Gender Equality, Better Practiced as Workforce Diversity : An explorative study on how CSR focusing on gender equality policies is practiced

Sammanfattning: This study explores how organizations practice CSR focusing on the statutory equality planand gender equality policies. It was found that many organizations incorporate workforcediversity into their gender equality policies; therefore workforce diversity was also of greatimportance in this study. The foundation is interviews of managers within the service andmanufacturing industries and viewing of documents. CSR is a commonly used concept referring to environmental, economical and socialresponsibilities. One aspect of CSR is gender equality, which often is closely related to theeconomic and social responsibilities. Gender is defined as socially constructed and hence itcan vary between different societies. However, in this study gender is considered as maleand female. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand how organizations practice CSRfocusing on the statutory equality plan and gender equality policies, it was divided intothree sub-purposes to further cover the design of policies, how they are communicated andwhat challenges organizations face when practicing them. The objective was not togeneralize the findings. To meet the purpose, six interviews were conducted where theparticipants shared their reflections and thoughts; this was complemented by relevantdocuments. The research questions we seek to answer are: How do organizations practiceCSR, focusing on the statutory equality plan and gender equality policies? And, Whatchallenges do organizations face when practicing CSR focusing on the statutory equalityplan and gender equality policies? It was found that the service industry practice CSR focusing on gender equality well on amanagerial level. However, it was clear that the plan and policies were not strategicallycommunicated to the employees. Moreover, the employee surveys did not capture genderequality or workforce diversity. The findings of the manufacturing industry showed thatthey have several routines and strategies for how they should communicate and practice CSR focusing on workforce diversity. They have yearly employee surveys within thesubject as well as a booklet of organizational values, which is given out to all newemployees. Several challenges were discovered and brought up by the interviewees. One ofthem being preconceptions of the industry. It was clear that both the service and themanufacturing industry suffered from this as people tend to have preconceptions of theservice industry being simple and the manufacturing being tough and dirty. Futureresearchers are suggested to study workforce diversity separately, looking at the differentaspects to enable a more thorough understanding. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Gender Equality, WorkforceDiversity, Manufacturing Industry, Service Industry, Managers