Getting it "right"- Swedish organizations navigating gender and gender equality through a gender equality award.

Abstract

Abstract of thesis (max 8000 characters) This qualitative study takes an inductive approach towards the field of gender and gender equality work. The main aim of the study is to gain understandings of how companies who seek recognition for their gender equality practices use an award for gender equality and how they view the concepts of gender and gender equality. Our research draws from a poststructuralist feministic metatheoretical framework as we stress how reality is socially constructed and discursive fields dictate how we view gender and gendered relations. Drawing on interpretative and critical approaches, our data is approached in an open and explorative way. Our findings reveal that understandings of gender and gender equality work are shifting thus making these concepts ambiguous. As an attempt to make sense of them, companies create a branded identity as organizations “getting it right”. We suggest that future research elaborates on the relationship between branding and recognition seeking and also call for extended research on practical suggestions for “undoing” gender in organizations.