Anna Berbers is an assistant professor Corporate Communication at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD in Social Sciences from KU Leuven (2016), where she studied media portrayal, social networks, and identification processes of ethnic and religious minorities.

Her current research is on diversity and inclusion and how organizations shape these topics as political actors. She is particularly interested in corporate social advocacy of organizations on LGBTQIA+ related topics and studies both how organizations communicate about these topics and publics, as well as how the communication is received in light of perceptions of authenticity and organizational legitimacy. 

She uses an intersectional approach in her research, focusing on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. In studying these topics, she uses various methods, including experiments, interviews and focus groups, and content analysis.

Expertise and research fields

• Public relations
• Strategic communication
• Organizational legitimacy
• Corporate social advocacy
• Pinkwashing

Administrative role

• Coach for lecturers

Research methods

• Survey
• Experimental research design
• Interviews and focus groups
• Content analysis

Current research projects

Exploring effects of corporate social advocacy-communication during Pride on organizational legitimacy and perceptions of pinkwashing.

Anna teaches the ‘domain module Corporate communication’ in the bachelor and ‘Strategic communication’ and ‘Organizational behavior and communication’ in the master. She supervises thesis research for (research) master students and she is a member of the department’s test review committee that reflects on and improves the quality of testing in our programmes.