Cathrine Seierstad

Women's equality in the Scandinavian academy: a distant dream?

While Scandinavian countries are deemed the most equal in the world, vertical sex segregation remains resilient in the Scandinavian academy. This article investigates women’s equality in universities in three Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, countries where women’s share of professorships is below the EU average. It explores the perception of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian women academics with respect to sex equality, hiring and discrimination. In doing so, it exposes the resilience of inequality regimes in Scandinavian universities and thereby questions the reality of sex equality in countries deemed the ‘most equal’. However, the article also finds that Norwegian respondents were less likely to report discrimination and it reflects on the reasons for differences between the Scandinavian countries.

Gender Quotas on Corporate Boards in Norway: Ten Years Later and Lessons Learned

Norway was the first country to propose gender representation regulations by means of gender quotas for public limited boards. The law was ratified by the Parliament in 2003 and implemented in 2006 with a two-year grace period. In this chapter, we describe some of the contextual factors and processes that were important leading up to the introduction of the quota law in Norway. We contend that the law is, to a certain extent, in line with the history of equality and the use of policies in the labour market in Norway. Moreover, we argue that politicking and a wide range of actors, in particular women politicians, played an important role in the process leading up to the introduction of the law. In addition, we comment on some of the effects, consequences and lessons learned since the introduction, building on the voluminous body of research that has emerged in the post-quota period. In particular, we show that the law is effective as boards are now gender balanced. Nevertheless, the results of creating more diversity (or equality) beyond the boardroom are less clear. Nonetheless, we argue that the most important effects of the quota law in Norway have possibly been those beyond the country’s border. We contend that if the law had not been introduced in Norway, we would most likely not have seen the trends that are now taking place in Europe (and beyond), where the use of quotas and targets have become natural in diversity discussions at both the political and organisational levels.

Introduction: CSR and Diversity Management

Both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and workforce diversity and, further, the question how to manage diversity have become increasingly important areas for organisations, businesses, countries and researchers worldwide over the last decades. A wide range of CSR and diversity management (DM) initiatives and practices has been initiated and introduced at different levels stretching from organisational to national and international level. Despite the increased global focus, the understanding and approaches vary both between and within countries. In response, this book sets out to explore the current international understandings and approaches of CSR and DM. In particular, this book investigates the relationship between CSR, diversity and DM.