Corporate Dress-Codes in Russia

Corporate Dress-Codes in Russia

This project investigating corporate dress codes as the manifestation of a discourse on regulating appearances in Russian companies seeks to address the following questions: If and how Russian companies are regulating or attempting to regulate the appearance of their employees (official corporate dress codes, best-practice descriptions); how employees react to corporate dress codes (topics, argumentation, metaphors, narrative) and how they adopt them (subjectification, empowerment); how this discourse relates to other observable dimensions of the respective corporate culture. The results of the discourse analysis are interpreted in the context of the (Soviet, pre-revolutionary) sartorial history and the current discourse on Russian everyday life (key words glamour, status, taste).

The analysis of the dress code discourse is based mainly on guided interviews with employees of Russian companies, the analysis of Codes of Conduct of Russian companies, and dress code guidelines.

Duration: 2010-2015

Contact: Katharina Klingseis (katharina.klingseis@wu.ac.at