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Gender Schemas: A Cognitive Explanation of Discrimination of Women in Technology
Abstract
Despite the need for qualified personnel in the field of information technology (IT), women are under represented. Recruiting
has been difficult and those women entering the profession often leave. Gender schema theory adds to the explanation of behaviors
and attitudes in the workplace that may adversely impact women in technology. We surveyed members of Systers, an online forum
for women in technology, to examine gender schemas of IT women to see if there is a significant difference between them and
the general public. Our findings suggest that there is a significant difference in the gender-schemas of women in technology
and the gender-schemas of the general population. A subsequent sample of male IT students and men in the general public also
indicated a significant difference in gender schemas of these two groups. Implications of these differences and future research
in this area are discussed.
... Gender schema theory posits that societal members have culture-specific cognitive structures (schemas) concerning role expectations for females and males (Bem 1981). Gender schemas have been associated with stereotyped attitudes and even discriminatory actions (e.g., Lemons and Parzinger 2007). Evaluative decisions individuals make about themselves and others are influenced by the ways gender schemas guide the processing of information (Bem 1981;Starr and Zurbriggen 2016). ...
... Evaluative decisions individuals make about themselves and others are influenced by the ways gender schemas guide the processing of information (Bem 1981;Starr and Zurbriggen 2016). This includes beliefs about proper and appropriate roles for men and women in the given society (Lemons and Parzinger 2007). Bem (1981) described this idea that an individual's perception and behavior reflect the society's definition of maleness and femaleness as genderschematic processing. ...
... However, there 1 3 is also evidence of stock market bias against women securing greater representation on corporate boards as powerful shareholders may have negative perceptions about women directors (e.g., Bigelow and Parks 2006;Abdullah et al. 2016). Since bias is often the result of gender schema (Lemons and Parzinger 2007), the level of a country's stock market value may influence the legitimacy of companies having greater gender diversity on their boards. Furthermore, a country's stock market value may have interdependencies with the general level of economic empowerment in a country (Caporale et al. 2004). ...
In this study, we use a mixed methods research design to investigate how national cultural forces may impede or enhance the positive impact of females’ economic and political empowerment on increasing gender diversity of corporate boards. Using both a longitudinal correlation-based methodology and a configurational approach with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we integrate theoretical mechanisms from gender schema and institutional theories to develop a mid-range theory about how female empowerment and national culture shape gender diversity on corporate boards around the world. With our configurational approach, we conceptually and empirically model the complexity that is associated with the simultaneous interdependencies, both complementary and substitutive ones, between female empowerment processes and various cultural dimensions. Our findings contribute unique insights to research focused on board gender diversity as well as provide information for firm decision makers and policymakers about possible solutions for addressing the continuing issue of the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards.
... Gender schema relies on social learning and cognitive development theories. From childhood, an individual will learn socialized behaviors, such as gender roles, by repeated observations of a person's sex-associated actions and accomplishments of cognitive tasks specific to cultural gender-role expectations (Bern, 1981;Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Koenig, Eagly, Abigail, and Ristikari, 2011). While schemas may be the result of observations, they also guide the processing of any new information, physical (actions) or patterns of interpersonal relationships (Lemons and Parzinger, 2007). ...
... From childhood, an individual will learn socialized behaviors, such as gender roles, by repeated observations of a person's sex-associated actions and accomplishments of cognitive tasks specific to cultural gender-role expectations (Bern, 1981;Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Koenig, Eagly, Abigail, and Ristikari, 2011). While schemas may be the result of observations, they also guide the processing of any new information, physical (actions) or patterns of interpersonal relationships (Lemons and Parzinger, 2007). Furthermore, individuals who reject traditional gender roles (non-conformists) will process any new information by using non-traditional gender schemas. ...
... Furthermore, individuals who reject traditional gender roles (non-conformists) will process any new information by using non-traditional gender schemas. From childhood, individuals exam ine the gender appropriateness of behavior and will either become gender conformists reject ing behavior that goes against the expected, or non-conformist, rejecting the traditional gender behavior (Bern, 1981(Bern, , 1985(Bern, , 1993Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Powell and Greenhaus, 2010). ...
... This study also applies the gender schema theory to explain workplace behaviours and attitudes contributing to women's negative workplace experiences. Gender schemas, like social role theory, involve mental models (schemes) that determine roles based on biological gender (Lemons & Parzinger, 2007). Gender schema theory focuses on individuals' gendered social-cognitive development and how society creates and enforces gender roles (Starr & Zurbriggen, 2017). ...
... Women are not permitted to question authority in these denominations because men predominate as leaders. Traditional mental models limit the empowerment of gender roles in general society and specific institutional contexts (Lemons & Parzinger, 2007). ...
Orientation: Despite promising legislative frameworks and policies to eradicate gender imbalances in the workplace, women have yet to earn their rightful place as senior business leaders.
Research purpose: The primary goal of this study was to investigate the factors that prevent women from advancing to senior leadership positions in a variety of South African business contexts.
Motivation for the study: More research is required to understand the unique challenges that senior women leaders experience in various South African business contexts.
Research approach/design and method: This research followed a qualitative approach. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews with nine women (n = 9) who made significant inroads in their respective professions. Theme analyses were applied to analyse the data.
Main findings: The findings revealed six factors that hinder the career advancement of women to senior leadership positions: societal perceptions and stereotypes, a lack of mentorship, masculine corporate cultures, leadership identity distortions, inadequate training and development and poor work-life balance.
Practical/managerial implications: Organisations are encouraged to create more feminine workplace cultures that allow women to realise their full potential and establish their identity as senior leaders. Mentoring, networking, and professional development opportunities can all assist women in advancing their careers. Senior female leaders play an essential role in fostering workplace cultures that promote equal opportunity and combat unfair discrimination on various grounds. They pave the way for younger, upcoming female talent to move into senior management positions more quickly.
Contribution/value-add: This study fills important gaps in the global understanding of the factors limiting women’s career advancement to senior leadership positions. The findings of this study emphasise the importance of recognising and embracing women’s leadership competence in the modern workplace.
... Females are expected to be better at expressing their emotions, while males are believed to be more effective at controlling their emotions and solving problems rationally (Tiedens, 2001). Therefore, boys and girls often exhibit different behavior patterns, reaction styles, and personality formations (Lemons & Parzinge, 2007), which leads to different social interaction patterns and adaptive consequences (Farrell et al., 2016). Some existing research indicate that boys feel more socially alienated than girls, with boys having greater total alienation scores (Brown et al., 2003;Calabrese & Poe, 1990;Calabrese & Seldin, 1987;Loughrey & Harris, 1992;Park & Lee, 2018;Wang et al., 2021). ...
... These results can be explained by gender role socialization theory and gender schema theory. Previous studies have found that there are significant differences in emotion, behavior, and social cognitive development between male and female students due to different gender role expectations (Lemons et al., 2007;Rose & Rudolph 2006). Boys are encouraged from an early age to be independent, competent, and strong and are told not to express their emotions openly. ...
As more adolescents are developing a stronger dependence on their mobile devices, smartphone addiction has become a common concern among both the public and researchers. We aimed to examine whether alienation mediated the association between peer relationships and smartphone addiction in adolescents and whether this mediating process was moderated by sex. Our study included 555 adolescent participants (261 boys and 294 girls). The results indicated that peer relationships were negatively associated with smartphone addiction and that alienation mediated this relationship. Furthermore, sex moderated both the direct and indirect associations between peer relationships and smartphone addiction in adolescents. Specifically, in the second stage of the mediation process, the association between alienation and smartphone addiction became nonsignificant for boys, and the direct association between peer relationships and smartphone addiction became nonsignificant for girls. These findings illustrate that peer relationships are a protective factor for adolescent smartphone addiction and that this dynamic has significant sex differences.
