Knowledge on the Nordics
Knowledge on the Nordics
Diversity Management in Denmark and Beyond
This podcast is about how large organisations, like companies and trade unions, can learn from social movements such as Pride. While some of it may be lip service, the hope is that some elements stick, resulting in more diverse and inclusive workplaces across the Nordics and beyond. Jannick Friis Christensen from Copenhagen Business School is interviewed by Nicola Witcombe, editor of the research dissemination website nordics.info.
Go to nordics.info for links to literature and events mentioned in this podcast.
Sound credits: Manifestation by barcelonetasonora (CC BY 4.0) and demonstration screams by chazam (CC BY 4.0).
Nicola Witcombe 00:08
Welcome to this Nordics.info podcast called ‘Diversity Management in Denmark and Beyond’ with me Nicola Witcombe, editor of Nordics.info, a research dissemination website based on Aarhus University in Denmark, and my interviewee today, Jannick Friis Christensen, we spoke at Copenhagen Business School in Frederiksberg in Copenhagen in May 2022. Welcome Jannick Friis Christensen, you're a postdoctoral researcher at Copenhagen Business School. And you look at formal and informal approaches to diversity, particularly from the perspective of queer theory, including how Danish trade unions approach LGBTI issues. You've also researched how events such as Roskilde festival and Copenhagen Pride have increasingly become a force for sociopolitical change, and how that is often harnessed by corporate sponsorship, for better or for worse. So, we have lots of relevant issues to dig into, which is fantastic.
Nicola Witcombe 01:22
I'm originally an English lawyer. And at that time, the laws were sort of very much, you know, they had come into being historically. They've tried to amalgamate them now with equal equality rights act, doesn't it look like that? But you know, there was sex discrimination and disability discrimination, race discrimination, and so on. So, diversity, I mean, diversity management presumably, takes lots of different minorities and sort of looks at how they're managed together, I suppose.
Jannick Friis Christensen 01:58
Yes. So what do you see I mean, in a Danish context, like with many others, fashion and fashion and management, literature and practice, it's something that we've imported from a US context. And the first time we hear about diversity management in the Danish context, it's called mangfoldighedsledelse, is in year 2000. So, we've only talked about it for around 20 years, even though it seems like it's omnipresent these days, and in big multinational corporations, and increasingly also in small and medium sized companies in the Danish context. So, in the year 2000, we hear in public discourse, it's the newspaper battling schizophrenia, that is writing about it in an article stating that it's the new driver for competitiveness, that you as a company value the differences among your employees, right. So, it's about employee difference and making sure that employees are not discriminated against. So, they can kind of bring their full potential and realize that potential, be the true authentic selves, so to say, at work and avoid groupthink and things like that. But if you look at it, discursively, then you can see that in a Danish context, it's very much been reduced to a matter of, so from diversity to a matter of gender, which has come to mean women, and mainly women in management and board positions. So that is what many companies mean, when they talk about diversity, women are made the diversity subjects, they are the ones that we lack, so to say, and therefore they are also the ones that we try to attract and retain and so on and promoting our organizations. And more recently, we can see that it's also about integrating minority ethnic people. And then in the, in the last 5-6-7 years, also a discourse around LGBT+. So lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender, queer people in general terms that we also want to include in the workplace, right, where the discourse typically is around them being able to be open and come out this infamous closet that they allegedly are in and tell the world, so to say, including their colleagues and the boss, that they are indeed not heterosexual, for instance, without it having any negative impacts on their workplace.
Nicola Witcombe 04:09
So going back to what I was saying, you know, it's still about protecting from discrimination in some senses. So, the negative side is protection from discrimination. But the positive side is also saying that diversity is good for business.
