The focus on diversity is relatively new in the Norwegian labor market but its expansion is comparable to other European countries. Due to the changing contours of the population outlook in Norway and the large demand of labor, there is a challenge faced by different actors in the processes of formulating and implementing social policies. These confrontations include factors such as qualification, training, facilitation, racism and other forms of discrimination. Along with political and legal measures to ensure fair conditions, there has been an involvement of both public and private sectors in discussions related to these issues and how they can be talked. Due to this, a number of organizations such as Posten Norway AS, Telenor ASA, Statoil ASA, Stormberg and Dalpro have embarked on strategic measures focusing on how to deal with the diversity problematic in their respective firms. These organizations are both publicly and privately owned. This paper engaged in an exploration of these strategies by closely relating to a research project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU Social Research Limited in the report "Why Diversity" (Berg, Thorshaug,Garvik,Svendsen and Øiaas, 2012). The case studies of the named organizations were chosen based on their working strategies parallel to diversity variations, diversity management, the size of the organization, and industrial affiliation. The data collection from the companies was based on interviews with Human Resource personnel and diversity managers. Other sources of data included public documents from the studied organizations. This paper discusses how employers in the private and public entities choose to use diversity work as a strategy. John Wrench’s theory of "Diversity Management" is used to analyze the applied strategies through the various measures. A qualitative approach was employed and involved conversations and interviews, analysis of the given documents, related literature (both off and online), observation and knowledge gained during the research project. The considered relevant aspects to highlight diversity in this paper, in a broader sense, included immigrants, immigrants in the labor market, as well as political and legal constraints in workplace. The findings in this study are a presentation of the various strategic approaches used by the chosen companies, exploring and discussing their experiences and assessing what enhances or limits a good diversity management.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:ntnu-21520 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Øiaas, Susanne Hellan |
| Publisher | Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for sosialt arbeid og helsevitenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Norwegian |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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