Jeria L. Quesenberry

Retaining women in the U.S. IT workforce: theorizing the influence of organizational factors

The challenge of meeting the demand for information technology (IT) workers is addressed by examining three important organizational factors that affect womens retention in the IT field. Much of the research on gender and IT assumes a unilateral effect: all organizational factors affect all women in the same ways. An alternative view that is explored in this research is that within-gender differences offer rich insights into the gender imbalance in the IT profession. The individual differences theory of gender and IT enabled us to examine variation in organizational influences on women through analysis of transcripts from in-depth interviews conducted with 92 women in the IT workforce in the U.S.A. The results show that three organizational factors – work–life balance, organizational climate, and mentoring – affected the womens career development in a range of ways. Our findings shed new light on what has been interpreted by other researchers as contradictory findings because our theoretical starting point is the assumption that women are not all the same, that within-gender variation is expected and that it provides an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of gender relations in the IT field. Using this theory we were able to identify opportunities for the development of interventions by linking the themes embedded in the three workplace factors to the constructs of the theory. The individual identity construct revealed the ways in which a womans demographic and professional characteristics affect her career choices. The individual influences construct focused attention on the ways in which differences in personality, abilities, and influential people shape ones career. Finally, the environmental influences construct characterized contextual influences on womens participation in the IT profession. Our findings show that both research and interventions directed at increasing the retention of women must be flexible enough to respond to the variation that exists among women and within IT workplaces.

Understanding the under representation of women in IT: toward a theory of individual differences

Among the research challenges in studying the under representation of women in the IT field is that of developing appropriate theory to provide a basis for understanding and explanation about this gender imbalance. At present, there are two dominant theories in the gender literature that are used to explain the participation of women in the IT profession. The essentialist perspective dichotomizes gender based upon the presumption of significant inherent differences between women and men. This view finds the causes of gender under representation in biology. The social construction perspective focuses on the social construction of IT as a male domain, which is interpreted as incompatible with the social construction of female identity. This view finds the causes of gender under representation in the IT sector. The research discussed in this paper is directed at the development of a new theory that focuses on individual differences among women as they relate to the needs and characteristics of IT work and the IT workplace. This view finds the causes of gender under representation in the socio-cultural environment that shapes each womans gender identity and her professional development, and her individual responses to these influences.

A Multicultural Analysis of Factors Influencing Career Choice for Women in the Information Technology Workforce

This article presents an analysis of cultural factors influencing the career choices of women in the IT workforce. The authors employ individual differences theory of gender and IT as a theoretical lens to analyze a qualitative data set of interviews with 200 women in four different countries. The themes that emerged from this analysis speak to the influence of cultural attitudes about maternity, childcare, parental care, and working outside the home on a woman’s choice of an IT career. In addition, several additional socio-cultural factors serve to add further variations to gendered cultural influences. Further empirical support of emergent individual differences theories of gender and IT endeavors to theorize within-gender variation, with respect to issues related to gender and IT, as well as point to areas where educational and workplace interventions can be enacted.

Understanding the Mommy Tracks: A Framework for Analyzing Work-Family Balance in the IT Workforce

Despite the recent growth in the number of women in the American labor force, women are still under-represented in the IT workforce. Key among the factors that account for this under-representation is balancing work-family issues. This article presents a framework for analyzing work-family balance from a field study of women employed in the American IT workforce. The findings are examined through the lens of the Individual Differences Theory of Gender and IT to show the range of ways in which work-family considerations influence womens IT career decisions. The framework is used to support the theoretical argument that women exhibit a range of decisions regarding career and parenthood: the non-parent, the working parent, the back-on-track parent, and the off-the-track parent. These findings illustrate an identifiable theme that crosses geographical regions and timeframes; societal messages are complex and difficult to digest and are processed in different ways by different women, yet they contribute to the decisions women make about their professional and personal lives.

