Surprisingly few studies have been performed regarding gender and general staff in higher education, a workforce that in Sweden is called stödpersonal, meaning supportive staff (my translation). Academic staff is called kärnpersonal, meaning core staff (my translation). The academy is a hierarchical organisation where core staff holds the decisive power of the means and the goals of the organisation. These terms can be seen as symbols for gendering processes, constructed by what Acker (1990) calls a gendered organisation. There is a gender imbalance between the categories, for example at Umeå University, 77 percent of those who work with administrative tasks are women (i.e. supportive staff), and 68 percent of the professors are men (i.e. core staff). In order to study the experiences of the supportive staff, qualitative interviews were made with members of the supportive staff at Umeå University. The study shows that supportive staff experiences a lack of participation in meetings and working teams, and it also experiences that the core staff doesn’t recognise its competence. The supportive staff also sees that there are few possibilities to career development. Supportive staff in this study might not know how to improve its situation, but it knows that in order to reach respectability and valuation (Skeggs, 1997, 2014) it should create a distance to an image of a secretary, a subject position that is created for the supportive staff by the university. A secretary represents a woman without a decisive power of her own; she is also a generalist, which is not meritorious in an organisation where the highest power is held by people with high level of specialist knowledge.

In this study I aim to examine how flexible work conditions affect gendered norms in the workplace and in the family constellations, and through this knowledge contribute to how organizations can increase their awareness about gendered norms. The theoretical framwork is based off West and Zimmermans theory Doing Gender, with compliments from Joan Acker andthe theory of inequality regimes. The study is based of 7 semi-structured interviews with women who have flexible working conditions evolving their ability to control time, space and implimentation in thei work.  The results show that flexible work conditions can have a catalyzing effect on gendered practices in organizations. This is presented by the way the women in this study chooses to use the time they "save" buy flexible working conditions, which is mainly used for family affairs and childcare. Also by the way women express guilt towards family and work when they can´t meet the avaliability demands from the private sphere and the work sphere. Although the women in this study does not experience external expectations to take more responsibility around the home and children, it is still expressed buy them as "natural" since they have more time. This shows that the doing of gender is present in these actions. It is not based on rational divisions between men and women but rather the socially constructed idea of women being more suited for domestic work. Organizations contribute to the doing of gender by being unaware of how these norms can be reproduced through flexible working conditions. Organizations keep feeding the norm of the ideal worker which functions as a gendered process. It´s important for organizations to increase their awareness of this phenomenon in order to create structures which will promote flexible working conditions as something for everyone and not only women. I believe this study can contribute to that awareness and help organizations to start reflecting on the doing of gender in their workplace.

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur organisationers mångfaldsarbete och mångfaldsrekrytering kan förstås med utgångspunkt i ett svensk mansdominerad industribolags rekryteringsförfarande. För att uppfylla uppsatsens syfte användes en kvalitativ metod som inkluderade granskning av industribolagets dokument rörande mångfald och rekrytering samt intervjuer med HR-personal och chefer med rekryteringsansvar. Resultatet visar på att industribolaget har systematiskt mångfaldsarbete och att HR-personalen har en god insyn i mångfaldsarbetet. Bland cheferna framgår det att en majoritet inte tänker på mångfaldsaspekten i rekryteringsförfarandet utan ser det snarare som HR-personalens uppgift. Den avslutande diskussionen lyfter att industribolaget skulle behöva en tydlig typografi för mångfaldsbegreppet. Det för att skapa en förståelse för vad mångfald är vilket skulle kunna hjälpa såväl chefer som HR-personalen i rekryteringsförfarandet. / The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how organizations’ diversity work and diversity recruitment can be understood, based on a Swedish male-dominated industrial company’s recruitment process. In order to fulfill the purpose, a qualitative method was used which included a review of the industrial company’s documents concerning diversity and recruitment, as well as interviews with HR and managers with recruitment responsibilities. The thesis result shows that the HR-personnel has a good understanding in the meaning of diversity work. However, the result shows that amongst a majority of the managers does not think about the diversity aspect of the recruitment process, but rather sees it as something HR ought to do. The conclusion highlights that the industrial company could benefit from a clear typography for the concept of diversity. This could entail to create an understanding for what diversity is, which could help both managers and HR-personnel in the recruitment process.

Previous research has shown that in the last 20 years, there has been discrimination againstindividuals with a foreign background in the Swedish labor market. Statistics illustrate thatpeople with a foreign background have weaker representation than Swedish-born inmanagerial positions. The purpose has been to describe how store managers with a foreignbackground experience their working conditions and professional role in Sweden, to presentstore managers 'perceptions of discrimination in retail and to highlight positive leadershipstories where store managers' foreign backgrounds have been an advantage. Throughsemi-structured interviews, the study sheds light on store managers' experiences of theexistence of discrimination and what it is like to be a manager with a foreign background inSweden. An image emerges that a foreign background often becomes a strength in themanagers' work, where their unique habitus enriches their leadership. At the same time, theSwedish labor market is mediated as formally equal but informally unequal. The storemanagers confirm the previous research in many respects; that discrimination occurs, often inthe recruitment process, due to name selection, that individuals have a linguistic break orthrough informal favoritism that occurs when individuals with a foreign background are notgiven access to network. A perspective of discrimination that has not been discussed inprevious discrimination research has been conveyed; that customers act discriminatorytowards store managers. The results of the study indicate that unequal informal structures insociety and in organizations are expressed when low social and cultural capital throughnetworks and language risks becoming a gatekeeper that hinders career development. Thisstudy has shown that despite laws and regulations on discrimination that have been added inthe last 15 years, inequality is still reproduced in organizations which can be understood asinequality regimes. / Tidigare forskning har visat att det under de senaste 20 åren skett diskriminering av individermed utländsk bakgrund på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Statistik visar att individer medutländsk bakgrund har svagare representation än svenskfödda i chefspositioner. Syftet harvarit att beskriva hur butikschefer med utländsk bakgrund upplever sina arbetsförhållandenoch sin yrkesroll i Sverige, att framställa butikschefers uppfattning om diskriminering inomdetaljhandeln samt att belysa positiva ledarskapsberättelser där butikschefers utländskabakgrund utgjort en fördel. Med semistrukturerade intervjuer belyser studien butikschefernasupplevelser om förekomsten av diskriminering och hur det är att vara chef med utländskbakgrund i Sverige. Genom informanterna framkommer en bild av att utländsk bakgrundmånga gånger blir en styrka i chefernas ledarskap. Samtidigt beskrivs den svenskaarbetsmarknaden som formellt jämlik men informellt ojämlik. Butikscheferna bekräftar imånga avseenden den tidigare forskningen; att diskriminering sker, ofta irekryteringsprocessen, på grund av namnselektion, att individer har en språklig brytning ellergenom informellt favoriserande som sker när individer med utländsk bakgrund inte fårmöjlighet till nätverkande. En bild av diskriminering som inte diskuterats i den tidigareforskningen har förmedlats; att kunder agerar diskriminerande gentemot butikscheferna.Studiens resultat indikerar att ojämlika informella strukturer i samhället och i organisationerkommer till uttryck då lågt socialt och kulturellt kapital genom nätverk och språk riskerar attbli en portvakt som hindrar karriärutvecklingen. Denna studie visar att trots lagar ochreglering om diskriminering som tillkommit de senaste 15 åren, reproduceras fortfarandeojämlikhet i organisationer vilka kan förstås som ojämlikhetsregimer.