Jannick Friis Christensen 04:23
Exactly. So, so yeah, the anti-discriminatory approach is kind of the baseline with diversity management, ideally, then you also want to do something more proactively because you as a company believe in the business case for diversity. We know that a heterogeneous team, because the meet in the differences and have to overcome these differences, also in terms of educational background, maybe they don't speak the same language and so on, they have to be more innovative and creative and therefore, they invent all the new stuff. That's tomorrow's labor market is made off right. In the Danish contexts right now we have what we call bottleneck issues in the labor market where basically, as a high skilled, well-educated worker, you can pick and choose where you would like to work, because the demand for your work, or labor force is bigger than the supply, right. And therefore, there is also this adhering the business case for diversity and inclusion, that of course, candidates will go to the companies that are known for being inclusive and have diversity policies so that as an LGBT+ candidate, for instance, you also know that you can have parental leave, just like anyone else in the organization, and so on, and so on. So, it's working for the business case, and but also taking social responsibility for some companies.
Nicola Witcombe 05:44
So that means that for the businesses, if they are good at diversity management, then they're more attractive to high level candidates. So, it's to their advantage. So, you had another business case, I suppose. So, you have referred to LGBTI issues. Perhaps could you explain a little bit about the politics or the political correctness of referring to the acronym short form, long form, etc.? And it's often different in different countries and regions.
Jannick Friis Christensen 06:16
So I would say that there is no such thing as political correctness, because which acronym you go with a with, which umbrella term you go with will depend on the community in which you engage or with whom you do research, or work. So in some communities, they prefer the LGBT+. In others, it's very important that you have LGBTQI+, because there is, of course, this idea that if there are some that you don't mention, then they are not forgotten. But then again, actually, that is usually what happened. If you don't explicitly mentioned people, then they are forgotten, they are rendered invisible. So also, depending on what you do, you should use different acronyms. So if for instance, in one of my studies, leave out the T for transgender, because frankly, I don't have data on transgender people. So it would be a form of false inclusion, I would say, to continuously say LGBT, because I don't have anything on transgender people. So I tried to be pragmatic about it and kind of use the acronym differently, depending on what I'm actually saying something on. And I think that's also important, research wise, that you tried to be as precise as possible and not be falsely inclusive, as I would call it.
Nicola Witcombe 07:29
And also I guess, you know, acronyms could quickly become meaningless if you just use them all the time in every single context without sort of background context
Jannick Friis Christensen 07:41
Interchangeably? Yes, yes, indeed. But then again, we should also be aware that it serves different purposes is acronym, right? So one take would be that it is describing, trying to describe the world as it is, right? So it's trying to have these descriptors you can be lesbian, you can be gay, you can be bisexual, you can be transgender. But then again, it's also trying to performatively produce different ways of understanding yourself. So it's a concept also, actually. So adding the T makes you able to understand yourself as transgender as not cisgender, for instance. So there is also a political element in it in kind of creating different ways of understanding yourself in this world, and in relation to the world and also perhaps some of the inherent power structures in the world.
Nicola Witcombe 08:34
I'd like to just talk a little bit more about terminology. When we say from a queer perspective in the academic world, what does that mean exactly?
Jannick Friis Christensen 08:44
In colloquial terms you can think of queer as something you are so as an identity marker, people may say that they are queer instead of gay for instance, because of the problematic usage, usages historically of the word, okay. Then again, queer has also been used as kind of a slur or at least in a derogatory way, but where it's kind of re-appropriated as a positive identity that you take on you to tell the world that you that you reside in this world in a different way. So when identity mark something you are I think in academia, we tend to use queer and queer theory as more something you do. So, to sum it would be a matter of de-naturalizing or deconstructing our understanding this very binary understanding of gender for instance, and, and examining or investigating so when understanding gender binary, really, what are the consequences of this to people that are transgender or non-binary? So for instance, what, what other alternative understandings of the world do we exclude when we work in this way. But it could also be in relation to organizational practices for hiring and promotion and stuff like that, which I do. And then finally, also as kind of an area of study. So it's, it's, it's a group of people that you can study, just like you can have Native American studies, for instance, where I use it in a combination of that way, area studies and queer theory. But I use it in a combination because queer theory and queer practices are kind of intertwined, I would say. So it's very difficult to make clear distinction because you theorize based on how the queer community do their practices, and so on. So I tried to learn from queer organizations, who listed in the way as organizations represent LGBT+ people, and their interest to kind of conceive of how they understand diversity and work for their own inclusion, and then how that can be translated into maybe more corporate organizational practices for diversity and inclusion. And that is what I mean by a queer perspective, in that sense, compared to studying diversity manager.
