Focusing on the Nordic context, this article highlights complexities between genderequality discourse established at the societal level and discursive practice in organizations, particu-larly in relation to management, managing and managers. This research task is carried out bydeconstructing a management text, and grounding the deconstruction in critical feminist literature.This analysis illustrates how managerial discourse is challenged and questioned by pro-egaliterianarguments in the Nordic context. However, it also demonstrates the pervasiveness of the genderedelements in managerial discourse, which relies on specific conceptions of parenthood where mo-therhood is constructed as problematic whereas fatherhood remains absent – and thus unproblema-tic. It is suggested that the ‘Nordic case’ provides a fruitful basis for similar studies in other societalcontexts in Europe.
Tienari et al. (Wed,) studied this question.