Purpose“Reputation management” is widely used as a rationale for public relations, although the public relations practice has problems with its own reputation. Public relations is presented in textbooks as a mature management discipline, yet the term “public relations” is rejected by many practitioners and academics. “Reputation management” may have been introduced to counter negative associations and to gain status for the practice. The purpose of this paper is to use critical theory to question the ideas and assumptions underlying “reputation management” and to examine contradictions within the term.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews what this theory has to say about public relations and its claim to be a mature management discipline. It examines how public relations practitioners explain their role to internal and external publics.FindingsAn initial literature review suggests that the contradictions within “reputation management” mirror contradictions within public relations practice.Originality/valueThe paper encourages debate in the public relations field.

Women’s bodybuilding has attracted attention from gender researchers. However, increasingly popular fitness shows that feature different competitive tracks—bikini and figure—have garnered very limited scholarly consideration. This study draws on interview data from twenty bikini and figure competitors as well as ethnographic research conducted at several prominent bodybuilding shows in Texas with fitness competition tracks. Our investigation provides a comparative analysis of women’s participation in bikini versus figure fitness competitions as an embodied gender practice. Participation in this relatively new sport underscores the interconnections between gender and variegated forms of embodiment that we call athletic, aesthetic, erotic, and everyday bodies. Pre-competition regimens pose challenges for women’s management of their bodies due to dietary deprivation, rigorous workouts, and the specter of track-specific judging criteria. Pre-competition strains are often evident in primary relationships as women’s bodies are prepared for aesthetic presentation in a way that, for bikini and especially figure competitors, can undermine physical functionality and social capabilities. Competitions themselves reveal relationships marked by a mix of camaraderie and hierarchy among competitors, with those in the figure track often viewed as more “serious” athletes but less conventionally “feminine” than their bikini counterparts. Post-competition, women often struggle to accept the return of their “normal” everyday body. This study reveals the agency of women and their bodies in the context of a fast-growing sport while considering the broader social implications of fitness competitions given their tracking of women’s bodies.

Turkey has been characterized as a nation that exhibits an amalgam of Eastern and Western cultural values. For a lengthy period of time, Turkey had prohibited Muslim women’s wearing of the veil in many public venues. Yet, the vast majority of this nation’s citizens are highly devout Muslims. Our study uses these paradoxes as a springboard for investigating early twenty-first century religious influences on Turkish Muslim women’s attitudes toward gender inequality. We introduce the theoretical construct of diversified institutional contexts, arguing that gender is not simply a singular institutional form but rather ebbs and flows with women’s mobility across variegated institutional settings. We hypothesize that religious devotion among Muslim women in Turkey circa the year 2000 will be associated with greater support for gender inequality across several institutional domains, namely, family, education, the workplace, and politics. In addition, we anticipate that as women move across these institutional contexts, they will encounter distinctive gender norms that shape their social opportunities. The public secularism and privatized religious climate of Turkey will yield the most pronounced religious support for gender inequality in family life when compared with other institutional contexts. These hypotheses are proposed for Turkey at the turn of the twenty-first century, prior to the rise of the current ruling party, and are supported with data analyzed from the 2001 wave of the World Values Survey. We conclude by specifying implications of these findings and promising directions for future research, including the continued monitoring of recent developments in this politically changing nation.

Turkey has been characterized as a nation that exhibits an amalgam of Eastern and Western cultural values. For a lengthy period of time, Turkey had prohibited Muslim women’s wearing of the veil in many public venues. Yet, the vast majority of this nation’s citizens are highly devout Muslims. Our study uses these paradoxes as a springboard for investigating early twenty-first century religious influences on Turkish Muslim women’s attitudes toward gender inequality. We introduce the theoretical construct of diversified institutional contexts, arguing that gender is not simply a singular institutional form but rather ebbs and flows with women’s mobility across variegated institutional settings. We hypothesize that religious devotion among Muslim women in Turkey circa the year 2000 will be associated with greater support for gender inequality across several institutional domains, namely, family, education, the workplace, and politics. In addition, we anticipate that as women move across these institutional contexts, they will encounter distinctive gender norms that shape their social opportunities. The public secularism and privatized religious climate of Turkey will yield the most pronounced religious support for gender inequality in family life when compared with other institutional contexts. These hypotheses are proposed for Turkey at the turn of the twenty-first century, prior to the rise of the current ruling party, and are supported with data analyzed from the 2001 wave of the World Values Survey. We conclude by specifying implications of these findings and promising directions for future research, including the continued monitoring of recent developments in this politically changing nation.