Exploring Gendered Language in Purchasing and Supply Management Job Advertisements

This paper investigates how gendered language is used in purchasing and supply management (PSM) advertisements. In our initial exploration of this phenomenon, we examined 83 job advertisements and analysed them against gender-based agentic and communal language dictionaries to understand if, where and how gendered language is used in PSM job advertisements. Surprisingly, we did not find national culture differences across three different countries: Austria, Belgium and the UK, however, we did find that agentic language is used most prevalently at the Buyer position and could be causing the glass ceiling effect at this level.