Nicola Witcombe 11:15
so we've got that in place. Um, you've got, you mainly look at Denmark, as far as I understand it, but I guess the literature and a lot of the terminology is in English. So how do those two things fit together? Do you sometimes have to use English terms in a Danish context? Or is the difficulty translating some of what you're talking about?
Jannick Friis Christensen 11:43
I don't find it difficult to, well, I always find it difficult to translate because there's a much larger vocabulary in English compared to Danish. Whereas it's my impression that in countries such as Iceland, and Norway, they, they make a more proactive effort in trying to develop their own vocabulary using their own language. And we don't really necessarily do that in Danish. So it is international from the onset to work with queer theory also in the Danish context. With that said, we do have a, I don't know if we can call it that tradition. But in pedagogy in in Denmark, there are many activists who work with what you can term a ‘on-critical approach’, which is, at least the term ‘non critique’ is not necessarily something you hear outside of the Nordic context. Well, now you do because you increasingly have some studies that are published, that actually tackle this issue and what it means to be non-critical and do non critique and so on and so forth. But I would say that non critique in itself draws heavily and is inspired from queer theory, when on critique is perhaps a little more about practice. And then again, it's a pedagogy so it's, you can trace it back to kind of a clean break with a tolerance pedagogy, where the idea is to, to tolerate the minority and sympathize with the other, so to say, the one who is different from the norm, whereas from a non-critical pedagogy, you would rather than trying to include the one who is different or deviate from the norm, you will kind of turn the gaze inwards towards norms and investigate so, so how come that the norms they appear to be normal, that being heterosexual is the norm in society against which gay and lesbian people appear to be different? Should gay and lesbian people try and fit into this norm, as you will try to expand and broaden the normative assumptions and expectations a little, in order to make more feel accommodated by the normal? Should we perhaps change the norm altogether? Kind of dismantle this idea that you have to live in a heteronormative way?
Nicola Witcombe 14:03
And just to tease out, yes, you mentioned the Nordic aspect of norm critical, how come you see it as a as a sort of Nordic concept?
Jannick Friis Christensen 14:15
Only because they don't see it elsewhere. It’s not like in English research, research literature written in English that you can't find anything on norms. I mean, social norms is a really good old sociological concept. But this approach of being non critical and thinking, also kind of as a disruptive attitude, like challenging what is normalized and why it appears to be normal, and that showing the contingency that it doesn't have to be in this way, could be different from what it is and so, this is something that I found really difficult to search in extern literature unless I search in Danish or Swedish and so on, and then it would be within this field of, of teaching and learning education pedagogy, and so you don't have it in management and organization studies.
Nicola Witcombe 15:07
So you're almost taking a concept from one particular academic area and saying, hang on a minute, this could be useful in management and other areas as well.
Jannick Friis Christensen 15:18
Yes, yeah. Just like you did originally with the concept of diversity, for instance, that's, like, we usually say that in organization and minutes management studies, we are like 10 years behind what is happening around this field of organization and management studies. And then when everybody else have been talking about diversity and inclusion for a number of years, then we began to talk about diversity management and inclusive practices for management and so on.
Nicola Witcombe 15:44
Who’s 10 years behind? The business people or Denmark?
Jannick Friis Christensen 15:48
No, it was a failed organization, a management, right. Yeah, whether that is true or not, this is something we keep on telling ourselves, I think.
Nicola Witcombe 15:55
But I guess you need a, sort of almost a distance to the latest trends before you can actually get your hands on research data and how it's worked and so on.
Jannick Friis Christensen 16:06
Yes, yes. Exactly, yeah. And as I mentioned, initially, it's only 5-6-7 years ago that we in a Danish context, began to work within this DNI diversity and inclusion field with LGBT+ and workplace inclusion. Before then we didn't really have any data on what is actually the problem in the first case.
Nicola Witcombe 16:28
Isn’t that coming to a bit late? You know, I mean, the Nordics are supposed to be at the forefront of equality, and so on and so forth. Coming to it, maybe even if in a business context, just five or six years ago, I would imagine that that's a bit late compared to a lot of other countries.