... Internet pioneer Martha Lane Fox identified the under-representation of women in technology companies as a great concern during her recent Richard Dimbleby public lecture broadcast on the BBC (Fox, 2015). The social constructionist perspective also shows the social construction of IT as a male domain that is interpreted as incompatible with the social construction of women's identity Compromising gender identities (Lemons and Parzinger, 2007). Not surprisingly, STEM industries face the common issue of attracting and retaining women as an untapped resource (Glass et al., 2013). ...
... Such situations have demonstrated that the 250 ITP 30,2 "underrepresentation of women is associated with increased performance pressures, isolation from informal social and professional networks, and stereotyped role encapsulation for women" (Ely, 1995, p. 593). Lemons and Parzinger (2007) state that women who stay in IT professions have the strongest non-traditional gender schemas compared to women from the general public, especially in IT project work, where men outnumber women (Adikaram and Wijayawardena, 2015). Women within male-dominant fields can expect to face a change in identity (Denissen, 2010;Hirschfeld et al., 2005;Young and Hurlic, 2007) and must sometimes conceal their feminine characteristics to survive in these gendered cultures (Moore et al., 2008). ...
Purpose
Given the limited research on women in Information Technology (IT) sectors in emerging economies and the importance of understanding their experiences working in highly gendered IT firms, this study examines the specific gendered strategies used by women engineers to stay in gender-atypical IT firms in Sri Lanka using Job Embeddedness as a theoretical lens.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was done through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions on a sample of 14 women engineers employed in five leading IT firms in Sri Lanka.
Findings
Respondents perceived the work role expectations in the Sri Lankan IT industry as masculine. Respondents compromised their own gender identities to engage in four distinct strategies to link and fit with the prevailing work role expectations. ‘Using a hybrid style’ and ‘being passive and neutral’ were respondents’ link strategies, while ‘adopting masculine traits’ and ‘demonstrating self-confidence’ related to their fit strategies.
Research limitations/implications
Men and women who aspire to enter the IT sector need to be pre-prepared and educated about the characteristics of IT cultures and prevailing gender norms along with the subject knowledge. Managers of IT firms need to create positive work environments for their women employees that aid them to fit and link with their workplaces.
Originality/value
The study provides a deeper understanding of how women manage gender-related issues within gender-atypical IT firms in Sri Lanka and stay in their employment.
... By prioritizing the inclusion of women in the digital revolution, Afghanistan can harness the full potential of its population, paving the way for a more equitable and prosperous future (Tanwir & Khemka, 2018). The intersection of technology and gender equality holds the promise of a society where women are no longer marginalized but are empowered to contribute to and benefit from the nation's progress (Lemons & Parzinger, 2007;Almarzouki, 2019). ...
Gender disparity in technology access and empowerment remains a significant challenge in Afghanistan, particularly for women facing socio-cultural barriers. This study explores the perceptions of Afghan women regarding technology access and empowerment at Kabul University. Despite advancements in technology, Afghan women encounter obstacles in accessing and utilizing technological resources, limiting their opportunities for education, employment, and economic empowerment. This research aims to investigate the perceptions of Afghan women regarding technology access and empowerment, with a focus on identifying barriers and opportunities for improvement. A cross-sectional study was conducted at Kabul University, involving 150 participants from diverse fields of education/employment and age groups. Structured surveys were administered electronically to collect data on participants' perceptions of technology access and empowerment. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The analysis revealed diverse perceptions among Afghan women regarding technology access and empowerment, with significant disparities in infrastructure accessibility and the effectiveness of digital literacy programs. The findings highlight the need for targeted interventions to address barriers and enhance technology access and empowerment for Afghan women, ultimately promoting gender equity and socio-economic development.
... Schemas are shortcuts individuals use to process large amounts of stimuli (Neisser 2014, Patton andSmith 2017). New information mixes with existing stereotypes to influence an individual's expectations about others (Lemons and Parzinger 2007). At the Supreme Court, as in other political arenas, White men are stereotyped as more credible, authoritative, and rational, whereas women are assumed to be emotional, gentle, and cautious (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993, Patton and Smith 2017, Szmer, Sarver and Kaheny 2010. ...
Racial and gender bias pervade American political institutions, and the Supreme Court is no exception. Women lawyers are interrupted more and allowed to speak for less time than their male colleagues. We expect that stereotypes will also lead to biased treatment of attorneys of color, and will have the greatest impact on women attorneys of color due to their intersectional identity. In doing so, we introduce a refined measure of interruptions that more precisely captures oral argument dynamics. Using a database of the race of members of the Supreme Court bar and transcripts of all oral arguments held from October Terms 2009 – 2018, we find that women attorneys of color receive harsher treatment by the justices during oral arguments than their peers. We also find that when the case involves racial issues, attorneys of color are interrupted less than their white counterparts.
... For example, individuals with high psychological capital are willing to invest resources into innovative behaviors that can be reported to increase the stock of resources [64]. A sense of control makes individuals more confident and optimistic that they will experience positive events in the future [65,66], and they are willing to invest in their future [67]. Hence, when perceived control is high, individuals may invest their excess psychological resources in positive behaviors, creating a spiral effect of resource gain. ...
Drawing upon the conservation of resource theory, we offer a framework for understanding the mechanism underlying the effect of public employees’ overqualification on their cognitive and behavioral outcomes, through both positive and negative paths. We propose that perceived overqualification elicits two subjective cognitions, namely, perceived control and psychological entitlement, which further lead to public employees’ behaviors through approach (organizational citizenship behavior) and avoidance (workplace deviance behavior) tendencies. A total of 421 public employees participated in the three-stage time-lag investigation. The findings indicated that public employees’ perceived overqualification is positively related to perceived control, and perceived control is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior. Perceived control completely mediates the relationship between perceived overqualification and organizational citizenship behavior. Perceived overqualification is positively related to psychological entitlement, and psychological entitlement is positively related to workplace deviance behavior. Psychological entitlement completely mediates the relationship between perceived overqualification and workplace deviance behavior. This study constructed a double-edged sword model of perceived overqualification based on the public sector, discussing the influence of public employees’ perceived overqualification on their workplace behaviors from the perspective of resource assessment and self-evaluation, and providing theoretical guidance for the practice of human resource management within the public sector.
... During the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, the Internet boom pioneer Martha Lane Fox (2015) identified the under-representation of women in technology companies as a great concern. Moreover, the social constructionist perspective indicates the social construction of IT as a male domain that is to be incompatible with the social construction of women's identity (Lemons and Parzinger, 2007). Unsurprisingly, STEM industries face the common issue of attracting and retaining women as an untapped resource (Glass, Sassler, Levitte, & Michelmore, 2013). ...
Purpose
Despite more than 50 years of research into gender and work, the impact of women occupying managerial positions persists to be under-represented in mainstream human resource management (HRM) literature. The purpose of this article is to identify and explore the perceptions of women who decided to choose their career path either in IT or HR positions to explore their motivation, career strategies and success factors.
Design/methodology/approach
Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with women occupying either IT or HR managerial positions. The study included two datasets: (1) women representing managerial positions in IT and (2) women representing managerial positions in HR.
Findings
Women holding HR managerial positions took action to achieve the intended position in their dream industry since their studies. On the contrary, the choice of the IT industry was one undertaken by candidates with no previous IT experience. Because the IT sector is dominated by men, women in these positions still had to prove their competences.
Research limitations/implications
The research showed that women cannot be ignored in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) industry, and they prove a valuable resource for managerial positions in IT or HR departments in many sectors.
