Imagine one Brit, one Dutch, two North Americans, one Spaniard and three Swedes setting up a joint international research project. Their areas of expertise vary: sociology, labour law and organisational theory. The scene is taking place in a hotel conference room in Uppsala. The North Americans are tired from the long trip and the jet-lag. The Spaniard arrived later than everybody, including himself, expected, due to another strike of air traffic controllers. The Dutch had to come alone. His colleague had too much work at home to be able to free himself for the four days the meeting lasts. The same goes for the Brit. As for the Swedes, all three were able to make some place in their agendas. Abundance characterises international projects in particular and human collaboration in general; that is, the immense variety of practices, behaviours and incidents that inundate life and are difficult to foresee when defining a goal, designing a plan or organising a cooperation. This leads to vagueness, because to include such a variety, the words used to describe the international project and the models/plans used to structure it must remain open and flexible. Based on an ethnography of the above described group, this dissertation  illuminates how, with the help of linguistic resources, the group deals with vagueness, copes with abundance and organises an international collaboration. Within this framework, cultural differences and cultural stereotypes cease being a source of misunderstanding and conflict. Instead, they become linguistic resources to cope with vagueness and abundance. Constructive interaction and successful cooperation lie in a delicate equilibrium: Levelling Vagueness. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002

This thesis examines library managers' attitude to the composition of the library workforce and their perceived resources and power to promote a library workforce which better represents the community in which it operates. What do the managers consider causes this composition and what changes do they find possible to implement in the future. The method used for collecting the material was e-mail and telephone interviews. The material is analyzed mainly through Taylor Cox' theories about the multicultural organization in which Cox demonstrates the positive impact that cultural heterogeneity has at a workplace by creating non-discriminatory effective organizations in which people from all different socio-cultural backgrounds are included. Some intersectional theory and related research also form the basis for the analysis. The results show that managers are very much aware of the problem of an overly homogeneous library workforce. They express that diversity needs to increase in all public institutions for it to take place in a library context. They also believe that the most limiting factor of the ability to conduct successful diversity efforts is a lack of resources, time and budget. There is a widespread perception among the managers that a change in recruitment strategies must be implemented in order to overcome the homogeneity. The thesis further highlights a couple of managers' lack of sufficient diversity knowledge. Without the relevant knowledge among managers, one can not expect diversity strategies to be formulated adequately or implemented satisfactorily. Although the managers claim an eagerness to make a change, there is a lack of practical suggestions on which to act in their responses. However, it is not solely in the library managers' hands to improve the current situation, it requires everyone with influence on this issue to make it prioritized. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

Sverige har gått från att ha varit ett homogent land till ett multikulturellt land på ett par decennier. Arbetsmarknaden har haft stor efterfrågan på arbetskraft där företagare har anställt arbetskraft från andra länder och fått en hög mångfald på sina arbetsplatser. Ekonomisk nedgång i samhället har påverkat arbetsmarknaden med hög arbetslöshet speciellt för invandrare.Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka hur mångfald diskursivt konstrueras av chefer och HR-ansvariga på arbetsplatsen. Frågeställningar i vår studie har varit att undersöka hur chefer och HR-specialister samarbetar kring mångfaldsplanen och om de ser för- och nackdelar med mångfald på sina arbetsplatser. Offentliga myndigheter har enligt lag skyldighet att upprätta en mångfaldsplan vart tredje år och aktivt arbeta för att främja mångfald medan den privata sektorn inte har sådana krav. En tredje frågeställning i vår studie är att jämföra om det finns skillnader mellan dessa två företag och hur de eventuellt ser ut. För att få svar på våra forskningsfrågor har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ studie med semistrukturerade frågor. Vi har intervjuat tre respondenter inom vardera offentlig och privat sektor, två chefer, två HR-specialister och två fackliga ombud. Resultat som framkommer är att de anställda ska ha rätt yrkeskompetens och att chefer inte fokuserar på den arbetssökandes etnicitet eller kulturella bakgrund. Viktigt är att de personer som söker arbete passar in i arbetslaget och har värderingar som stämmer överens med verksamheten. Samarbete mellan chefer och HR-specialister ser lite olika ut mellan företagen i vår studie, eventuellt beroende på skillnaden i storlek. Vår studie visar att mångfald som begrepp kan vara svårdefinierbart då det inte bara handlar om etnicitet och annan kulturell bakgrund. Alla respondenterna ser positivt på mångfald på arbetsplatsen och tycker att de positiva effekterna väger tyngre än de negativa. / Sweden has gone from being a homogenous country to being a multi-cultural country in a couple of decades. The labor market has had great demand for labor and entrepreneurs have hired labor from other countries. Today there is a higher level of diversity in workplaces. Economic decline in society has affected labor market with an impact of high unemployment, especially for immigrants.The purpose of our study is to examine how diversity is discursively constructed by managers and HR managers in the workplace using a norm-critical perspective.Question formulation in our study were to examine how managers and HR specialists collaborate on the diversity plan and if they see advantages and disadvantages of diversity in their workplaces. Public authorities have a statutory duty to establish a diversity plan every three years and work actively to promote diversity while the private sector does not have such requirements. A third question formulation in our study is to compare whether there are differences between these two companies and what they might look like. To get answers to our research questions, we used a qualitative study using semi-structured questions. We interviewed three respondents from public and three from private sectors, two managers, two HR specialists and two union representatives. A result that emerges is that employees should have the right professional skills and that managers do not focus on the job applicant's ethnicity or cultural background. Important is that the people who are looking for work blend in with the team and have values that match the business. Cooperation between managers and HR specialists are slightly different between the companies in our study, possibly due to the difference in size. Our study shows that diversity as a concept can be difficult to define because it is not just about ethnicity and cultural background. All respondents welcome diversity in the workplace and think that the positive effects outweigh the negative.