Jannick Friis Christensen 16:48
Yes. And you can also see that some of the first companies that actually have a focus on LGBT+ workplace inclusion are from a US context. So Microsoft and IBM, for instance, are also the ones to establish the Danish LGBT+ business network that still exists this day today. Yes, but I think it's got to do with the fact that that historically, you can trace this historicity of the concept of diversity management to first and foremost being about women. And then at some point, you begin to have a case of immigrant workers and so on, and a perceived issue of them not necessarily fitting in and understanding they need work culture, and therefore, diversity. Work becomes about integrating them. And then at some point that I think it was in 2014, or 2015, the overall labor union organization FH, LO back then, they did a survey representative for the whole labor market that showed that around 40% of self-identified LGBT+ people will not open at work, they will not out of this so called closet, right. So that is when they realized that, okay, maybe there is actually a problem here, because otherwise it was just perceived as being well, I think also, because of this whole illusion of equality, or of us being so egalitarian, that that we, it keeps from us from being able to see those particular instances where there are still issues that we can deal with and increasingly become better at.
Nicola Witcombe 18:22
They're sort of almost invisible, because everyone assumes that the society is sort of reached equality. Yes, yeah. You've talked about Denmark and a little bit about Norway and Iceland. Are you able to say that your experiences in Denmark could be similar in the other Nordic countries? Or is that a rather too, too much of a generalization? Or perhaps you haven't done research?
Jannick Friis Christensen 18:46
I have done research on my own in the other Nordic countries. In general, I don't work with generalization, or at least, they're very skeptic, because my approach is to work with the power of the examples so to say, so I'm really interested in having in depth knowledge of a certain case, rather than having a very generic knowledge across X number of organizations. So my main case in my current work about corporate collaboration with pride organizers is Copenhagen World Pride and therefore means it's a World Pride, but it took place in Copenhagen and many of the partners and sponsors are Copenhagen based, or at least Denmark based companies. Then again, in many other areas, we tend to compare ourselves with the Nordic countries and we can see similar trends and so on. So to a certain degree, I think you would be able to generalize some findings, but I have not done that yet myself at least.
Nicola Witcombe 19:46
No, and I appreciate we don't want to, you know, just stamp all countries exactly like Denmark. So you mentioned Copenhagen Pride. I was just reading about a researcher who has just achieved her professorship at Aarhus University in Global Studies. And she was giving a lecture on social movements. I didn't really realize that there was a thing called social movements studies. Is that what you're, you're sort of between literature's, I guess, if you like, but is prior to social movement, would you sign it?
Jannick Friis Christensen 20:23
Most certainly, yes. And possibly also, I don't have the numbers to back it because there are so many products around the world. But exactly for that reason, it's possibly also one of the biggest social movements in the world.
Nicola Witcombe 20:37
And you've and you've also looked at Roskilde Festival, which, in some ways, it's very voluntary, volunteer driven, is, in some ways, also a social movement. Why are these sorts of events important as objects of study?
Jannick Friis Christensen 20:56
I think Roskilde Festival, specifically, I see as a sociological garden. It's just much more intense. So many of the things the phenomena that you see in general society you can conduct research about, in a very short period of time, and test out the thesis and so on. So what I did with Roskilde Festival, among other things, was to look into transgressive behavior and how people perceive and experience to kind of inductively understand what is transgressive behavior. When does something go from being okay and fun and part of the so to say, orange feeling, as many of the participants say, to being something that, that you find transgressive, and what we found was that it was very, perhaps not surprisingly, but at least now then we know it was very much about bodily boundaries, and becoming involuntarily part of other people's play and games and so on. Other than that, I think it's a matter of me, having reviewed the literature on diversity and management, and perhaps not surprisingly, researchers, they tend to focus on what someone with the title manager does for diversity in a corporate organization. And that is, of course, important. But I think what we're missing is kind of this queer or minority perspective. So what can we actually learn from the people that companies want to include with a diversity management practices? And that is why I tried to reach out to organizations such as Roskilde [Festival], which is volunteer driven by and large, WorldPride, Copenhagen partner and so on and see, how do they themselves conceive of diversity and work for their own conclusion? And can you do some translation work based on this, so it also makes sense in a more business or corporate context. So you could call it alternative organizing or alternative organization,
Nicola Witcombe 22:57
How interesting and sort of democratic as well, sort of feeding different opinions into somewhere where they might not ordinarily be found.