Originality/value
The research underpinned a new boundaryless career model for both HR and IT positions.
... Mary A. Lemons et al ( 2007) suggests that pacing women in observable positions would improve their chances of retention. One reason for women not able to break the glass ceiling was the resistance of men, who had absolutely no experience with working with the opposite gender at that level. ...
Every society consists of diverse set of people having multiple ideas, values, background. These multitudes of thoughts, idea and backgrounds add up to multiple identities that can be quite disturbing, if not managed well. IT-BPM industry is working on diversity management and the Gender ratio in the IT-BPM industry is quite healthy. Women contribute to 34% of this sector's workforce. The average age of the employees in this sector is 27 years, and this sector is the leading employers of millenials and Gen Y. but it has only 1% of physically disabled/ challenged employees. This needs to be looked into. Companies have to challenge themselves in coming up with solutions to prevent the attrition of women from the work place. The more support women get from the organization, the more enriched their work life balance will be and that means the better they can contribute towards organizational goals. This paper focuses on the Gender Diversity in the IT industry in Pune. The role of gender diversity on communication, mentoring, training , job satisfaction ,self esteem and promotions is explored. A structured equation model (SEM) for the same is suggested through this study. Gender diversity is a highly contested issue in the organizations these days. Companies have drafted policies and are implementing initiatives to improve their gender ratio. Women bring different perspective to the organizations and when women leave the organization due to inadequate support from their peers and colleagues , or because of family issues, organizations miss out on leveraging a very important asset. Introduction :
... In other words, once controlling for aspects of SCCT (e.g., learning experiences, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations) gender, in and of itself is not an explanation for women's lower interest in computing careers. This finding is in line with decades of research documenting how women's interest in computing and tech is largely shaped by societal norms and stereotypes about who pursues careers in computing (Cheryan, et al., 2009;Lemons & Parzinger, 2007;Margolis & Fisher, 2003). ...
Computing career opportunities are increasing across all sectors of the U.S. economy, yet there remains a serious shortage of college graduates to fill these jobs. This problem has fueled a nationwide effort to expand and diversify the computing career pipeline. Guided by social cognitive career theory (SCCT), this study used logistic regression to examine college students’ interest in a computing career and how that changes over time. Drawing from a multi-institutional, longitudinal sample of introductory computing course students, this study extends prior literature by examining a broad group of potential computing career aspirants (i.e., computing and non-computing majors). Results indicate that, two years after the introductory course, 53.5% of students indicated an interest in a computing career. Notably, this interest changed significantly over time, and our findings indicate that students in this sample were more likely to leave the computing career pipeline than to be recruited to it. Positive predictors of computing career interest include initial computing career interest, family support, and time spent in computing-related student groups. Additional positive predictors such as sense of belonging in computing and computing self-efficacy underscore the importance of psychosocial attributes in shaping this career interest. Beyond individual characteristics, this study reveals key areas where faculty and institutions can better address elements of the college experience to bolster students’ interest and confidence in pursuing computing careers. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.
... Recruitment has been difficult despite their qualifications. Lemons and Parzinger (2007) also attest that by articulating that women entering the profession of ICT often don't stay too long. This article therefore builds on both the gender schema theory and diffusion of innovation theory. ...
A study of every industrial revolution would be incomplete without any reference to the scant inclusion of women in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. It remains true that a plethora of women are still not extricated from the obfuscation of social inclusion in the technological space. The gender inequalities in ICT remains a perennial problem, consequently prompting a new debate. Closely related to this debate is the scant rate of the inclusion of women in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). This article opines that men have more freedom to utilise technological devices than women due to, inter alia, limited knowledge regarding technological infrastructure. The article is conceptual in nature and relied on critical scholarship review as a methodological approach to obtain insights. The objective is to argue that gender inequality in ICT is most likely to persist in the 4IR. Furthermore, it provides a summation and conclusion on the 4IR.
... Gender schemas are cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge (Lemons & Parzinger, 2007) that determine gender role expectations of persons based on biological sex. In this view, gender specific roles are embedded in societal practices and therefore become internalized by individuals (Bem, 1981) As a result, genderstereotyped attitudes emerge, with some roles viewed as primarily masculine, and others viewed as primarily feminine (Heilman, Block & Martell, 1995). ...
This study examines whether students at two universities perceive social power differences between male and female business faculty. Using gender schema and social power theories, we posit that female faculty members will be perceived by students as having greater referent power and that male faculty members will be perceived by students as having greater expert, legitimate, reward and coercive power. Results of a survey involving 892 students at two universities indicate that male faculty members are perceived as having greater expert power, while no gender differences exist on referent, reward and coercive power. Contrary to our hypotheses, female faculty members are perceived as having greater legitimate power.
... The lack of attention for women in IT, as opposed to getting women into IT, is surprising: especially given that previous academic work on the subject has described certain developer cultures as hostile, challenging, and even harmful for under-represented groups (Richterich, 2018;Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Shih, 2006). During recent years, this issue has also received increasing news coverage, partly due to staff in major tech corporations speaking up and filing law suits with regard to the gender pay gap, gendered discrimination, ageism and racism (Geuss, 2015;Levin, 2018;Wakabayashi, 2017). ...
Women are under-represented in information technology (IT) professions, globally. It is widely discussed that there is an urgent need to tackle this issue by bringing more women into the IT industry. However, the spotlight is less often put on women currently working as developers in male-dominated environments. How do these women experience their work and deal with problems? International non-profit initiatives such as Women who Code (WwC) aim not only at supporting women in training for and entering IT professions: they also advise them in their daily lives and struggles as developers. Using this network and its blog as a case study, I show that the WwC bloggers are faced with contradictory work norms and experiences. They tend to resort to pragmatic advice, focused on DIY problem solving, and shouldered individual responsibility rather than highlighting systemic failures. This tendency shows similarities to neoliberal feminist rationales and speaks to the need for (re)emphasizing the need for structural changes within the broader discourse concerning women developers.
... This could either be studied in a field setting or with an experimental design in which scholars manipulate each team's gender composition. Furthermore, past research has shown that gender role expectations might differ between industries (Lemons & Parzinger, 2007) and that the effects of gender diversity on performance vary between sectors (Joshi & Roh, 2009). Industries traditionally dominated by men (e.g., automotive industry, information technology, manufacturing) are characterized by higher gender discrimination. ...
... This is a cognitive theory based on how people become 'gendered' in the first place and how that leads to social and institutional bias. Gender schema refers to a cognitive structure, organized starting from a very early age, regarding the expectations a person has for other individuals based on biological sex [7]. Bem puts forth that as belief in the natural superiority of men has become embedded in culture, both men and women tend to internalize that as a type of 'lens' by which they perceive the world [8]. ...
Background
Surgery has long been a man-dominated discipline with gender roles traditionally defined along societal norms. Presumably, as society has evolved, so have men surgeons’ perceptions of women surgeons, though data are lacking. This study was undertaken to determine if men surgeons’ perceptions of women surgeons represent a bias against women in Surgery.
Methods
190 men surgeons were queried about attitudes toward women surgeons utilizing a validated questionnaire. The survey included binary, multiple choice, and Likert scale questions (1 = definitely disagree to 5 = definitely agree).
Results
84% of the men surgeons have been attending surgeons for more than 5 years; 80% deem women surgeons as capable as their man colleagues. 80% of respondents consider it possible for a woman to be a good surgeon, mother, and spouse; however, 76% believe women surgeons experience more pressure to balance work and family. 75% of the men surgeons think women surgeons have the same advancement opportunities as men, though 30% believe gender discrimination exists in Surgery. 45% of the respondents consider the “surgical discipline” accountable for fewer women finishing training, yet 57% think the rate of women entering Surgery is not a problem to address.
