Tales of DEI: An Ethnographic Study of Gender Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in a Gendered Organization – Nordic Bank

This PhD dissertation, a monograph, is an organizational ethnographic study of gender diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) in a (highly male-)gendered organization – a large bank in Northern Europe, “Nordic Bank.” The study is positioned within the field of gender in organization studies and the broader DEI literature. Ethnographic observations led the author to ask the following inductively emerging main research question: “How do gendering processes undermine gender-related DEI efforts?”
Drawing on Joan Acker’s gendering processes framework from the theory of gendered organizations, this study applies three process sets – organizing processes, organization culture, and interactions on the job – with the concept of gender microaggressions incorporated into the third process set. The aim is to explore organizational issues that have influenced the bank’s ability to deliver on its DEI objectives in relation to gender. The application of three sets of gendering processes is guided by three sub-questions: (1) What are the organizing processes surrounding DEI work(ers), and how are they developed and maintained within Nordic Bank? (2) How does Nordic Bank’s organizational culture facilitate or hinder an environment supportive of gender-related DEI efforts? (3) How do interactions on the job, particularly in the form of gender microaggressions, hinder gender-related DEI efforts in Nordic Bank?
The empirical foundation for this study is qualitative data from a 26-month-long fieldwork conducted in Nordic Bank. It spans four Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway – and is grounded in three data sources: ethnographic field notes, interviews, and archival data. The analysis presents the findings in three sections: They outline (I) how the bank’s organizational practices shaped DEI work, influenced the recruitment of DEI workers, and contributed to the construction of a DEI governance structure, (II) the bank’s culture, including resource allocation, prioritizations, and support systems based on what is culturally valued and rewarded in the bank, (III) the gendered nature of day-to-day workplace interactions embedded in and shaped by Nordic Bank’s organizational context.
This PhD dissertation contributes to research on gender in organization studies and to the DEI literature with several theoretical and empirical insights. First, it extends Acker’s framework by introducing DEI governance structures as a conceptual addition to organizing processes. Indeed, DEI governance structures – despite being designed to support a robust DEI agenda – construct and perpetuate gendered hierarchies among DEI workers and remain disconnected from everyday, problematic gendered interactions. Although DEI governance structures have become more sophisticated, they have developed into another mechanism perpetuating gender inequalities within gendered organizations, ultimately failing to dismantle them. Second, this study also extends Acker’s process set of interactions on the job by incorporating gender microaggressions. While microaggressions are primarily covered in the social psychology literature and at an individual level, doing so enables to connect the focus on day-to-day, inter-individual problematic interactions with the concern for gendered organizations. Third and related, as this study was conducted in a Northern European context, it offers an empirical contribution by expanding the research area beyond the prevalent Anglo-Saxon study settings and thus offers practical insights for organizations that may better translate into this different context. Practical implications for organizations include the importance of addressing the entrenched masculine norms valued in organizational cultures that have largely remained unchallenged within the financial services sector in a supposedly gender equal society, recognizing gender microaggressions as part of DEI work, preventing gendered hierarchies among DEI workers, and ensuring that DEI governance structures do not function in isolation but are instead integrated with and influence broader organizational practices. These measures suggest, overall, that organizations need to work towards granting greater cultural legitimacy to the gender-related DEI agenda to drive meaningful organizational change, and lead us towards more gender diverse, equal, and inclusive workplaces.