Jannick Friis Christensen 23:06
Yeah, because you see it the other way around all the time, that volunteer driven organizations, they try to learn from who they perceive to be successful, business wise, and who are perceived to be successful business wise. But why not the other way around? Perhaps businesses can also learn something from volunteer driven organizations and organizations that organize for something other than profit.
Nicola Witcombe 23:36
You've worked with trade unions, and they obviously have quite a lot of power in Denmark, what exactly were you looking at when you worked with trade unions? What sort of culture do you meet when you you go in and do workshops with them?
Jannick Friis Christensen 23:52
So yeah, I followed a three year project that was launched after this survey that I mentioned earlier that actually found that around 40% of LGBT+ people in the labor market, were not open at work. And then of course, you know, you can you can interpret that in many ways, because it might also be some people don't want to be open. And that should be fine if you're truly inclusive. But at least it was taken as being a problem and therefore the analysis three year workshop where they wanted to upgrade union representatives to be able to deal with discrimination cases against LGBT+ people and kind of build a diversity vocabulary, you could call it so they would in the first place be able to actually meet and recognize and acknowledge and LGBT+ member of the Union should someone actually approach them because what they found in this survey was also that many LGBT+ members were in doubt whether they could actually go to the union, should they have any problem with a legal character or not? And this initiative was made as a workshop and kind of my knowledge from the external literature, also fed into how this workshop should be constructed. And then what I was interested in was in when you conduct such a workshop with participants, and you have a number of exercises that are supposed to make them reflect and so on what actually happens in the space, in the learning space, when you conduct these workshops, and one of the things that I pick up on is what I call ephemeral intersectionality, that you actually managed to extend this diversity agenda to all to be more about a lot. So it will be more than just about agenda, but also about sexuality and about differences in culture and education, and so on, and how they also may, these different categories may also overlap and grant you very different experiences of discrimination, and possibilities or advantages. In organizational context. I call it the femoral because of course, I don't know whether this experience in this kind of raised awareness, you could call it whether it will last. And when people leave, quite frankly, we know from media studies on a related field of unconscious bias that when you do this kind of awareness raising or sensitivity training or diversity training, whatever you call it, that the effects are likely not to last for much longer than a few days after, because then you're back to business as usual, and so on. So it's one of the least effective measures to increase the number of underrepresented groups of people in your organization. So I was interested in more qualitatively, what kind of things emerge? And how can we talk about them? How can we make people aware about them? And then how can we be solution oriented in this approach, also, so you leave kind of empowered to do something?
Nicola Witcombe 27:00
So you've said that those sort of basic diversity training have been shown not to be massively effective? Are you able to name some things which have been shown to be effective, I don't know, like particular leadership styles?
Jannick Friis Christensen 27:19
If your goal is to narrowly increase the representation of certain group in same management or boards, quotas are very effective. Because if there is a quota that says gender parity, understood binarily, then you can make up the ratio, and you can, in hiring and promotion processes, you can say to the hiring manager that we actually need a female candidate. Now male candidate gender representation doesn't necessarily mean that you have space or room for difference. So it could be that women and men in this kind of organization recruited on quota. So they are very similar in their approach that they have to assimilate to certain masculine norms and ideals for management for how to be assertive and for putting work first and family second, and so on. So you might actually not get the diversity you want, you just get conformity. But with women and men now. But what if it's only a numbers game, then quotas are very efficient. And we also know that from political progress, and not just from business quotas.
Nicola Witcombe 28:31
But isn't it difficult to say, a quota for LGBTI people because it might be that they don't want to say what their sexuality is?