Conclusion
While most men surgeons have favorable opinions of the personal and professional abilities of women surgeons, favorable opinions are not universal; a bias against women persists in Surgery. Considering most medical students today are women, the discipline of Surgery dismisses this talent pool only to its detriment. Surgery, and men in Surgery specifically, must evolve to eliminate bias against women in Surgery, promoting an equitable and inclusive work environment for the betterment of Surgery and all its stakeholders, including patients.
... There is a broad and sustained societal consensus that one of the long-term keys to continued U.S. competitiveness in an increasingly global business environment is the adequate supply of a high-quality workforce in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) scholarship, despite the traditional sources of STEM labor being increasingly insufficient. Significant barriers remain in engaging women, for example, in technology fields (Diekman, Brown, Johnston, & Clark, 2010;Lemons & Parzinger, 2007), and sizable gaps are still present in understanding how to broaden early STEM-related academic achievement, foster its links to the STEM career interests, and translate these interests into lasting STEM career choices and positive attitudes across ethnicities and genders (Zarrett & Malanchuk, 2005). Previous research provided numerous static pictures (i.e., based on data from one point in time) related to broad STEM interests, and it mostly involved adults and college or seniorhigh-school students who might have already made some important commitments toward vocational choices (e.g., Leuwerke, Robbins, Sawyer, & Hovland, 2004). ...
The purpose of this study was to advance knowledge about the critical workforce shortage in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields by looking at how early career interests change in relation to academic performance, ethnicity, and gender. A longitudinal examination of archival data from Memphis City school students (n=2813) incorporated the Technical and Science-Technology dimensions of STEM-related career interests. We found that differences in gender, ethnicity, and academic performance were all related to the changes in early STEM career interests. While the overall group’s Technical interests decreased and Science-Technology interests increased from the 8th to 10th grade, the changes in students’ career interests were differentiated across our variables. Exploring changes in STEM career interests at earlier stages and in the context of personal differences helps not only to illuminate the roots of STEM workforce shortage as a phenomenon but also to address the disproportionately low levels of women and minorities in STEM careers.
... In this article we analyze a large dataset of open source software developers to answer the question: are women at a disadvantage because of who they are, or because of what they do? Typically, gender discrimination is conceptualized as categorical discrimination against women (11); however, as much of the scholarship in gender studies had shown, to understand gender inequalities one needs to shift the focus to the gendered pattern of behavior (12,13): The more likely causes of discrimination are actions that are typical of men and women, rather than the gender category of the person (14)(15)(16). Women in leadership roles often feel compelled to (or are expected to) follow male behavioral traits (17), just as men in feminine occupations take on female-like behavioral traits (18), and the choice of collaborators and mentors often follows gender homophily (19). ...
Women are severely marginalized in software development, especially in open source. In this article we argue that disadvantage is more due to gendered behavior than to categorical discrimination: women are at a disadvantage because of what they do, rather than because of who they are. Using data on entire careers of users from GitHub.com, we develop a measure to capture the gendered pattern of behavior: We use a random forest prediction of being female (as opposed to being male) by behavioral choices in the level of activity, specialization in programming languages, and choice of partners. We test differences in success and survival along both categorical gender and the gendered pattern of behavior. We find that 84.5% of women's disadvantage (compared to men) in success and 34.8% of their disadvantage in survival are due to the female pattern of their behavior. Men are also disadvantaged along their interquartile range of the female pattern of their behavior, and users who don't reveal their gender suffer an even more drastic disadvantage in survival probability. Moreover, we do not see evidence for any reduction of these inequalities in time. Our findings are robust to noise in gender recognition, and to taking into account particular programming languages, or decision tree classes of gendered behavior. Our results suggest that fighting categorical gender discrimination will have a limited impact on gender inequalities in open source software development, and that gender hiding is not a viable strategy for women.
... Although, these stereotypical perceptions are fading over time [30], they still have a negative influence especially on EI of female students' [31] [32]. Recent empirical research studying the gender schemas of women in IT sector, found that they do not strictly conform to the stereotypical perceptions considering IT as a masculine field of occupation, and they exhibit a higher level of non-traditional gender schemas [33]. Nevertheless, the stereotypical perception of students about occupations could seriously influence EI. ...
Entrepreneurship is considered as a major motor
behind economic development and innovation. Tertiary students
are one step away from taking serious career decisions and as a
result, a large number of articles try to decipher the mechanisms
behind the development of their entrepreneurial intentions.
Personality traits, factors of the social environment and the role
of entrepreneurship education are among the factors investigated
by previous research. However, entrepreneurial intentions in the
field of Information Technology remain understudied. In this
research drawing from gender schemas theory and the theory of
planned behavior, we investigate the impact of gender typed
personality and social norms in conjunction with the role of
entrepreneurial education. The sample consists of tertiary
Information Technology students. In contrast to previous
research, social norms have a significant impact on
entrepreneurial intentions, in comparison to entrepreneurial
education which has a marginally weaker effect. Additionally,
certain personality traits stereotypically associated with the
masculinity have a major predicting ability on these intentions.
The findings have valuable implications for educators and
entrepreneurship course designers.
... As a result of seeing masculinity/maleness as the norm (Lemons and Parzinger 2007;Powell et al. 2009), both men and women in engineering may only have access to narratives of success that highlight stereotypically masculine traits (and downplay feminine traits). This could account for the homogeneity in descriptions of success that we encountered, particularly when addressing formal measures. ...
Among science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, the percentage participation of women in engineering has shown significant gains over the past few decades. However, women are still largely absent (or exist in very small numbers) in tenured academic ranks in several engineering sub-fields. In this study we present female and male engineers’ varying understandings of ‘scientific success’ as a potential contributor to women’s retention and success in their (sub)fields. Using in-depth interviews conducted among engineering graduate students and faculty at two U.S. Northwest land-grant research universities, this study demonstrates the ‘dual’ nature in accounts of scientific success, where formal measures of success operate in tandem with informal measures. While both men and women attribute their success to formal and informal measures, gender-based variations tend to be more prevalent among informal measures. By examining these informal measures, this study highlights the context surrounding success.
... Later studies have branched away from career cognition tasks and are more likely to use GST as a lens to look at a variety of topics and issues within the workplace. These topics range from gender typicality and work adjustment to gender-atypical careers (such as male flight attendants; Chen et al. 2014), to understanding how voters evaluate female political candidates (Chang and Hitchon 2004), and to discrimination toward women in technology fields (Lemons and Parzinger 2007). This last study found that women in information technology (IT) were significantly less gender schematic than men in IT, which may result in a clash of values. ...
One of Sandra Bem’s important contributions was the development of gender schema theory (GST; Bem 1981a). Through an analysis of journal articles referencing GST, we explored the breadth of the theory’s reach and the ways in which its use has changed over time. More specifically, we analyzed how often GST reached journals outside psychology as well as journals and research populations outside the United States, even though Bem was a U.S. psychologist whose empirical work was primarily with U.S. populations. We also assessed the range of research topics that have used a GST framework. We found that 34 years later, GST continues to be cited frequently, with a broad reach beyond U.S. psychology, particularly into international as well as communication and business journals. We found five primary novel uses of the theory: development, discrimination/stereotyping, occupations, historically marginalized populations, and mental health and trauma. We conclude that GST has been a generative theory. For the future, we recommend that GST be used to frame the study of intersectionality, for research-based activism, and as part of a project of theory-bridging.
... In keeping with other feminist ideas, then, this research points to the need to tear down these stereotypes. Consistent with the operation of stereotypes, Lemons and Parzinger (2007) documented that women in IT professions are considered to stray more from traditional gender norms while men in IT fit gender norms. One way to challenge stereotypes is careful highlighting of the presence of diverse women in IT fields. ...