Denna studie behandlar begreppet mångfald på arbetsplatsen i en svensk kontext. Begreppet har diskuterats i Sverige sedan slutet av 1990-talet, men det råder fortfarande en förvirring kring vad mångfald på arbetsplatsen innebär och vilken påverkan det har på enskilda organisationer. Vidare förknippas begreppet i Sverige med en hög grad av statlig inblandning, som på senare år fokuserats på att påverka organisationer i riktning mot en multikulturell modell. Dock hävdas att det finns liten erfarenhet i av den multikulturella modellen i den svenska praktiken. De företag som arbetar med mångfald gör det ofta inte integrativt, utan mer av ekonomiska skäl för att lättare kunna söka externt kapital.Syftet med studien är att utreda vilka perspektiv av mångfald som finns i olika svenska organisationer och hur dessa skiljer sig från, eller liknar, den multikulturella modell som förespråkas av samhällsdiskursen. Med hjälp av institutionell teori som referensram diskuteras sedan resultatet för att kunna förklara varför eventuella diskrepanser i diskursen kring mångfald på arbetsplatsen mellan olika nivåer i samhället uppstår. Kvalitativ analys av diskurser över flera nivåer av samhället genomförs utifrån en tvärsnittsdesign med urval av offentliga dokument såsom hemsidor, policydokument hållbarhetsredovisningar och årsredovisningar hos relevanta institutionella arrangemang i ett makroperspektiv, de allra största svenska företagen och ett slumpvis genererat urval av stora svenska företag i ett mikroperspektiv. Totalt analyseras 70 företag och sex institutionella arrangemang. Vi arbetar utifrån en abduktiv ansats där analysen inledningsvis görs med hjälp av en referensram kring mångfaldsperspektiv som senare utvecklas vid adderandet av institutionell teori och i ljuset av våra resultat.Vi finner att tre perspektiv på mångfald; förstärka homogenitet, det färgblinda perspektivet och rättviseperspektivet kan sägas vara institutionaliserade i den svenska kontexten med en stark fokusering på könsdimensionen av mångfald. Accessperspektivet och integration-lärandeperspektivet kan vi inte säga är institutionaliserade i den svenska kontexten. Istället kan de sägas vara på modet. De institutionella arrangemang som vi kan koppla till den svenska staten påverkar svenska organisationer genom tvingande institutionellt tryck till att anamma de institutionaliserande perspektiven. Det finns även en ambition till att regeringen skall agera förebild för mångfaldsarbete genom företag med statligt ägande. Dock sträcker sig texter från dessa institutionella arrangemang inte längre än till det färgblinda perspektivet och rättviseperspektivet. Istället finner vi de flesta uttrycken för accessperspektivet och integration-lärandeperspektivet, där vi även återfinner den multikulturella modellen, framför allt i diskursen som utgörs av texter hos de största svenska företagen. Studien bidrar, genom adderandet av institutionell teori, till en ny, mer pluralistisk syn på mångfaldsperspektiv än vad tidigare litteratur har illustrerat. / This study is addressing the concept of workplace diversity in the Swedish context. The concept has been discussed in Sweden since the late 1990´s, but still there are confusions about what workplace diversity really is, and what impact it has on particular organizations. Further, the concept is in the Swedish context associated with a high degree of governmental involvement which, as of late, has been focused on influencing organizations toward a multicultural model. However, some argue that there is little experience of a multicultural model in the Swedish practice. Those companies that work with diversity do so mostly out of economic reasons, in search of external capital and not in an integrative way.The purpose of this study is to investigate which perspectives on diversity there are in different Swedish organizations and how these can resemble, or differ from, the multicultural model that is advocated by the societal discourse. By means of institutional theory as a reference, the results are then discussed to explain why possible discrepancies in the discourse around workplace diversity between different levels of society may arise. Qualitative analysis of discourses throughout several levels of society is conducted with a cross-sectional design with a sample of public documents such as websites, policy documents, sustainability reports and annual accounts from relevant institutional arrangements in a macro-perspective, and in a micro-perspective; from the largest Swedish companies and a random sample of large, Swedish companies. A total of 70 companies and six institutional arrangements are analyzed. We have an abductive approach, where the analysis is initially conducted by means of a frame of reference around perspectives on diversity, which is further developed with the addition of institutional theory in light of our findings.We find that three perspectives on diversity; reinforcing homogeneity, the color-blind perspective and the fairness perspective can be said to be institutionalized in the Swedish context, with a strong focus on the gender dimension of diversity. The perspectives of access and integration-learning cannot be said to be institutionalized in the Swedish context, but can instead be seen as fashionable. The institutional arrangements we can associate with the Swedish government influence Swedish organizations by means of coercive institutional pressure to adapt to the institutionalized perspectives. There is also an ambition to act as a role model concerning diversity management through companies owned by the State. However, the texts we analyze deriving from these institutional arrangements stretch no further than to the color-blind perspective and the fairness perspective. Instead, we find the most expressions for the access perspective and the integration-learning perspective, where we also find the multicultural model, in the discourse consisting of texts deriving from the largest Swedish companies. The study contributes, by the addition of institutional theory, to a more pluralistic way of describing the perspectives on diversity, than illustrated by previous literature.The thesis is written in Swedish.