related to how our
research participants enacted identities as managers and how these identities simultane-
ously became subject to regulation. We located three recurring discursive practices
through which this was done: perfecting the body (constant achievement and improve-
ment), advocating against non-fit bodies (disdain for bodies that do not look and act
right), and becoming a role model (exhibiting the ideal or appropriate body and lifestyle).
These norms that operate as discursive practices constitute what we call the regulative
regime of managerial athleticism.
Fourth, we engaged in a feminist reading inspired by Butler (1990, 1993), Fotaki
(2013), Grosz (1994) and Sinclair (2005, 2011) to discern how gender figures in the
discursive practices. We considered how gender was implied in identity enactment and
regulation – for instance, by detailing how men referred to themselves as men (and to
others as men and women) and how women referred to themselves as women (and to
others as women and men) – and how these references to the self (and others) related
to ways of talking about bodies as well as activities such as doing sports. We also con-
sidered how gender was implied in interaction between men and men, women and
women, and men and women in the events that the first author observed. We noticed
that whereas the condemnation of overweight bodies took explicit forms in our materi-
als, regulation concerning female bodies operated in a more covert fashion. We identi-
fied signs of abjection (e.g. lack associated with female bodies), ways of coping with
abjection (e.g. materializing female bodies by the expectations set by masculine
norms), and outcomes of abjection (e.g. de-intellectualization), as well as struggles

Johansson et al. 1151
related to enactment and regulation of gendered bodily identity (e.g. de-feminization
and hyper-feminization).
Reflection
We rely on the first author’s position in co-producing the empirical materials. She spent
some two years interacting with the research participants. The second author joined the
research after the fieldwork was completed and the materials had been coded for the first
time. While the first author had unique information about the interactions (for example,
about the rapport in the interviews and in the events observed), the second author looked
at the body, identity and gender as they were depicted in interview transcripts and field
notes. The third author joined the team after the second phase and traced the analysis in
phases one and two. She contributed to the interpretive frame of passion, to feminist
readings of the materials, and to the conceptualization of managerial athleticism.
Throughout the subsequent analysis process, the three authors engaged in a reflexive
discussion of meanings and meaning-making (Cunliffe, 2003).
As Riach et al. (2016: 2072) argue in the light of ‘Butlerian methodology’, the inter-
view process is itself a performative one; it is part of the constitution of the identity of
both the research participants and the researcher. By using certain performative acts and
gestures – linguistic terms and bodily expressions – they engage in negotiating and con-
stituting their senses of self. Hence, the first author’s fit physical presence invited par-
ticular kinds of talk about health, fitness and sports, and led to a ‘co-production’ of
identities (Coupland, 2001). The first author began to exercise more frequently when she
engaged in her research and started to do those sports that her research participants were
active in. She got to know many of them better at the gym and in sporting events.
Eventually the first author could relate to the research participants’ experiences in their
constant striving for improved performance and becoming role models as well as to their
condemnation of obesity. It seemed to her that her gender encouraged female research
participants in particular to be forthcoming in the interviews and in other discussions.
Owing to their long-term engagement with feminist theory, the second and third
authors offered a critical reading of the interviews and shadowing. They challenged the
first author to reflect upon (the apparent lack of) resistance to managerial athleticism in
the materials generated. The choice of research participants already directed the research
towards high achievers who actively took care of their bodies. Also, in doing her field-
work the first author did not engage in the ‘reflexive undoing’ of the identities construed,
nor did she seek to unpack the ‘normative conditions upon which they depend’ (Riach
et al., 2016: 2070). Hence, the relatively coherent nature of our empirical materials may
be partly – but only partly – owing to the fieldwork practice. There were notably few
examples in our materials where those who were unrecognized demanded recognition or
where athletic role models were explicitly challenged (Butler, 1990; Laine et al., 2016;
Lloyd, 2007). In the interviews, our research participants denied this possibility with
their uncompromising language. In the events observed, others seemed to find few
opportunities to question their passionate conduct. We will not know to what extent our
research participants felt a need to seek recognition in the eyes of the first author in talk-
ing and acting in this way. We suspect that taking part in the research amounted to little

1152 Human Relations 70(9)
in their lives. However, we do acknowledge that we may represent our research partici-
pants in static and simplifying ways (Wray-Bliss, 2003), without being able to address
the full complexity of their lives as managers.
Next, we present our main findings in two parts. First, we specify and illustrate dis-
cursive practices that operate as norms in the regulatory regime of managerial athleti-
cism. Second, we elucidate how these norms are gendered.