Several initiatives that include Girl Scouts, MESA, and Project Lead the Way in the private sector and Engineer Girl by the National Academy of Engineering, have been taken to encourage the involvement of women in the engineering profession. The Women in Science Scale (WiSS) is an important set of questionnaire items used in many research projects that involve middle and high school students. Several schools are implementing curricula to increase young people's connection with engineering and design. An important gender gap that remains, and has widened, is in the extent to which high school seniors report playing video/computer games. A study by Angela Johnson (2007) showed that recognition is an important part of retention and success for minority women. Johnson found that minority women value the ability to know the professor rather than being a passive student in a classroom. Practicing industrial engineers reported that adaptable problem-solving skills and process evaluation and analyses are critical skill sets for engineers.
... Contrary to expectations informed by prior literature, we find that this effect is not primarily based on female representation among backers alone. Instead, it is driven by the success of female founders developing technology projects, which is surprising as technology is an industry that is generally gender-typed male, and which has the fewest female funders (Lemons and Parzinger, 2007). Our analyses of field data from the largest crowdfunding platform suggest that, rather than the relatively high success rate of female founders being driven by the overall proportion of female backers in a category, it is instead dependent a small segment of female backers. ...
Female founders seek and receive less startup capital than male entrepreneurs. One reason for this disparity is a lack of female representation among funders of startups, and a potential solution is to increase the proportion of women in decision-making roles. Both the problem and the solution implicitly rely on homophily – that women will support other women given a chance. However, a lack of clarity over when and how homophily influences individual choices makes it uncertain when better representation is actually advantageous. Using data from crowdfunding, we empirically examine whether higher proportions of female funders lead to higher success rates in capital-raising for women. We find that women outperform men, and are more likely to succeed at a crowdfunding campaign, all other things being equal. Surprisingly, this effect primarily holds for female founders proposing technological projects, a category that is largely dominated by male founders and funders. This finding stands in stark contrast to expectations concerning homophily. A laboratory experiment helps explain how this pattern might emerge and allows us to theorize about the types of choice homophily driving results. We find that a small proportion of female backers disproportionately support women-led projects in areas where women are historically underrepresented. This suggests an activist variant of choice homophily, and implies that mere representation of female funders without activism may not always be enough to overcome the barriers faced by female founders.
... The lower achievement of the female students as compared to their male classmates in the post-intervention quiz suggests that we should consider strategies to even out this discrepancy in performance. Many authors have highlighted the under-representation of females in engineering as well as their lower interest and performance in this field as compared to their male peers (Anderson and Gilbride, 2007;Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Trenor et al., 2008). Suggested reasons for these discrepancies include lack of awareness of engineering as a career and field of study, gender schemas of engineering as an 'all-male' domain, social and contextual factors, gender differences in early childhood nurturing, and biased attitudes of male peers and teaching staff. ...
B ackground
Simulation‐based Learning (SBL) was used in Machining Technology, a sixty‐hour module for second year engineering students, at the School of Engineering at Temasek Polytechnic. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of SBL on learners' motivation and performance. In assessing students' motivation, we adopted a framework based on the Self‐determination Theory (SDT), chosen on account of its comprehensive treatment of the relationship between students' perceived needs satisfaction and their motivation.
P urpose (H ypothesis )
It is hypothesized that SBL, which provides learners with interactive learning experiences, will enhance students' motivation and performance. We explored the effect of SBL on students' perceived psychological needs satisfaction, motivation, and learning, and how SBL affected students' understanding and application of content knowledge.
D esign /M ethod
The intervention procedure involved the incorporation of SBL in Machining Technology, a 60 hour module in the mechanical engineering program. Survey findings and post‐intervention assessment outcomes were used to assess the students' perceptions of their basic psychological needs satisfaction, motivation, and performance.
R esults
Our findings suggest that the students perceived their psychological needs to be satisfied and had high levels of self‐determined motivation. Students who undertook SBL had higher mean performance test scores, although SBL may have differential effects on learners depending on factors such as gender, educational backgrounds, and IT knowledge.
C onclusions
Our findings suggest that the students perceived their basic psychological needs to be met and that SBL can potentially enhance self‐determined motivation as well as improve learning in general.
... Second, technology disciplines, including MIS, have been labeled as male dominated [Lemons and Parzinger, 2007;Wajcman, 2010]. MIS researchers have found that women receive lower performance evaluations, hold lower level positions, and have fewer prospects for career advancement than men [Baroudi and Igbaria, 1994;Igbaria and Baroudi, 1995]. ...
The MIS field suffers from two pressing workforce issues, underrepresentation of women and inadequate supply of entry level talent. To examine these issues, this study develops an instrument to measure attitudes toward MIS (Attitude toward success, usefulness, confidence in learning, and effectance motivation) and perceptions of both MIS and MIS professionals. Data from 1102 college students collected over a five-year period were then used to test gender differences within and across time periods. In spite of recent efforts, little progress has been made to improve attitudes and perceptions. However, in contrast to expectations, views appear not so different across gender.
Purpose
Entrepreneurial intention of students is frequently used in entrepreneurship research as an indicator of creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial mindset. The entrepreneurship courses offered by engineering disciplines do not always have the expected outcomes, while differences are observed on students' entrepreneurial intention. These differences sometimes stem from the stereotypical beliefs about entrepreneurship, in favor of masculinity. Although these anachronistic perceptions gradually fade in the society, personality traits attributed to “traditional” gender schemas still have an impact on students' career choices, especially in academic fields considered “masculine,” such as information technology. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender-typed personality (GTP) on students' entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and identify differences between genders.
Design/methodology/approach
The impact of GTP traits on students' entrepreneurial intention is examined using gender schema theory and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) based on a sample of 321 university students of information technology. Structural equation models are used for the investigation of causal effects and group differences.
Findings
The results indicate significant interaction of GTP traits on the EI for both male and female students. However, no significant differences were found in the perception of gender schemas between males and females, which clearly suggests that the attribution of these traits to a specific gender nowadays is false.
Originality/value
The results offer convincing explanation of the differences observed in EI between the two genders and have both theoretical and practical implications for entrepreneurship education.
This article presents a case study in which one library designated Product Owners to steer a website redesign project. The Product Owner, commonly used in agile approaches to software development, plays an important leadership role in the development process. In the case described here, two faculty librarians were selected to co-lead the project. This article outlines the benefits of using Product Owners and the factors that led to the two librarians being put on the project. The authors explore the challenges related to faculty librarians becoming Product Owners—a recognized leadership role without formal management responsibilities.
The issues of excessive CEO compensation and gender pay gaps garner much attention from management scholars and the general public. In this study, we integrate these topics and explore the complex interdependent nature of how CEOs influence directors’ evaluative perceptions about appropriate levels of CEO compensation and whether female and male CEOs do so in different ways. Drawing from role congruity theory and previous research on executive compensation, we use a configurational approach to identify how CEOs achieve high levels of compensation through different combinations of influence arising from their power, origin, tenure, similarities with evaluators, and organizational conditions. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis with a matched pair sample of female and male CEOs from 2010 to 2016, we find there are multiple configurations of influence conditions by which female and male CEOs achieve high compensation. Our inductive analysis, unpacking how these configurations differ between female and male CEOs, shows four distinct influence mechanisms: leveraging power and role empathy, trailblazer responsibility, leveraging power and similarity, and leveraging role empathy. These mechanisms highlight the ways influence conditions complement or mutually reinforce one another in different ways for female and male CEOs. Implications for theory and research about the unique challenges female executives face in achieving equitable treatment in the workplace are also discussed.
