This thesis consists of three articles. The first article is theory-based; it discusses the potential of women's business networks to function as change agents and puts forward a related research agenda. The second is an empirical exploration of a research avenue from the first article. It analyzes the positioning of a Swiss formal women's business network as an advocacy group and its endeavor to form an advocacy network with its 14 corporate partners; the tensions and implications for the agentic potential of this type of network are then discussed. The third article is methodological, and develops a reflection that started with the development of the research design for the empirical paper. It advocates a wider use of linguistics-based tools for discourse analysts in the field of management and organization studies, whether they adopt a critical or postmodern approach in their research.