Norms operating in the regime of managerial athleticism
Perfecting the body
The pursuit of bodily perfection – and avoidance of decline and failure – is visible in how
our research participants advocate their passion not only for a healthy and fit lifestyle but
also an athletic and sporty one. Peter, CEO of a health services company, compares his
job as a manager to that of an athlete: ‘athletes cannot be ill-prepared for a big competi-
tion just because they have a bad day. They need to perform with their utmost potential
all the time.’ The field of sports is drawn on in different ways when the healthy and fit
lifestyle is displayed. Our research participants have hired former elite athletes as
coaches, and their top-quality sports gear and equipment reflect the passion. In social
media, they actively compare their athletic results and body readings such as the resting
or maximum heart rate, and blood count (e.g. hemoglobin), as well as optimal amounts
of proteins, complex carbohydrates or minerals needed before, during and after exercise.
They also exchange advice on how to measure the body more precisely and how to
improve their body readings constantly.
Pushing one’s limits in exercising is another indication of the passionate search for
perfecting the body. Positive meanings are assigned to self-inflicted muscle pain because
it provides evidence that the workout has been sufficiently intense. It is associated with
overcoming difficulties, which is an important element in enacting a passionate bodily
managerial identity. Lucy, who was quoted in the introduction, puts it like this:
Sometimes after an intensive spinning session my thighs will hurt for days, but that’s just part
of the great feeling that my body is coping with more and more intense exercise. I actually like
the pain it leaves me with. It reminds me of the wonderful feeling after my exercise! Isn’t it the
same feeling when we are facing difficulties and finally overcome them? I think the pain and
joy from exercising resembles the feeling when one overcomes problems in life.
Our research participants’ talk rests on the assumption that controlling the body is a per-
sonal duty and that each individual is responsible for their own health and fitness. David,
the managing director of the Swedish subsidiary of a multinational company, asserts the
following: ‘Health is a personal choice, especially when you are in a managerial position.
You must be healthy and in good shape, not only to cope with your workload, but also to
show that you are capable of self-control.’ David also insists that ‘health is a life-long
project. And that’s how it should be. Being healthy is an attitude. With this attitude one
is motivated to improve at all times.’ David himself embodies this extremist view. He
used to play rugby and developed a muscular body. He subsequently turned his attention

Johansson et al. 1153
to individual sports such as running, where a different physical body is needed for excel-
lent performance. In an early interview, David told the first author that his goal was to
reduce his ‘muscle mass’ and become more slender. When the first author bumped into
David in the gym a year later she noticed the huge difference. David seemed to have
managed to achieve his goal, and said with a smile that he now looked like a ‘real
runner’.
Martin, CEO of a consultancy company, summarizes his health ideal in three words:
energy, fitness and anti-aging. ‘I feel younger and more energetic because I exercise and
train regularly’, he says. Anna is an HR director in a food industry company. When the
first author complemented her for being in great shape, she replied as follows: ‘I wish I
could show you that my health practice is the ideal one, but I can’t. I don’t have enough
time to strive for that ideal state. I’m in my best form ever, but it is not yet ideal.’ This
illustrates the way the physical body is thought of within passionate discourse; it can
always be improved. Sports events and competitions – and associated results, compari-
sons and rankings – represent an important social dimension in measuring the perfor-
mance of the body against others. The executives shadowed by the first author spent a lot
of time talking about sports, comparing their form in training and their results in recent
competitions.
The norm of perfecting the body derives from individual (as opposed to team) sports
that demand endurance and relentless energy. It provides cultural terms for our research
participants in thinking of, talking about, and evaluating their bodies. It seems that this
norm is internalized (Fotaki, 2013); the scope of action enabled and constrained by the
norm and the highly competitive and individualistic terms set by sports are considered
self-evident. The repetition of certain taken-for-granted acts and gestures such as using
sports jargon and referring to athletic practices, talking about individual efforts to
improve bodily performance through hard training, and dressing in top-quality sports
gear appear to produce a specific managerial identity that is recognized by the self and
others. In performing their identity, our research participants not only celebrate the elu-
sive ‘perfect’ athletic body, but embody this perfection. In this way, the operation of the
norm is important for materializing the body (Butler, 1993); it assures that particular, and
only particular, bodies matter in management.
Against non-fit bodies
In the activities observed by the first author and in the moral atmosphere construed in the
interviews, there is no place for bodies that are not considered healthy and fit. Excess
body weight is a case in point. Lucy puts it bluntly: ‘I cannot imagine being in this posi-
tion and being overweight.’ Martin asserts that ‘to be able to keep fit is the first step for
a manager in showing that they can keep things under control. This applies to all people
at the workplace, but specifically to managers.’ Recruitment provides a means for mak-
ing sure that only the ‘right’ bodies gain entry to the organization. Lucy describes her
recruitment principles:
First and foremost, we select the ‘super human’ [gestures quotation marks with hands] who is
good at every aspect in life. One needs to be outstanding at work, great at home, and extremely

1154 Human Relations 70(9)
energetic and competitive in terms of physical exercise. And these qualities of an individual can
very much be reflected in their activities in their spare time. The ‘super humans’ [gestures
quotation marks with hands] keep their bodies in shape, which is also a strong indicator that
they live a healthy life. These individuals are also more enduring and energetic.