Jannick Friis Christensen 28:43
In Denmark illegally, you also have an issue in terms of like, as an HR manager, to take those numbers, I think they are allowed to do it voluntarily. And that is also why I'm very much interested with I mean, I take a much more qualitative approach. So I'm more interested in cultures of inclusion and norms and how you are not reduced to being the diversity subject so you can bring your true authentic self and so on, and not just the numbers game. Because that's a very positivist, instrumentalist approach, which is also important in order to make sure of course that underrepresented groups and underprivileged groups, historically, but also socially and culturally to this day today that we kind of rectify some of the wrongs that have been done, right? Because otherwise it can also easily be a matter of “everybody is different”-discourse about diversity of thought and so on. But where you can see, well it doesn't address the structural problem of say, the lack of women in management or the people of color are only represented in the bottom of the organisation and not in the top and so on and so forth. So I think you have to do both. But my interest at least this is about the qualitative issues.
Nicola Witcombe 30:07
Yeah, I understand. Something that you said also occurred to me, a slight, it's more difficult, in some respects, to find out people's socioeconomic background. And again, the management of companies is often people from the higher echelons of the socioeconomic status. So that would also be included in diversity management, would it?
Jannick Friis Christensen 30:35
Ideally, yes, you don't necessarily see it. Because I think it would also, it would also take that you perhaps change commonsensical ideas about what merit is, and the fact that we live in a meritocratic society, and what is meritorious? Because if you come from a background where you haven't, let's just say you haven't been dealt the best cards, but you have made it, despite of this fact, is it then more meritorious, that you have managed to be on equal terms education wise, for instance? Not to say that the of course you get something out of being a volunteer in that period, but it could also at the same time be an expression of some of your privileges? And then the question is how you would assess two candidates where one has got this volunteer work and another hasn't? Whether you are sensitive towards the fact that it might be the one who has had, the person had different circumstances in life, the person might have had that volunteer experience. But then can I assess a difference? It is tricky.
Nicola Witcombe 31:40
So let's move on to your current project, which is called Beyond Pinkwash: Pride Parades and Integrative Civil Religion. Could you tell us a little bit about what this is about and what you found out so far?
Jannick Friis Christensen 31:55
I can certainly try. Because it's a project that runs for at least three years, at least we've got funding for three years, and it's gonna go for another year, at least. We're interested in corporate pride collaboration. On the one hand, certain spectators, they see it as positive that pride has been mainstream recently, and the corporates take part because it means that it's become a socially legitimate course, basically that everyone is for LGBT+ rights, because they are viewed as human rights. And then on the other hand, you have, and that is mainly within the queer community, people problematizing, this mainstreaming. Saying that, well, it's just a matter of businesses kind of exploiting a social course and its authenticity for its own profit. Really, what we also know as pinkwashing. And then we're trying to take maybe a third position saying, well, both positions can know part of the truth really. But maybe it's both and we are trying to not necessarily resolve but understand how businesses and pride, the pride organizers, how they work together to kind of create this public ritual, that is pride and what comes out of it. What are the consequences, and then how does it maybe tap into a more societal or public understanding of values of universal human rights and so on. So it comes from a hunch, that developed into a thesis that pride has gone from, not away from, but from being first and foremost a protest against police brutality and violence. So we usually say that it all started with the Stonewall uprising and riots in 1969. In Christopher Street, New York, the movement as we see it has been very successful in kind of speaking into this idea of the sacredness of the individual, which also has kind of this religious meaning to it. And the idea of universal human rights, meaning that the pride movement has been mainstreamed and universalized to such a degree that at least in our part of the world, regardless if you identify as LGBT+ or not, you can actually take part in the public ritual, that is pride. You can be a proud employee, you can be a proud employer, you can be a proud parent. So more people can take part in it. And that of course, means that it's been sanctioned broadly in society. It also means that you then have businesses tapping into because it appears to be apolitical. So it's not risky any longer to tap into this genuine source of legitimacy and authenticity.
Nicola Witcombe 34:50
Are you able to sort -of I know you haven't finished the project yet-, but is there some sort of point in time, you know, where it went from the potentially perceived as transgressive behavior, like we're talking for and protest, to something that was socially acceptable and everybody wanted to be a part of it.