This paper develops a contingency model to examine whether the impact of costs and benefits (derived from social exchange theory) are contingent upon factors related to the social context, such as norms and generalized trust (derived from social capital theory) in virtual communities. In general, the results suggest that costs negatively affected one’s intention to share knowledge, whereas benefits positively affect one’s intention to share knowledge. Particularly, while the effort of knowledge sharing has a direct effect on one’s intention to share knowledge, the effect of loss of knowledge power is contingent upon pro-sharing norms. While two intrinsic benefits (enjoyment in helping others and social affiliation) have direct effects on one’s intention to share knowledge, the impact of the extrinsic benefit (i.e., online status seeking) is contingent upon prosharing norms. Generalized trust has also the potential to moderate the impact of online status seeking on one’s intention to share knowledge.
This chapter aims to establish a framework for understanding how and why women's participation in undergraduate computing varies globally. It begins with an overview of women's participation in computing around the world and then reviews the extant literature regarding factors that may contribute to a gender gap in some countries and gender parity in others. The chapter compiles available data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the governments and ministries of education of individual countries. It focuses on the most traditional pathway to a career in the tech industry – earning an undergraduate degree in computing – but there are many alternative pathways, such as through industry‐run training programs or coding boot camps. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of questions about women's participation in computing that remain unanswered and how future research might begin to address them.
For decades, societal influences, academic ennui, and corporate resistance to change have contributed toward the reduction of the number of women pursuing the computer science field. Technology innovations have enabled greater workplace flexibility, yet gender schemas and negative stereotypes remain. Human Resources organizations are pivotal in altering negative perceptions and reversing misconceptions. HR has low and no cost options available to them to greatly impact their work environment and subsequent female IT recruitment, development, and retention programs. Organizations that do not deliberately address the talent shortfall within Information Technology will clearly suffer recruitment, retention, and business performance consequences. While the focus of this chapter is women in IT, most of the discussion can also be applied to men.
For decades, societal influences, academic ennui, and corporate resistance to change have contributed toward the reduction of the number of women pursuing the computer science field. Technology innovations have enabled greater workplace flexibility, yet gender schemas and negative stereotypes remain. Human Resources organizations are pivotal in altering negative perceptions and reversing misconceptions. HR has low and no cost options available to them to greatly impact their work environment and subsequent female IT recruitment, development, and retention programs. Organizations that do not deliberately address the talent shortfall within Information Technology will clearly suffer recruitment, retention, and business performance consequences. While the focus of this chapter is women in IT, most of the discussion can also be applied to men.
The under-representation of the women in the field of Information Technology (IT) in Nigeria has been closely observed over the last decade. One of the facts is that social media have been widely and intensively used in Nigeria, which is an effective way to empower women in the IT sector. This study aimed to investigate the role of social media in empowering the involvement of women in information technology. In order to achieve the objectives of this study the current study conducted a survey amongst the female students of Al-Qalam and Umaru Musa Yar’adua Universities and tried to find out how the use of social media is contributing to the growth of women involvement in the IT sector. For this purpose, a sample of 200 female students was taken from these Universities via convenience sampling techniques. The quantitative method was used to collect data for this study. The findings in this study revealed that there was a significant relationship between women’s awareness and the encouragement of women in the IT sector through the use of the social media. Besides, there was a significant relationship between the empowerment of women and the encouragement of women in the IT sector through the use of the social media. Hence, women’s awareness and empowerment of women through the social media encouraged the involvement of women in the IT sector. In addition, this study recommends that there is need to examine the relationship between women and social media in various sectors such as government, healthcare, aerospace and security in order to trace the real role of social media in empowering the involvement of women in information technology in Nigeria.
Abstract Women are severely marginalized in software development, especially in open source. In this article we argue that disadvantage is more due to gendered behavior than to categorical discrimination: women are at a disadvantage because of what they do, rather than because of who they are. Using data on entire careers of users from GitHub.com, we develop a measure to capture the gendered pattern of behavior: We use a random forest prediction of being female (as opposed to being male) by behavioral choices in the level of activity, specialization in programming languages, and choice of partners. We test differences in success and survival along both categorical gender and the gendered pattern of behavior. We find that 84.5% of women’s disadvantage (compared to men) in success and 34.8% of their disadvantage in survival are due to the female pattern of their behavior. Men are also disadvantaged along their interquartile range of the female pattern of their behavior, and users who don’t reveal their gender suffer an even more drastic disadvantage in survival probability. Moreover, we do not see evidence for any reduction of these inequalities in time. Our findings are robust to noise in gender recognition, and to taking into account particular programming languages, or decision tree classes of gendered behavior. Our results suggest that fighting categorical gender discrimination will have a limited impact on gender inequalities in open source software development, and that gender hiding is not a viable strategy for women.
Given growing interest in computing fields, as well as a longstanding gender gap in computer science, this study used nationwide survey data on college students during 4 decades to: (a) document trends in aspirations to major in computer science among undergraduate women and men; (b) explore the characteristics of women and men who choose to major in computer science and how this population has evolved over time; and (c) identify the key determinants of the gender gap in the selection of computer science majors during the past 4 decades. The data included 8 million students attending 1,225 baccalaureate-granting institutions from 1971 to 2011, with selected-year multivariate analyses of 18,830 computer science majors (and 904,307 students from all other majors). The results revealed heavy fluctuations in students’ interest in computer science from 1971 to 2011, with trends highlighting a significant downturn between the late 1990s and 2011 as well as a persistent, sizeable underrepresentation of women across all years. The study also showed that while some of the traditional explanations for the gender gap in computer science held true, there have been distinctive shifts in who pursues computer science and why some students may be particularly interested in or dissuaded from the major.
The under presentation of the women in Information Technology (IT) in Nigeria has been closely observed over the last decade. one of the facts is that social media have been widely and intensively used in Nigeria, which is an effective way to empower women in the IT sector. this book aimed to investigate the role of social media in empowering the involvement of Women in Information Technology. In order to achieve the objective of this Book, the author conducted a survey among the female students of Al-Qalam and Umaru Musa Universities and tried to find out how the use of social media is contributing to the involvement of women in the IT sector.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and public access to computers with Internet connectivity in particular, can assist community development efforts and help bridge the so-called digital divide. However, use of ICT may not be the same for women as it is for men. Technical, social and cultural barriers exacerbate women's exclusion from the benefits of ICT for development. This paper is based on a qualitative analysis of the benefits of ICT and the barriers facing women to fully realize those benefits, particularly through public access places such as libraries, telecenters and cybercafés. We describe individual benefits such as increased self-esteem, reduced isolation, access to markets, empowerment and access to health information. We also describe collective benefits such as economic growth, improved health and education, capacity building and cultural transformation. Finally, we discuss barriers that are particularly significant to women such as location, infrastructure and connectivity; time and money; lack of relevant content; low education and literacy; and social norms and perceptions. This paper draws from reports of a larger study of public access venues in 25 developing countries around the world, which are publicly available online.