Self-control is inscribed in the healthy and fit body, and it is recognized by our research
participants as competence. Lack of self-control is the crux of their disdain for bodies
that are not ‘ideal’. The visual sense is particularly important here: if you do not look and
act right, you are deemed unable to take control of your life and that of others. Peter says
that instead of recruiting someone who ‘takes a walk or reads a book’, he prefers to
choose someone who is engaged in the right sports, because ‘what I can see from their
sports activities or simply by judging from their appearance is competence and the abil-
ity to self-discipline’. Not all sports – and ways of doing sports – count when the lifestyle
behind the appearance is evaluated. One has to be fully committed to sports that demand
physical strength, energy and endurance.
Monitoring the bodies of other people continues after recruitment. Constant control
becomes a managerial prerogative, as Adam explains: ‘If I notice that there are people
who are overweight or have other obvious lifestyle problems, I will react right away. I
will sit down with them and outline a health promotion plan for them.’ Establishing con-
trol over the bodies of others in and through performance appraisal is made to appear not
only rational, but self-evident, as exemplified by Henry:
Our health care department is setting up a database of the health profiles of all employees.
And we want to include this profile in every performance appraisal. Hence personal
development [is] also about health and lifestyle. We are going to set goals for each individual
in this respect, too.
Controlling people’s ‘health profiles’ (i.e. their physical bodies) and setting goals
for their ‘lifestyles’ (i.e. their social bodies) are strong indications of identity regula-
tion based on specific body ideals. The first author noticed that our research partici-
pants seldom interacted on an equal basis with people who inhabited non-fit bodies.
Instead, they sought admiration and respect from like-bodied peers. Establishing pro-
fessional networks (only) with people who are engaged in the right sports activities is
an important means for enacting (and regulating) the passionate bodily managerial
identity.
The norm governing body weight is inscribed in managerial athleticism. It enables the
performance of a managerial identity in which only fit bodies that signify self-control
matter (Butler, 1993). By performing managerial identities in line with this norm, our
research participants engage in an exclusive and punitive process of policing (Kenny,
2010), as their strong expressions and reluctance to associate with non-fit bodies indi-
cate. The overweight body fails to materialize the norm, and it is repressed and kept out
of sight by various organizational practices (cf. Levay, 2014; Trethewey, 1999). As the
human body has the inherent capacity to gain weight, the abject body is constantly pre-
sent as a potentiality, calling for control and regulation. As such, both the viable and
abject bodies are constituted (Butler, 1993; Fotaki, 2013).

Johansson et al. 1155
Becoming a role model
Setting an example and becoming a role model is something that all our research partici-
pants emphasize when they discuss their lifestyle choices. They expect others to admire
and imitate their controlled athletic lifestyle and the healthy and fit body that it helps to
produce. They frequently use verbs such as ‘correct’, ‘repair’ and ‘revise’ to narrate a
sense of self that is constantly improving, and verbs such as ‘follow’ and ‘admire’ to
describe the reactions of others to the example they set. Henry is a regional manager in a
large public utility (company) and he talks enthusiastically about how he is able to per-
form better after experiencing a profound change in his outlook on life and starting ‘to
make use of health and fitness concepts in my leadership’. Henry insists that he is willing
‘to share this message with all my colleagues and subordinates in order to influence
them, so that they can experience what I experience, which is wonderful’. Henry says
that he is always very careful when he chooses what to eat in the company canteen
because he ‘knows that others will take note’. Setting an example, he has also banned
alcohol from company parties. Martin, in an interview that took place in the company
cafeteria, lowered his voice and said almost apologetically: ‘When I noticed that I
became a more convincing leader because of my running records, I started to exercise
even more purposefully. If I may say so, people started to admire me even more.’ Henry
and Martin show how becoming a bodily role model is considered a normal part of the
managerial job and identity. Anna puts it succinctly: ‘What you do and what you eat turn
into how you look and who you are.’
Advocating a healthy, fit and athletic lifestyle through personal example is a way to
regulate the range of possible identities in the organization. Lucy’s account in the intro-
duction of this article shows how the physical and social body becomes enmeshed in this
regulation. It is not enough for the executives to be physically healthy and fit; they must
also look, talk and act so that others can recognize the signs of energy, endurance and
self-control, and copy this example in their own lives. ‘They will follow what we say
only if we do what we say’, Lucy says. Sometimes this is carefully staged. In the sports
events Adam organized, he always made sure that the contestants posed for photographs.
The photographer was asked to spray water on them to mimic sweat on their bodies. The
bodies had to appear just right, radiating energy, when pictures were published in the
media or posted on-line for others to admire.
Martin not only talks about ‘correcting’ people who are ‘left behind’ in leading a
healthy life, but also about ‘inspiring his employees’ to make the right choices. Adam
says that he likes to inform his co-workers about his training and competitions:
Being a ‘health promoting leader’ [gestures quotation marks with his hands] is one of the most
important elements in being the role model for others. I am the role model in that I energize
others and spread happiness and positive energy.
