Shaped by Culture : Gender Equality Practices in Male-Dominated, Technology-Intensive Contexts

This thesis examines how organizational culture shapes gender equality practices in male-dominated, technology-intensive organizations in Sweden. The study is situated within contemporary societal challenges characterized by technological development, the climate crisis, and persistent gender inequality, where organizations are often portrayed as central arenas for change. At the same time, previous research demonstrates that many technology-intensive organizations are characterized by norms, hierarchies, and knowledge ideals that reproduce inequality. Drawing on feminist organization studies, organizations are understood as gendered, and gender equality practices are conceptualized as situated, relational, and culturally embedded processes through which gender is done. The thesis consists of four studies in two interconnected yet organizationally distinct contexts within Sweden’s technology-intensive landscape: technical higher education and the financial technology (fintech) industry. The first context is a technical university, where future engineers study, and technical knowledge is produced and disseminated. The second context is the Swedish fintech industry, with a particular focus on rapidly growing scale-up organizations in which engineers work and technological innovation is commercialized. Both contexts are numerically male-dominated and subject to expectations to engage in gender equality and diversity work, yet are characterized by different organizational logics and understandings of change. Methodologically, the thesis employs a qualitative research approach combining interviews, job shadowing, and document analysis. The first two papers analyze gender equality practices in engineering education and demonstrate howandrocentric cultures shape both the scope of such practices and the organizational conditions that enable them. The latter two papers focus on the fintech industry and analyze how understandings of diversity are constructed at the industry and organizational levels, and how gender equality practices are integrated into, and constrained by, homosocial cultures. By synthesizing the findings from the four studies, the thesis makes three key contributions. First, it demonstrates that gender equality practices in these contexts are shaped more by cultural norms than by strategic problem analysis, resulting in initiatives that signal progress while leaving deeper power structures intact. Second, it advances understanding of homosociality by showing how men’s engagement is both enabled and constrained by the masculine legitimacy they embody, positioning them as legitimate actors of change, yet often without disrupting underlying hierarchies. Third, it contributes to research on organizational change by revealing the inherent ambivalence of gender equality practices: practices aimed at transformation may simultaneously reproduce gendered power relations.