Jannick Friis Christensen 35:11
I wouldn't say a single point in time, there will be a number of events. The registered partnership being one of them in the Danish context and in ‘89, for instance. But you can tell from Copenhagen pride that last year had its 25th anniversary, like initially, no single corporation wanted to be part of it. And then in the past 10 years, you can see it's gone from a number of the first of which were American businesses like Microsoft and IBM, to last year with worldwide they had more than 90, sponsors and partners. So in the last decade or so you can see a very big transformation.
Nicola Witcombe 35:56
And I guess the concern is that it's just lip service. So people are just saying, we want to be stamped, as respecting everybody's rights, that they might not actually do legitimate talk, no actual progress behind the scenes.
Jannick Friis Christensen 36:15
Does the participation a corporate participation in Pride Week, does that translate into something the rest of the year? Or is it only flying the rainbow banner for one week, and then you forget all about it until next year, in August, when Copenhagen politics takes place? And you can see that, first of all, you can see a number of emerging normativity, around what is right or proper or to be endorsed in terms of corporate behavior around pride. And there is something around them having to give back to the community. You cannot just take as it's perceived if you don't like pay something for your sponsorship or your partnership. But it's not enough to just give money because that's perceived as spying indulgences. So that's also not enough. And then the corporates tend to struggle about ‘how do we make it meaningful for business?’. And that has been an issue and where you can see that some of these sponsors and partners, they use pride as kind of an annual occasion to take stock and recommit and say “what would we like to do for next year’s pride?” and the assumption that if something is commercial and cannot at the same time be an expression of activism. But in many cases, when these companies engage in pride, it actually comes not top down, but bottom up from employees that self-identify as LGBT+, that form an employee network that is then used as a so called employee resource group, that helps the companies become aware of certain blind spots in the parental leave policies and so on. And that stay that we would actually like to engage in pride, and then you have the commitment or sponsorship from senior management and then agrees to it – “okay, then let's do it”.
Nicola Witcombe 38:02
So it sounds like it's not completely lip service. It sounds like it's, you know, a reminder that some genuine change has to occur.
Jannick Friis Christensen 38:11
Yes. But I would say what we can see at least is that yes, something happens, then when that something happens, then you can also problematize that something, because it can always be better. Or you can always ask, Who is this working for? Who is benefiting from this? And who's left out, who is excluded? The same way that you without mentioning any company names, like one has licensed stores in Poland, but it's primarily a Danish business. You could easily criticize them for only committing to pride in Denmark, because you don't risk any business. I mean, everybody thinks that it's great that you take part in pride more or less. What do you then do any corporate advocacy? Are you an ambassador also when you license those in Poland, for instance. But then I think we can also see a level of reflexivity among these companies where they state well, yes, of course, we could do something to also fly the rainbow banner and let know of our values and so on in Poland. But since they are licenses, those from headquarters, we cannot dictate it. But we can of course, encourage it. But it's very easy for us as headquarters to say that you should do this in Poland. But we are not the ones who will have to kind of bear or shoulder the potential abuse and harassment and violence that customers and partners might face in the Polish context, right. And then of course, as an activist to queer actors, you could say, well, that's bullshit. That's just a scapegoat for doing nothing, but I think both can be true at the same time, right? So it's an interesting reflection to also have in this project, that I think increasingly companies are becoming aware of; the immense complexities of these issues, especially also when you have activities around the world.
Nicola Witcombe 40:07
Super. Oh, well, thanks ever so much for your time today, we could continue talking for another two or three hours, easily. We don't have time to do that.
Jannick Friis Christensen 40:17
Thanks for taking time to interview me and thanks for listening.
Nicola Witcombe 40:32
You've been listening to a podcast on diversity management in Denmark and beyond. With me Nicola Witcombe, editor of nordics.info. Please refer to our website, the links and information about all the things mentioned in this podcast. It was recorded in May 2022, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and as part of Knowledge on the Nordic series called An Evolving World: Conversations on Norden. Go to our website nordics.info to check out the other podcasts in the series, including those on gender and Nordic branding, the Nordic model, Nordic colonialism, and many more. This podcast was produced by the team behind the research dissemination website nordics.info, which is based at Aarhus University in Denmark. Thanks go to Jannick Friis Christensen and the university hub Reimagining Norden in an Evolving World (ReNEW), of which nordics.info is a part, and our sponsors NordForsk.