Those who choose not to pay attention do so at their peril, as Adam explains: ‘Of
course, the not-so-healthy individuals, those who do not live a healthy life, feel tremen-
dous pressure working with us … Sometimes I can be pretty harsh and say: damn, you
need to do something about your lifestyle!’ The message of the virtues of a healthy and
fit (and, by passionate extension, athletic) lifestyle is all-encompassing. Signs of bodily

1156 Human Relations 70(9)
decay, which are considered to reflect (and to be reflected in) loss of control and a declin-
ing work ethic, are carefully monitored. Adam says that ‘all my managers go to courses
on lifestyle and health’ because they ‘need to learn how to detect early symptoms of
stress among their employees, for example, mood swings and lack of energy’.
The norm inscribed in becoming a role model invites others to appreciate and admire
the manager’s body. This practice is again familiar from the field of sports; the athletic
body is supposed to be admired by others (both in terms of results and bodily appear-
ance), and athletes become role models (or idols) for many. In likening themselves to
athletes, our research participants perform a managerial identity that invites public and
open celebration of the(ir) ‘right’ bodies. As such, they seek to be recognized as viable
managers (Butler, 1993).
Performing gender in managerial athleticism
The norms structuring managerial athleticism – operating through the discursive practices
detailed above – carry an array of masculine connotations such as competitiveness,
achievement and performance. These norms materialize in different ways for men and
women. Our analysis shows how the male managerial body can be openly spoken about
in contemporary Swedish organizations; it is far from ‘silent’ (Sinclair, 2005). The men in
our study want their bodies to be looked at and admired, and they talk about how they take
constant care of their bodily appearance. What were earlier considered to be feminine acts
and gestures have become legitimate for men in, and through, managerial athleticism.
However, concern for appearance and outlook is a particular kind of balancing act for men
where retaining masculinity is central. It is legitimated by sport (and its masculine con-
notations) as well as complicated body monitoring technologies and advanced devices
that are associated with masculinity. This also ensures that the valorization of the male
body does not threaten assumptions of male intellect (see Fotaki, 2013).
Whereas men in our study do not refer to their gender when they talk about their rela-
tion to health, fitness and sports, women routinely compare themselves against men.
Mary is a CEO in a food industry company, and she is articulate about how developing
an athletic body is a way for her to become ‘one of the boys’. She is the only female
member of an executive cross-country skiing club and considers this an opportunity to
compete on an equal footing with male executives. Mary describes men as more com-
petitive and results-oriented – and thus more successful in management – than women.
Mary says that she is well aware of her ‘disadvantage’ and she makes a conscious effort
to mimic her male peers in top positions. Mary maintains: ‘Just look at how men doing
sports like to use gadgets to control their performance. Women do not do that. That’s why
there are fewer women in management positions.’
In striving for recognition within the norms of managerial athleticism, women disci-
pline themselves and their bodies in accordance with criteria that are masculine. As high-
lighted by Mary, they look for recognition by participating in stereotypically masculine
sports (Messner, 2002; Woodward, 2009), where they are able to demonstrate their com-
petitiveness, energy, endurance and self-control. Mary and others materialize their bod-
ies by complying to the expectations set by masculine norms. Performing managerial
athleticism vis-a-vis the masculine order provides access for some women to the ‘male

Johansson et al. 1157
dominated world’ of management. This may necessitate de-feminization (Trethewey,
1999), as Lucy explains:
When we [men and women] meet after work, we often talk about sports. Us girls join in and
contribute to the discussion. This is how we gain some acknowledgement and even respect
from our male colleagues. Sports and health serve as badges of pride. Because we are looked
upon as superwomen, we can gain respect and impress the pack. In a way, we need to tone down
our gender characteristics and subscribe to the male norm in order to retain respect and authority
in the male-dominated world.
‘To tone down our gender characteristics’ is a way of de-feminizing the female
body. Our female research participants seemed to be acutely aware of the risk of
having an overly feminine outlook and wearing feminine attire. They struggled to
avoid acts and gestures that generate the effect of abjection (Butler, 1990); they
worked to make their bodies less threatening. However, the struggle with gender
norms is complex. Lucy complements her slim-fit attire with high-heel shoes.
Because she is over six feet tall she makes a formidable impression. Lucy says that
she deliberately takes advantage of her physical presence to ‘intimidate others’ now
that she has ‘reached a top position’. Her example illustrates the contradictory ways
in which the physicality of female managerial body is, and can be, appropriated. On
the one hand, Lucy’s height signals masculinity and superiority (Sinclair, 2005;
Valtonen, 2013). On the other, high heels represent a key symbol of femininity.
Importantly, however, Lucy employs feminine symbols for masculine purposes; by
elevating her stature through high heels she seeks to reflect power and authority,
instead of using them to merely express her femininity. ‘I’m on the same level as
men’, she says. Physical height, combined with an athletic body, makes hyper-
feminization possible. The risk of abjection is alleviated by the association of the
female body with athleticism.
