This chapter presents a comparison of two ethnographic case studies in two different national contexts, with the purpose of separating the rhetorics from the realities in the field of diversity management. It counterweighs mainstream diversity management literature by discussing (1) the disadvantages of certain offshoots of diversity management discourses for ethnic minority police officers in the Netherlands and (2) the benefits of the absence of diversity management for software engineers working in a highly internationalized high-tech company in Finland, a company characterized by a strong tradition of ‘organizational democracy’. The two studies are based on long-term fieldwork in both organizational settings, including several years of participant observation.

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This chapter takes you to a data security workplace in Finland. It presents reflections on the tensions of managing selves and others, as experienced by the employees and the managers. It argues that a generally critical approach to normative management may overlook the actual complexity and ambiguous nature of the late modern cultural environment. Both self-authoring and manipulative moves are made difficult by the amalgamating hegemonic and countercultural currents. The author points at chances for resistance through new forms of literacy. Instead of dropping “culture” as a conservative or managerial pursuit, we must learn to navigate successfully in the broken cultural landscape of today’s workplaces. The very same images that can be used for manipulation are open to more solidary configurations by the cultural and social imagination of organizational members.

This chapter takes you to a data security workplace in Finland. It presents reflections on the tensions of managing selves and others, as experienced by the employees and the managers. It argues that a generally critical approach to normative management may be overlooking the actual complexity and ambiguous nature of the late modern cultural environment. Both self-authoring and manipulative moves are made difficult by the amalgamating hegemonic and countercultural currents. The author points at chances for resistance through new forms of literacy. Instead of dropping “culture” as a conservative or managerial pursuit, we must learn to navigate successfully in the broken cultural landscape of today’s workplaces. The very same images that can be used for manipulation are open to more solidary configurations by the cultural and social imagination of organisational members.

No abstract