Bu çalışmada, kadın ve erkek liderlerin kullandıkları güç kaynakları bağlamında takipçilerin algıladıkları rol uyuşmazlıklarının belirlenmesi ve bu sürecin çeşitli örgütsel sonuçlar üzerindeki yansımaları incelenmektedir. Spesifik olarak, kadın bir lider yumuşak güç kaynağı kullandığında izleyicilerin performansı nasıl etkilenmektedir? Peki ya sert güç kaynakları kullandığında? Çalışanların perspektifinden bakıldığında, kadınlar daha az etkili liderlik sergilemekte midir? Nihayetinde, kadınların yönetsel pozisyonlarda temsiliyet oranlarının halen arzulanan düzeylerde olmamasını daha az etkili liderlik ile açıklayabilir miyiz? Çalışma, lider ve takipçi cinsiyetinin, liderin kullandığı güç kaynakları ile çalışan performansı –görev ve bağlamsal- arasındaki ilişkideki rolünü 2 (yumuşak ve sert güç) x 2 (kadın lider ve erkek lider) x 2 (kadın çalışan ve erkek çalışan) şeklindeki bir model üzerinde problematize etmektedir. Çalışmada aynı zamanda liderin güç kaynakları kullanımına ilişkin toplumsal cinsiyet kalıp yargılarına dayanan farklılıkların (yumuşak güç kullanımının kadınlara; sert güç kullanımının erkeklere atfedilmesi gibi) Türkiye’deki liderlik süreçleri bağlamında geçerli olup olmadığı araştırılmaktadır. Araştırma hipotezleri, 650 kişilik beyaz yakalılardan oluşan bir çalışma grubu üzerinde sınanmakta ve bulgular, kuramsal ve uygulamaya dönük katkılar bağlamında tartışılmaktadır.
We examine gender bias in political institutions through a novel lens: oral arguments at the US Supreme Court. We ask whether female lawyers are afforded less speaking time during oral arguments compared to male lawyers. We posit that justices, while highly educated and more aware than most of laws requiring equal treatment, may be influenced by gender schemas that result in unconscious biased treatment of male and female lawyers. Applying automated content analysis to the transcripts of 3,583 oral arguments, we find that female lawyers are interrupted earlier, allowed to speak for less time between interruptions, and subjected to more and longer speeches by the justices compared to their male counterparts. However, this pattern is reversed during oral arguments involving gender-related cases. Our most novel and significant theoretical finding is that gender negates the well-documented positive effect of being on the winning side of a case.
Engineering remains one of the most highly and persistently sex segregated occupations in the United States. Though extant literature submits that women’s increased access to managerial positions in male-dominated occupations should represent an important strategy for addressing sex segregation, my analysis of 61 interviews with industry engineers suggests that increasing women’s disproportionate representation in managerial roles in engineering may promote the very sex segregation it is attempting to mitigate. The analysis highlights how organizations reinforce female engineers’ movement into managerial roles and foster a form of intraoccupational sex segregation with unintended consequences for women. These consequences include fostering mixed identification with engineering, reinforcing stereotypes about women’s suitability for technical work, and increasing work–life balance tensions. The findings further suggest that an inverted role hierarchy in engineering may explain these gendered career patterns and their unintended consequences. By inverted role hierarchy I mean the valuing of technical over managerial roles. Implications for the literatures on occupational sex segregation, women’s representation in managerial roles, and the experience of women in male-dominated occupations are discussed.
The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1132.
For decades, societal influences, academic ennui, and corporate resistance to change have contributed toward the reduction of the number of women pursuing the computer science field. Technology innovations have enabled greater workplace flexibility, yet gender schemas and negative stereotypes remain. Human Resources organizations are pivotal in altering negative perceptions and reversing misconceptions. HR has low and no cost options available to them to greatly impact their work environment and subsequent female IT recruitment, development, and retention programs. Organizations that do not deliberately address the talent shortfall within Information Technology will clearly suffer recruitment, retention, and business performance consequences. While the focus of this chapter is women in IT, most of the discussion can also be applied to men.
In order to motivate individuals to share their knowledge in online communities, the use of extrinsic rewards and goals is a typical approach. However, extrinsic motivation may have unintended consequences. Although past studies have examined the direct effect of extrinsic motivation on intrinsic motivation, no research to date has investigated how extrinsic motivation moderates the impact of intrinsic motivation on knowledge sharing, or how the effect of extrinsic motivation on intrinsic motivation is contingent upon whether a member is active or not. Drawing on attribution theory and theory of planned behavior, the study was conducted with data collected from a large social Q&A site consisting of multiple online communities with millions of registered users; the data were analyzed with moderated regression and structural equation modeling. Results show that the effect of enjoyment in helping others on attitude toward knowledge sharing is undermined by virtual organizational rewards, while the effect of knowledge self-efficacy on attitude toward knowledge sharing is undermined by reciprocity. The results also show that the effect of virtual organizational rewards on enjoyment in helping others is contingent upon whether members are active or not. Specifically, for active members, virtual organizational rewards undermine enjoyment in helping others; for inactive members, however, virtual organizational rewards increase enjoyment in helping others. These findings enrich the research on unintended consequences of extrinsic motivation specifically, and the theory of motivation in general. Additionally, these findings provide practical insights on how and when to use extrinsic rewards/goals to motivate individuals to share knowledge in social Q&A sites.
O objetivo do estudo de delineamento experimental intersujeitos foi analisar as relações entre gerenciamento de impressões de candidatos a emprego e a decisão de contratação pelo entrevistador. Apresentou-se uma descrição de entrevista de cargo de nível médio, incluindo respostas de cinco supostos candidatos, cada um deles fazendo uso de uma das estratégias de gerenciamento de impressões: autopromoção, insinuação, exemplificação, intimidação ou suplicação. Participaram 99 profissionais de gestão de pessoas, aleatoriamente distribuídos em cada uma das cinco condições experimentais. Para o teste de hipóteses, foram usadas análises de correlação, de variância e o Teste-t. A ANOVA evidenciou que as estratégias de autopromoção e de exemplificação foram mais associadas à decisão de contratação. As estratégias de autopromoção relacionadas a comportamentos não verbais (manter postura ereta, olhar fixo nos olhos) também repercutem favoravelmente na decisão de contratação. O tempo de experiência do entrevistador aumenta as chances de o candidato que faz uso da estratégia de autopromoção ser contratado. As relações entre comportamentos não verbais e atributos físicos e pessoais do candidato foram evidenciadas somente para as estratégias de autopromoção e de insinuação. Há indícios de que o uso de estratégias de GI e o comportamento não verbal têm um papel importante na decisão de contratação.
The purpose of this study was to investigate how gender role attitudes affect clothing involvement and clothing consumption behaviors in young female generation by changing the traditional sex role stereotype. For the research, the survey was conducted for a month from June 15 to July 15, 2009. Data was collected a total of 368 questionnaires from 20's female university students and analyzed 301 questionnaires with SPSS 12.0. The results were as follows. First, the results of factor analysis on gender role attitudes confirmed the multifactorial theory of gender schema: modern masculinity, conservative gender roles, modern feminity based on emotion, gender role openness, and traditional feminity. Second, gender role attitude of female university students was a little conservative but flexible to accommodate masculinity and active in the emotion expression. Third, gender role attitudes had important effects on clothing involvement which was identified into 4 different factors; fashion involvement, clothing interest, performance risk, and social psychological risk. Fourth, gender role attitudes were related with clothing consumption behaviors as like shopping orientation, on-going information search behavior and brand loyalty because of needs for innovation, exhibition and differentiation. Therefore, it was concluded that not only 'androgynous' from modern feminity based on emotion but also 'masculinity' was applied to important fashion marketing strategic tools by statically affecting female consumer's clothing involvement and clothing behaviors.
The article explores the attitudes of male managers toward women as senior executives of multinational corporations (MNC) subsidiaries. Women are moving into previously male-dominated roles and occupations. They are pursuing their ambitions across boundaries they have never before crossed. MNCs would be well advised to take note of this development for two reasons. First, there is an increasing shortage of managerial talent for complex organizations. Second, international business requires that management methods be continuously adapted to changing conditions and social values, and geared to taking advantage of opportunities in host environments. In view of the magnitude of problems anticipated by respondents, most of them concluded that only exceptional women could actually succeed in the job. It was not that they had a personal preference for working with outstandingly competent women, but that they believed such competence was necessary to overcome the barriers. The majority of 111 Host Country Organization managers studied stated that a woman could successfully head an MNC subsidiary, but most had serious reservations. Consequently, MNCs committed to greater equality in the top jobs could use the lower upper ranks of the subsidiary hierarchy as a training ground for women, preparing them to become chief executives in the future. Implications for MNC personnel policy in selection, training, and assignment are offered.