Lucy’s example elucidates how women simultaneously subject themselves to, and
question, the masculine norms of managerial athleticism (Butler, 1990; Fotaki, 2013). It
exemplifies that the regime of managerial athleticism allows female bodies to overcome
abjection. However, performing managerial identity in this way requires knowledge of
the discourses of the ‘right’ bodily appearance, as de-feminization and hyper-feminiza-
tion employed by Lucy illustrate. Performing athleticism is thus simultaneously an act of
mastery and of submission (Laine et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, our analysis highlights that the operation of masculine norms may
result in de-intellectualization of women (Fotaki, 2013). Susan, a marketing director in
an IT company, puts it succinctly:
The funny thing is that they [men] are not that impressed by the intellect of their female
colleagues or superiors, for example, in terms of academic degrees. However, they are
impressed by women’s physical and athletic achievements. So my athletic performance is a
way for me to gain respect from my male colleagues.
The discourse of the healthy, fit and athletic body can thus be mobilized by women to
improve their chances of surviving at the top of the ‘male-dominated world’, where their

1158 Human Relations 70(9)
‘right’ physical bodies are admired more than their intellectual capacity. The discourse
works according to the stereotype where the (sexually) attractive bodily appearance of
women is likely to be associated with less intellect, even for ‘superwomen’ such as Mary,
Lucy and Susan.
The above discussion suggests that the healthy, fit and athletic ideal inscribed in man-
agerial athleticism can be embodied by both men and women. In its lean muscularity and
low body fat the ideal is relatively androgynous, and women can participate in manage-
rial athleticism because the ideal body form is physically possible for them to achieve. In
enacting a passionate managerial identity, then, women engage in embodying the mascu-
line norm in a very physical sense. They not only subscribe to masculine discourse
(Kerfoot and Knights, 1993) and dress and behave in a masculine way (Marshall, 1984;
Wajcman, 1998), but enact the masculine norm in, and through, their bodies.
However, given the assumptions of women’s domestic care responsibilities even in a
gender ‘egalitarian’ society such as Sweden (Holgersson, 2013), engaging in managerial
athleticism is not equally possible for men and women. Passionate performance of mana-
gerial identity encompasses people’s entire lives (Hancock and Tyler, 2004); they must
exhibit a lifestyle that enables perfection of the athletic body, and this not only requires
considerable financial means, but also constant availability for training, free of obliga-
tions at home. Our female research participants are either single or they have elaborate
arrangements with a supporting spouse, and they employ service providers such as clean-
ers and nannies. Men in our study, in contrast, are typically married to a home-maker or
to someone whose job does not entail long hours. Whereas women must juggle norma-
tive expectations, men are not burdened by assumptions regarding domestic care respon-
sibilities. They can make use of a ‘second shift’ to perfect their fit bodies and athletic
lifestyles.
Also, assumptions about fatherhood and motherhood (and pregnancy) differ in how
they enable or disable performance of the ‘right’ managerial bodily identity. Fatherhood
is generally seen as unproblematic in management (Höök, 2001), and top managers in
the Nordic countries tend to have more children than men on average (Hearn et al.,
2008). In contrast, the maternal body threatens and disrupts the assumptions about con-
trol and rationality in management (Fotaki, 2013; Trethewey, 1999). The possibility of
pregnancy makes all female bodies potentially disruptive (Fotaki, 2013: 1257) and una-
ble to be sufficiently passionate in their athletic pursuits: ‘“honorary men” don’t become
pregnant’ (Martin, 1990: 348). Although there is evidence, for example, that pregnancy
provides hormones that may improve the capacity of women athletes to perform in ste-
reotypically masculine endurance sports such as the marathon, pregnancy is treated as a
problem by our research participants – or it is not discussed at all. Its potential for being
beneficial for the athletic managerial body remains a taboo subject.
Finally, gendered assumptions with regard to the inherent vulnerability of the body
affects women and men differently. Susan reflects on how men look upon women and
their bodies:
When we [i.e. women] have trouble at work, the most common judgment is that ‘she is weak’,
not that ‘she has a bad day’ – which the guys often get away with. Hence it is particularly
important that we don’t show vulnerability in this male dominated world.

Johansson et al. 1159
Although women, like men, can overcome bodily pain caused by exercise, and even be
openly proud of it (as Lucy told us), the vulnerability of the female body must be hidden
from view. Such comments recur in the talk of our female research participants. They
illustrate an acute awareness of stereotypical expectations of weakness and vulnerabil-
ity that are associated with the female body (Grosz, 1994), rendering it abject. In con-
trast, the men in our study refrained from expressing any weakness or vulnerability,
thereby demonstrating masculinity. When asked about illness, Adam shrugged his
shoulders and said:
Well, of course, everyone gets ill, but if you exercise regularly, eat healthy food, and sleep well,
you’ll be fine. When I’m stressed, I exercise even more. You just need to face it and overcome
it. It’s all about self-discipline.
