Kai Inga Liehr Storm’s research while affiliated with Copenhagen Business School and other places

Purpose This article shows how qualitative interventions can engender both an immediate impact and the possibility of sustained change at the research site. We investigate this by assessing the impact generated from a research project that utilized the GenderLAB method. In doing so, we expand the notion of impact to include the changes that intervention-based research can initiate at a research site. Design/methodology/approach We illustrate the impact of qualitative intervention-based research by exploring GenderLAB, which is a diversity and inclusion (D&I) intervention method that combines norm-critical approaches with design thinking to change norms and attitudes and to produce hands-on local solutions. Findings The GenderLAB intervention had immediate, medium-term and long-term impact in different participating organizations. As the intervention was aimed at participants’ attitudes and norms, the local impact it created resists numerical measurements. Nevertheless, we note how the organization’s leaders recreated exercises with their own staff and utilized ideas generated during the intervention to, for example, foster more inclusive working conditions for working parents, accommodate a broader spectrum of religious groups and cater to a larger variety of dietary needs. While we are currently in the process of publishing our theoretical findings from the research project to create research impact, the intervention itself has already had – and continues to have – practical impact on the D&I practices of the organizations in which we applied this methodology. Originality/value The intervention-based research method that we report on distinguishes itself from traditional qualitative methods, as it is designed to impact the research site as much as possible while gathering data. In contrast to quantitative approaches to interventions, it does not aim to generate quantifiable impact. Instead, we show how this research method pushes our definition of impact from a researcher-centered perspective to a perspective that emphasizes sustained change at the research site. Thus, we contribute to the growing literature on participatory methods, particularly the streams arguing for non-extractive methods that not only aim to take data but also to give knowledge to research sites.

Corporate leadership, in particular that overseeing professional service firms (PSFs), such as accounting, auditing, and consulting firms, has been, and continues to be, overwhelmingly male-dominated. Despite a wealth of research and decades of implementing countless diversity and work-life balance (WLB) initiatives, only a small fraction of women ‘make partner’ in such PSFs. We argue that the problems around women’s career progression are reproduced and exacerbated by the very “caring” initiatives that claim to support these women. In order to investigate the implications of such WLB initiatives for women providing accounting services, this article draws on extensive empirical material gathered in the span of 12 years within two leading accounting, auditing, and consulting firms. From this material, we present the stories of four women accountants who are on the receiving end of these WLB initiatives – as well as their repressive effects. We find that WLB measures exert epistemic control, gaslighting women accountants by manipulating their sense of reality and persuading them to work less than their male counterparts. This repressive care feminizes these women, constructing them as fragile and thus in need to forgo work opportunities. However, once it is time for evaluations, their superiors forfeit their promotions. In so doing, WLB measures further gender the understanding of what ‘counts’ as accounting and consulting work and ultimately direct women’s careers sideways – into stagnation – rather than upwards, to partner levels.

This special issue revolves around the topic of unconscious bias in organizations. The six articles included draw on diverse disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological approaches to show how unconscious bias play out in organizational settings and how they lead to various forms of discrimination. The articles contribute to the current bias literature by (1) elevating the idea of bias from individualist perspectives toward more contextual considerations, (2) drawing on multiple perspectives from different research fi elds and thereby creating a more interdisciplinary understanding, (3) considering unconscious and discriminatory gender bias in intersection with other markers of social inequality, and (4) by reframing current understandings of bias in organizations toward a more actionable and change-oriented perspective. To conclude, the special issue illustrates novel approaches to and discussions on the matter of investigating bias at the root of discrimination in organizations.

This article presents a systematic literature review of how norms are used in a sample of 436 articles in the human resource management (HRM) field. In exploring how norms are theorized, applied, and operationalized, the article identifies four main thematic fields in which norms are commonly used: culture, diversity, labor market, and work–life. The article makes three main contributions to the existing literature. First, it reveals a pervasive inconsistency in the use of norms across HRM research such that any assumption of a “norm of norms”—that is, consensus on the meaning of norms in HRM—is erroneous and in need of critical reflection. Second, the review offers a typology that outlines four similarities and differences in how HRM research employs norms. Finally, the authors propose a norm-critical research agenda as a relevant basis for future critical and reflexive enquiry into norms in both HRM theory and practice.