Workshop about gender equality at business schools
To celebrate International Women’s Day, the School of Business, Economics, and Law at Gothenburg University held a workshop for staff, the leadership team and students on 7th March 2025. The event began with a keynote presentation delivered by Professor Martyna Śliwa who emphasized that social change does not occur spontaneously, and that it requires dedicated, ongoing and collective effort. She drew attention to the global backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and gave examples of the pressing issues in relation to gender equality, including the dire situation for women in Afghanistan and sexual minorities in various countries. Śliwa asserted, “If it is happening to someone else, it is happening to all of us.”
Śliwa then discussed the role of business schools in promoting gender equality. She introduced the concept of micro-practices: “the small, often seemingly insignificant socio-political actions of individuals performed through the active integration of materials, meanings, and competence (for example, selecting a recruitment panel, or helping doctoral students develop their network), that cumulatively (re)produce social structures” (Śliwa et al., 2024: 1853). She highlighted that it is important for business school leaders to first identify exclusionary micro-practices in their organizations, such as informal ‘shoulder tapping’ of ‘preferred’ candidates for leadership roles instead of openly advertising these roles and encouraging all eligible candidates to apply, and then actively work to abolish and delegitimize these behaviors. Simultaneously, leaders should promote and implement inclusive micro-practices, establishing rules and structures that are followed-up, and encouraging all employees to intervene against discriminatory practices.
Śliwa concluded that while research suggests that, currently, business schools are not safe spaces for individuals to speak out against discrimination and exclusion, that dynamic can and needs to be changed. In order to accomplish this urgently needed cultural change, universities and business schools must focus on training, aimed at equipping members of dominant groups with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to intervene, rather than solely trying to 'fix' women and minorities. For this change to be successful, commitment and role modelling by business school leaders is crucial.
During the second part of the interactive workshop, participants were tasked with coming up with ideas of actionable inclusive micro-practices that could be implemented at all levels of academia. The leadership team of the school was then presented with a wide array of actionable measures for the future, ranging from making so-called academic housework visible and scheduled, to incorporating mandatory career guidance into yearly performance reviews ('medarbetarsamtal').
The workshop was organized by Erik Malmsten visiting Professor Martyna Śliwa, Professor of Management at Bath University, together with Professor Maria Norbäck, Docent Rebecka Tolstoy, and PhD Mette Anthonsen from the School of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of Gothenburg.
In Swedish higher economic education, only 1 in 5 professors is a woman, despite women constituting half of the student body. At the School of Business, Economics, and Law as a whole, 31% percent of the professors are women, while in the disciplines of Business Administration and Economics, 20% percent of the professors are women.