Gender and Equality as Innovation
Ewa Gunnarsson, prof.
The division of Business administration, Technology and Social Science
Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
The project; Gender and Equality development in the
Faste Laboratory, is part of the VINNOVA TIGER program
The Faste Laboratory is a VINN Excellence Center
consisting of 8 industrial partners and 6 academic partners
at LTU
The TIGER program is a strategy to strengthen the fulfilment
of gender mainstreaming in strong research and
innovation milieus
Gender Science
A gender science platform is combined with
interactive and participatory methods and
processes to promote a sustainable gender
mainstreaming change.
Gender science is seen as a leverage to
innovation in extending the knowledge base for
recruitment, competence and career
possibilities.
Interactive and participatory approach
Interactive processes and participatory methods
are means to create more innovative
organizational change processes and joint
learning processes among researchers and
participants.
‘Catalytic validity’ the degree to which research
process reorients, focuses and energizes
participants towards knowing reality in order to
transform it (Lather, 1994).
’Gender Reflective Reminders’
A process tool that embodies important gender
concepts that pay attention to gendered
structures in society such as:
- Gender contracts on different levels
- The relative subordination of women
- Responsible or care rationality
Doing gender as a theoretical approach FensterMaker and West (2002) was linked to theories on
gendering processes in organisations (Acker, 1999,
Gunnarsson et al. 2003, Kvande, 1998 and
Korvajärvi 1998)
Doing gender is seen as an ongoing situated
activity and interactive action between women and
men, between women and between men. The
theory incorporates a dynamic view on how gender
is done in organisations and at the same time
makes structures and relations of power visible.
Four interacting sets of processes in the model
Sexsegregations
Identity
Self-definitions
Symbols/image
s
Interaction
Sets of processes (entrances) to study gender inequality in
organisations
1.
Procedures: activities and divisions
2.
Images, symbols, forms and consciousness
3.
Interactions between individuals and groups
4.
Internal mental work
Joan Acker “Gender and Organizations”
in Handbook of the Sociology of Gender,
eds Janet Chafetz Kluwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 1999
Main focus of exploration
GENERATED IN THE PILOT STUDY WITH JOINT
DISCUSSIONS WITH THE INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS
1)
Recruitment processes, the formulation of
competence i.e. in advertisements, programs, policies
and career paths for women and men.
2)
The achievement of increased gender integration
and competence is expected to broaden the
development of new products, services and markets.
3)
“Developing” the male dominant culture to show
values and norms that are an obstacle to an increased
and sustainable gender equality and gender
competence achievement.
Two case studies
Sandvik Coromant and LTU
A core of ”gender equality actors” are driving the
process in the organisations facilitated by the
researchers.
Sandvik Coromant: 14 Middle managers
LTU: 12 -14 researchers/managers
A collaborative research and
change process
The participants in the two groups and the
two researchers are involved in a joint
learning and change process.
The participants will during these three years
increasingly own the change process.
Using different participatory methods that
”develop” the cultures in these male
dominated environments to make explicit
values and norms that hinder gender equality
integration and increased gender competence,
for example through gender observations,
value excercises, analyses of policy document
and reports.
Some results…
Sandvik Coromant
*This project has been the platform and the
ignition for today’s education and learning
program including top management, middle
managers (about. 50p) in the organisation.
*Gender equality education for all staff (about 500p)
During February to April 2011
*Benchmarking through visiting global companies i
the USA (IBM, Lilly etc..) in May 2012
*Shifting focus from gender equality to diversity
*Gender- and diversity mainstreaming is today seen
as an important part of their ‘employer brand’ and is
today being launched globally in the overall
Sandvik consortium.
Competence a gendered core issue.
A workshop with the aim to make visible how they recruit middle
managers.
They started with a discussion in small groups where they listed
competences that they thought a professional middle manager should
have.
Then they all discussed and reflected upon what they have listed.
The researchers were only facilitating the procedure.
Then they were asked to categorize the compences according to
following four categories:
Formally aknowledged
General
Specific
Not formally aknoledged
- Generella
-Specific
Based on work by Andreasen och Jörgensen, 1987,developed
By Gunnarsson, Abramhamsson and Gunnarsson, 2003)
What became visible?
What is the problem?
A learning ’good example’ or getting lost in
transformation?
Emerging dilemmas when a technical
economical rationality meet social science
traditions.
The field – an advanced technical
male dominated industrial milieu
The construction of knowledge
The construction of competence
How is this reflected in the recruitment
processes?
The privilege of evidence based measures
The demand within the company and from the
funding body
Research questions to be explored more indepth:
• Who is setting the gender mainstreaming
agenda in terms of issues and actions to be
taken?
• How is consensus and dissensus negotiated?
PROMOTING INNOVATION
- POLICIES, PRACTICES and
PROCEDURES
Eds. Andersson, Berglund, Gunnarsson and Sundin
To be published by VINNOV A November 2012
Content
-Policies
Chris Hudson, for example on regional development
-Practices
How to organize for innovative innovation systems
-Procedures
Methods and procedures for example. Doing gender with an
interactive approach
SOME REFERENCES
The Action Research Dissertation – A guide for Students and Faculty, Herr and
Andersen (2005, Sage).
The Snake and the Apple in the Common Paradise, Gunnarsson, in Action Research
and Interactive Research – Beyond practice and theory, Aagaard Nielsen and Svensson,
eds. (2006, Shaker Publishing)
Other Sides of the Coin – A Feminist Perspective on Robustness in Science and
Knowledge Production, Gunnarsson, in International Journal of Action Research, issue
3, 2007.
Power and Knowledge in Collaborative Research, Phillips, Kristensen, Gunnarsson and
Vehviläinen, eds. (August 2012, Routledge)
Promoting Innovation – Policies, Practices and Procedures, Andersson, Berglund,
Gunnarsson and Sundin eds. (november 2012, VINNOVA)
Some results…
LTU
The group of 12-14 researchers/managers and one
project administrative support has:
Explored reports, information folders etc and redesigned them in a more gender neutral way.
Investigated the values of words and gendered
meaning of words.
It is also currently developing a model called Gender
Awareness Action Level (GAAL) to measure innovation
and change in gender mainstreaming processes.
FROM ACTION RESEARCH TO
INTERACTIVE RESEARCH
A general definition:
”Where researchers, funding agencies and
’user groups´ interact throughout the entire
research process, including the definition of
the research agenda, project selection,
project execution and the application of
research insights.” (Caswill & Shove, 2000
in
Svensson, Ellström and Brulin, paper
presented at the HSS09 conferenence in
Luleå, 2009)