In summary, the operation of norms in managerial athleticism is complex and contradic-
tory in terms of performing gender. Within this regulative regime, the masculine sym-
bolic order is disrupted (as male bodies gain new significance) and restored (as female
bodies adjust to male norms and are subject to de-intellectualization). The heterosexual
matrix (Butler, 1990) – spread through norms and practices in society – continues to
exhibit different opportunities to men and women. Assumptions of women’s domestic
care responsibilities, motherhood (and pregnancy) and the vulnerability of the female
body serve to regulate the possibilities of women to perform managerial athleticism.
Discussion and conclusion
In this article, we have developed the concept of managerial athleticism to explore the
bodily managerial identity that thrives on passion for health, fitness and sports. Using
Butler’s (1990, 1993) work as a key theoretical resource, we have conceptualized it as a
regulative regime that provides norms that compel and constrain the enactment of viable
bodily identities in contemporary organizations. We have elucidated the normative con-
ditions upon which the passionate managerial bodily identity relies, the operation of
these norms within organizational settings, and their gendered forms and consequences.
Next, we discuss how our study contributes to research on identities and their regulation
in organizations.
First, we have highlighted how managerial athleticism is grounded in cultural dis-
courses – health, fitness and sports; management; and gender – that blend to condition
the way passionate managerial bodily identities are, and can be, enacted. Earlier research
has sought to understand the passionate identification with health, fitness and sports in
terms of changes in working life (Kelly et al., 2007), leaving other discourses either
unconsidered or considering only two of the discourses, leaving gender unexplored
(Costas et al., 2016; Thanem, 2013). Considering the various discourses in conceptual-
izing managerial athleticism enables us to point to the multi-faceted and dynamic nature
of the normative condition upon which the passionate bodily identity relies. The norms
set by this regime may be conflicting and contradicting, especially when it comes to
gender. Recognizing the cultural basis of managerial athleticism allows us to develop a
grounded understanding of the way passionate managerial bodily identity works as a

1160 Human Relations 70(9)
form of regulation in organizations. Much of this regulation occurs through the body; the
body not only becomes a managerial identity project that is taken to the extreme
(Crossley, 2005), but it also serves as a conduit for simultaneous identity enactment and
regulation, materializing what bodies are legitimate in performing management and what
are not (Butler, 1990, 1993).
Increasing research attention is being paid to how passionate preoccupation with the
body works as a form of regulation in organizations through various management tech-
niques (Cederström, 2011; Holmqvist and Maravelias, 2011; Kelly et al., 2007; Lupton,
1995; McGillivray, 2005; Maravelias, 2009; Thanem, 2009, 2013; Zoller, 2003). Our
study adds to this research by elucidating how the norms that define which types of bod-
ies are recognized as viable and legitimate, and which are not, operate in management.
The norms we have identified are strict and narrow, breeding intolerance as they not only
draw sharp distinctions between those who can live up to the bodily ideal and those who
cannot, but also offering opportunities to condemn, marginalize and exclude the latter.
Further, whereas earlier studies have discussed how passionate preoccupation with the
body works as a form of self-control in organizations (Michel, 2011; Riach and Cutcher,
2014; Waring and Waring, 2009), we theorize how managing one’s body becomes an
internalized part of performing the managerial job (see also Sinclair, 2011). Our research
participants strive to construe their identity under the perceived gaze of others, by
expressing themselves through their exercise (Costas et al., 2016) as well as eating
(Driver, 2008) and resting (Baxter and Kroll-Smith, 2005) habits. Managerial athleticism
offers a regime of intelligibility where regulation through becoming an athletic role
model is possible and desirable.
Second, we have elucidated the gendered complexity and contradictions inscribed in
managerial athleticism. When performing their identities, women engage with the mascu-
line symbolic order, but they also seek to overcome abjection with de-feminization and
hyper-feminization. However, as also Fotaki (2013) concludes, these efforts come to sus-
tain the masculine order rather than weaken it. A dominant assumption in earlier studies is
that although women (are forced to) adopt their appearance and behavior in complying to
masculine norms, their female bodies set them apart from the male ideal that these norms
uphold (see Acker, 1990). It is argued that this gives rise to a mismatch between feminine
gender identity and masculine management identity, with problematic outcomes in terms
of women’s ‘dual presence’ in managerial work (Gherardi, 1994); women may adopt the
discourse of competitive masculinity (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993), but female bodies are
not able to perform management on an equal footing with male bodies. The concept of
managerial athleticism, in contrast, elucidates how the female (as well as male) manage-
rial body is manufactured so as to fit the prevalent athletic criteria.