Environmental influences on gender in the IT workforce

In an effort to better understand the under- representation of women within the IT profession, one promising line of investigation is the influence of factors in the socio-cultural environment. In order to examine this topic, we draw on data from a multi-year field study of women IT professionals in three regions of the U.S.: Massachusetts, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We employ Trauths (2000) conceptual framework of environmental influences on the development of a regions information economy to consider economic and cultural influences on womens recruitment and retention in the IT field. The findings reveal a range of influences and a wide variety of responses to them. The contribution of this research to theoretical understanding is twofold. First, we demonstrate that socio-cultural factors serve as both barriers to and facilitators of womens recruitment and retention in the IT profession. This suggests the need for investigations of not just women themselves, but also of the societal environments within which they grow up, live and work. Second, we demonstrate that there is not one unilateral set of environment factors that can explain womens under-representation. Rather, a combination of differing regional influences and individual responses to them is in evidence. This finding of variability both among environmental influences and among womens responses to them provides empirical support for ongoing theory development efforts regarding the role of individual differences in explaining womens under-representation in IT

The (dis)placement of women in the IT workforce: an investigation of individual career values and organisational interventions

This paper reports on an investigation of career anchors of women in the information technology (IT) workforce that was directed at enhancing within‐gender theorising about career motivations of women in the IT profession. Our theoretical lens, the individual differences theory of gender and IT, enabled us to look more critically at how the effects of interventions are embedded in the range of womens career anchors that takes within‐gender variation into account. The analysis demonstrates that organisational interventions must be flexible enough to account for the diversity and variation among women. Further, the analysis shows that it is necessary to move away from ‘one size fits all’ organisational interventions that often reflect stereotypes about women in the IT workforce.

What do women want?: an investigation of career anchors among women in the IT workforce

In an attempt to address the underrepresentation of women in the information technology (IT) workforce it is important to understand the values and motivations of female professionals. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine career anchors of women in the IT workforce and how these factors are manifested in their careers. In doing so, we examine data from a field study of 92 female IT practitioners. Three important findings resulted from this exploration. First, technical competence and managerial competence are mutually exclusive. Second, a combination of career anchors for a given individual can be found. Third, career anchors vary in terms of temporal characteristics.

Cross-cultural influences on women in the IT workforce

A review of 862 papers published in SIGMIS/CPR proceedings over the past 44 years revealed only 29 articles that focused on gender and the IT workforce or gender and IT education, the majority of which were presented at the 2003 conference whose theme was diversity in the IT workforce. Therefore, in response to the call for papers to extend our understanding of topics central to computer personnel research, we present data from our field study of gender and IT that is directed at understanding differing cross-cultural influences on female experiences in the IT workforce. Four themes emerged from analysis of data from four separate studies of women in the IT workforces in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States: motherhood and careers, career choice, family dynamics and gender stereotypes. Analysis of interviews with 167 women reveals a wide range of influences on womens choice of an IT career. These results lend empirical support to the individual differences theory of gender and IT as an alternative to essentialist or social construction theories.

The influence of environmental context on women in the IT workforce

In an effort to better understand the under representation of women in the IT field, the focus of research has been on the collection and analysis of empirical data. However, there is also a need for appropriate theory to understand and explain that data. Toward this end, Trauth has engaged in a program of research directed at the articulation of an empirically-grounded theory to explain and predict the under representation of women in the IT field. Called The Individual Differences Theory of Gender and IT, this theory argues that the under representation of women in IT is better accounted for by understanding the variation across women than by focusing on ascribed differences between men and women in stereotype. To this end, a set of constructs has been identified, including: personal data, shaping and influencing factors and environmental context. This set of constructs is being used as the interpretive vehicle in a multi-year study of the life histories of women IT professionals. The results, to date, have addressed the personal data, and shaping and influencing factors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the construct: environmental context. The results suggest that economic factors such as size of the information economy, household income and cost of living, and cultural factors such as attitudes and values regarding women, women working and women working in IT do exert an influence on the experience of women in the IT workforce. Thus, the data analysis presented in this paper serves to further supports this emerging theory of individual differences of gender and IT and its constructs.

Linking economic development and workforce diversity through action research

The link between economic development and workforce diversity is being explored through an action research project based in an economically transitioning region of central Pennsylvania. This project consists of a collaboration between university researchers, a local college, economic development professionals and the local business community. It is directed at the creation of a sustainable knowledge-intensive, technology-enabled workforce. The intended outcome of this action research effort is ongoing awareness and education programs for the local business community that focuses on helping them to understand: 1) the connection between diversity and economic development in the region; and 2) the barriers to greater workforce diversity that exist in this region.