Managerial athleticism draws our attention to the embodiment of managerial mascu-
linism (Connell and Wood, 2005) and to the passionate and extreme forms that it takes
today. The male managerial body becomes subject to intense scrutiny (Meriläinen et al.,
2015; Sinclair, 2005, 2011). Men balance between taking constant care of their bodily
appearance, which can be seen as feminization (Maguire, 2008), and retaining their
hegemonic masculinity. Although the athletic managerial body is lean (and, it would
seem, relatively androgynous) in its muscularity and low body fat – and although it can
be materialized by both men and women – achieving the ideal requires qualities that are

Johansson et al. 1161
traditionally associated with masculinity, such as competitiveness. Hence, women enact
(a particular form of) masculinity with their bodies as they train hard and strive passion-
ately for bodily performances that are recognized by others. Masculine norms are repro-
duced and perpetuated as bodily identities are simultaneously enacted and regulated
(Butler, 1990, 1993).
In summary, our findings suggest that managerial athleticism opens up different forms
of regulation. The first part of our analysis points to the way regulation may take (even
strikingly) explicit forms; discourse on organizational practices that seek to control body
weight is a case in point. The regulation of gender, however, operates in a more covert
fashion. Our analysis brings to the fore how gendered norms materialize in the physical
body. This allows athletic women to perform ideal managerial identity in a viable way, but
the performance is shaped and constrained by cultural discourses that allocate different
opportunities for men and women. Even if some women with an athletic body (and with
the means to retain the lifestyle that such a body calls for) may rise to prominent manage-
ment positions, the bodily hierarchy in organizations remains intact (Sinclair, 2005).
The question remains: what gives rise to managerial athleticism in contemporary
society? Why do people go to such lengths to discipline themselves through their bodies
and lifestyles? Our analytical focus has been on the body, identity and gender, but there
are broad(er) ramifications at play. In earlier research, arguments are typically set against
the rise of neo-liberal capitalism and the entrepreneurial individual. Kelly et al. (2007)
emphasize the new work ethics that neo-liberalism gives rise to in discussing the preva-
lence of the discourse of the ‘corporate athlete’, whereas McGillivray (2005), Maravelias
(2009), Thanem (2009) and Cederström (2011) detail how the preoccupation of neo-
liberalism with individualism and flexible productivity serve to colonize the body and
govern people’s sense of self. The assumption is that health promotion operates both on
the individual level, where the self is made aware of its need to improve, and the institu-
tional level, where normative judgments of the body are legitimized as a social practice
(see Zoller, 2003).
Against this backdrop, the limitations of our study raise important questions for future
research. First, because of the extent of their engagement in perfecting their healthy and
fit bodies and athletic lifestyles, our research participants may seem like extreme exam-
ples of the contemporary western business elite. However, earlier research indicates that
such passionate athleticism is becoming increasingly widespread in workplaces, at least
in fields such as professional services and finance (Costas et al., 2016; McDowell, 1997;
Michel, 2011; Riach and Cutcher, 2014; Waring and Waring, 2009). Our study has shown
that athleticism is gendered and invites more research on its consequences for men and
women in organizations. This is particularly relevant with respect to societal context,
ethnicity, age and class. The socio-cultural particularities of body norms and perfor-
mances deserve more attention vis-a-vis identities and their regulation in organizations
(Crossley, 2005), even if the masculine norms for management are converging across the
world in conditions of neo-liberal capitalism (Connell and Wood, 2005). Assumptions of
the primacy of whiteness are constitutive of the ideal managerial body in Sweden
(Holgersson, 2013), perhaps in a different way than would be the case in societies such
as the USA or UK, where the history of ethnic and race relations is markedly different
(Nkomo and Al Ariss, 2014). The way managerial athleticism relates to ethnicity-based

1162 Human Relations 70(9)
inclusion and exclusion in different societal conditions needs to be studied further. Also,
we have not paid theoretical attention to the issue of aging bodies (Ainsworth and Hardy,
2009), even though ‘anti-aging’ in many ways permeates our empirical materials. This is
likely to intersect with other sources of inequality such as gender, ethnicity (Calasanti,
2007) and class (Riach and Cutcher, 2014), and offers important questions for future
research.
Second, our findings suggest that more research is needed on how managerial athleti-
cism is, and can be, resisted. Where there is power there is resistance (Foucault, 1978:
75); the body is not only a site of power and subjectification, but also of contestation
(Cederström, 2011: 28; Lupton, 1995). Although employee resistance to health, fitness
and wellness programs has been analyzed in some detail (Holmqvist and Maravelias,
2011; McGillivray, 2005), with regard to management and professionals the literature is
notably more ambivalent about resistance. This is perhaps because of health, fitness and
sports orientation ‘being framed by powerful narratives in which the individual is posi-
tioned as being free to choose’ (Kelly et al., 2007: 282; emphasis in original). Waring and
Waring (2009), for example, state that they found little resistance to the symbolic value
of the body in their research. On the contrary: engaging in sports offered a welcome
contrast to work and an opportunity for professionals to retain a ‘stark separation between
work and leisure’ (Waring and Waring, 2009: 359). Costas et al. (2016), too, are all but
silent about resistance. They depict extreme sports as a way for professionals to ‘regain
a sense of autonomy’ and to ‘escape’ from the pressures of work (Costas et al., 2016: 17).
Our findings suggest that the discourse of the healthy, fit and athletic body is over-
whelming in the sense that it is difficult to question even when it takes extreme forms.
Resistance to managerial athleticism is thus likely to be a complex subject of inquiry.
Reading against the grain, using sports to escape pressures at work (Costas et al., 2016)
and to compartmentalize one’s life (Waring and Waring, 2009) could be understood as
resistance to the regulative effects of neo-liberal capitalism. These practices could be
considered a more or less conscious counterbalance to stressful professional and mana-
gerial work and a way to retain a sense of control over one’s life. However, this brings
out the culture-ladenness of the meaning of resistance: what may take on resistant mean-
ings in one societal context may be considered a form of compliance in another
(Meriläinen et al., 2004). It also establishes a gender-blind view of resistance. Resisting
the regulation of gender in managerial athleticism would entail questioning and chal-
lenging the heterosexual matrix (Butler, 1990). In keeping with Butler (1990, 1993), we
contend that it is always possible to repeat available discursive and corporeal acts differ-
ently. However, subverting the norms of conduct contained in managerial athleticism
provides a threat to the recognition that it enables, and resistance through such subver-
sions is thus likely to be subtle (Laine et al., 2016).
Finally, our study has some practical implications. In terms of research practice, we
encourage scholars to engage in reflexive undoing of identities (Riach et al., 2016)
when they study passionate managerial health, fitness and sports orientation. This
would allow for a richer conceptualization of resistance to athleticism. Managers, in
turn, could reflect on the longer-term repercussions and risks in athleticism, both in
terms of their own health and well-being (see Michel, 2011) and of employee reactions
(McGillivray, 2005). Extremism is always potentially dangerous. As Vermeulen (2016)

Johansson et al. 1163
argues, managing a company as if it were a competitive sport is likely to lead its busi-
ness astray in the long term.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Professor Susan Meriläinen for her insightful advice. We would also like to
extend our gratitude to Associate Editor Mathew Sheep for his encouragement and support and to
the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful feedback on earlier versions of
this article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or
not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
1 All research participants’ names are pseudonyms.
2 Linstead and Brewis (2007) discuss different meanings of passion. We understand passion
in what they call a teleological way, as a powerful and purposive motivation to achieve an
end result. Hence, passion can be ‘wild, indeterminate, uncontrollable and transgressive’
(Thanem, 2013: 402).
3 Kelly et al. (2007) locate the ‘corporate athlete’ in an analysis inspired by Michel Foucault’s
ideas on the genealogies of self. They do not define the concept, but appear to use it as a dis-
cursive construction and a metaphor as well as an identity (Kelly et al., 2007: 277, 281).
4 Although athletic bodily identity is perhaps disproportionately concerned with one’s own
appearance, we do not analyze it as a form of narcissism (Pullen and Rhodes, 2008).
5 For Butler, performativity is an ontological concept: ‘there is no gender identity behind the
expressions of gender … Identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that
are said to be its results’ (Butler, 1990: 25). Enactment relates to concrete (discursive and cor-
poreal) acts in and through which identity is made manifest. In addition to studies of gender,
organizations and management, Butler’s ideas on performativity have inspired research on
dynamics of identification in project management (Hodgson, 2005), ethical living (Kenny,
2010) and strategy-making (Laine et al., 2016), for example.
6 In developing the concept of abject, Fotaki (2013) draws on feminist psychoanalysts and
post-structuralist philosophers Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Also, Judith Butler talks
about the experience of abjection in not being recognized as legitimate and in falling outside
the norm.
7 We view discourses and other social practices as inextricably connected. Bodies are socially
inscribed and language plays a crucial but not exclusive role in this inscribing (Grosz, 1994).
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Janet Johansson is a PhD-candidate at the section of Management and Organization Studies in
Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research focuses on workplace
phenomena such as identity construction, gender, embodiment, sport and lifestyle from the per-
spective of leadership. [Email: janet.johansson@sbs.su.se]
Janne Tienari is Professor of Management and Organization at Hanken School of Economics,
Finland. His research and teaching interests include managing multinational corporations, mergers
and acquisitions, strategy work, gender and feminist theory, and branding and media. His passion
is to understand management, new generations and the future. Tienari’s work has been published
in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Organization Studies,
Organization, Human Relations and Journal of Management Studies. [Email: jtienari@hanken.fi]
Anu Valtonen is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of Lapland, Faculty of Social
Sciences, Finland. She works at the interface of marketing, organization and tourism studies, and
her research interests relate to qualitative methodologies, bodies and senses. Currently, she
explores the changing cultures of sleep. Her work has been published in Organization, Annals of
Tourism Research, Journal of Material Culture, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption,
Markets and Culture and Tourism Studies. [Email: anu.valtonen@ulapland.fi]