Mentoring provides career guidance and psychological support to employees. However, women may have difficulty establishing a mentoring relationship. This paper describes the individual and organizational factors that may inhibit the development of mentorships for women. An agenda for research on the development and dynamics of mentoring relationships is proposed.
Women and minorities face a "glass ceiling" that limits their advancement toward top management in organizations throughout U.S. society. This article reviews the extant literature and discusses why this is so, using theoretical constructs from psychology and other social sciences that cover both individual and systemic factors. Recent research evidence is cited, remedies used to halt differential treatment are outlined, and further research is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 2 experiments to ascertain the causal attributions made by a total of 274 male and female undergraduates for identical performance (including success and failure) of males and females. In both experiments, Ss made attributions along 4 dimensions: ability, motivation, task difficulty, and luck. Whether evaluating undergraduates on an intellectual task (Exp I) or successful physicians (Exp II), Ss attributed greater motivation to females than to males. In addition, males perceived the female physician as being less able and having an easier task than the male physician. However, female Ss perceived the female physician as having a harder task than the male physician. Implications for attribution theory and the perception of professional women in our society are discussed. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Gender schema theory proposes that the phenomenon of sex typing derives, in part, from gender-based schematic processing— a generalized readiness to process information on the basis of the sex-linked associations that constitute the gender schema. In particular, the theory proposes that sex typing results from the fact that the self-concept itself is assimilated in the gender schema. Several studies are described, including 2 experiments with 96 male and 96 female undergraduates, that demonstrate that sex-typed individuals do, in fact, have a greater readiness to process information—including information about the self—in terms of the gender schema. It is speculated that such gender-based schematic processing derives, in part, from the society's ubiquitous insistence on the functional importance of the gender dichotomy. The political implications of gender schema theory and its relationship to the concept of androgyny are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Instructed 55 male and 75 female undergraduates to evaluate the performance of either a male or female stimulus person who was heard to perform in an above-average manner on either a male- or female-related task. Analysis of the attributions made to luck vs skill in explaining the performance of the stimulus person showed that as predicted, performance by a male on a masculine task was more often attributed to skill, whereas an equivalent performance by a female on the same task was considered to be more influenced by luck. Contrary to prediction, the reverse did not hold true for performance on a feminine task. Overall, males were seen as more skillful than females. The utility of an attributional analysis in the study of perceived sex differences is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
61 male and 60 female undergraduates read descriptions of either a male or a female stimulus person performing well in an emergency situation that had previously been shown to be more masculine than feminine. Ss then allocated rewards and evaluated performance, effort, and ability of the stimulus person. On the basis of equity theory, it was assumed that being a woman in a masculine situation would be perceived as a nonvoluntary constraint, and that the female would be rated as more deserving of reward than the male for an equivalent performance. It was further predicted from both an equity theory and an attribution theory standpoint that performance would be correspondingly inflated to balance the increased deservingness of reward and that effort, an unstable internal attribute, would be used in preference to ability, a stable internal attribute, in explaining the performance. Both predictions were confirmed, and results are discussed in relation to recent sex difference research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This report raises four issues: (1) why do so few women occupy positions of power and prestige in every field; (2) why might people fail to recognize that there is a gender equity problem; (3) how can gender equity be seen as a benefit to institutions; and (4) what can institutions do to increase gender equity?
The Internet provides a new method to obtain subjects. Arguments supporting the use of the Internet as an experimental medium
include the ease of data collection, limited resources needed, and ability to gain a sample more representative of the population.
However, it has not been demonstrated that the Internet provides the conditions necessary to yield valid data. This paper
compares results from experiments conducted over the Internet and in a laboratory. Correlating the means from the Internet
samples to the laboratory samples on important interactions yielded values near 1.0, indicating that the two data sets are
driven by the same psychological variables. Further evidence of the validity of these Web studies comes from regression analyses.
However, more studies of this sort are needed to further identify what types of experiments may be validly conducted over
the Internet.
Proposes a theory of motivation and emotion in which causal ascriptions play a key role. Evidence is presented indicating that in achievement-related contexts there are a few dominant causal perceptions, and it is suggested that the perceived causes of success and failure share the 3 common properties of locus, stability, and controllability, with intentionality and globality as other possible causal structures. The perceived stability of causes influences changes in expectancy of success; all 3 dimensions of causality affect a variety of common emotional experiences, including anger, gratitude, guilt, hopelessness, pity, pride, and shame. Expectancy and affect, in turn, are presumed to guide motivated behavior. The theory therefore relates the structure of thinking to the dynamics of feeling and action. Analysis of a created motivational episode involving achievement strivings is offered, and numerous empirical observations are examined from this theoretical position. The strength of the empirical evidence and the capability of this theory to address prevalent human emotions are stressed, and examples of research on parole decisions, smoking cessation, and helping behavior are presented to illustrate the generalizability of the theory beyond the achievement-related theoretical focus. (3½ p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Achievement strivings have been the focus of convenience of the attributional approach advanced in this book. The conception illustrated in Figure 6–4 grew as an alternative to Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation, and achievement- related contexts provided the research sites for many of the supporting empirical investigations. But a theory must have range or generality if it is to have lasting significance and influence. In this chapter I explore the breadth of the conception, examining a variety of phenomena that the theory is able to address.
In this article we integrate contextual and cognitive explanations for gender-based selection in the workplace; we also consider the implications of this integration for understanding gender segregation. We argue that decision makers' propensity to use applicant gender as a basis for hiring and promotion decisions varies systematically across organizational contexts. We explore specific ways in which organizational context influences decision makers' development and use of gender-associated schemas of typical jobholders. We also argue that the interaction between context and cognition may be partially responsible for the persistence of gender segregation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our approach for the practice of personnel selection and research on selection and gender segregation.
Recent enthusiasm for the social schema concept has been accompanied by a wave of criticism. Skeptics argue that the concept is imprecise and nonfalsifiable, irrelevant to real social phenomena, and simply old wine in a new bottle. While finding elements of truth in each criticism, this article concludes that the strengths of the schema framework more than outweigh the liabilities associated with these criticisms.
Sex-role spillover is the carryover of gender-based roles into the work setting. It is exacerbated by having a highly skewed ratio of the sexes at work. The sex roles associated with the majority sex become incorporated into the work roles. In male-dominated jobs, activity, rationality, and aggressiveness are emphasized, whereas nurturance and passivity are associated with “women's work. “ The implications of sex-role spillover for sexual behavior at work was investigated through analysis of a telephone survey of working adults in Los Angeles County in 1980. Sex-role spillover affects people in traditional work by having their sex role and work role merged together, and affects people in nontraditional work by the fact that they are a visible minority and their sex does not correspond to the sex roles normally associated with their jobs. In the case of sexual behavior at work, the fallout of sex role spillover is more visibly negative for women than for men. Very few men work in nontraditional or integrated jobs. Women in traditional jobs who work a great deal with men face the problem of being seen by the men as sex objects. Women in nontraditional jobs face the problems of being visible role deviants and attract sexual overtures. Sex role spillover is not a major problem in integrated jobs because the sex ratios are fairly balanced and, hence, neither male nor female sex roles are emphasized. Therefore, there is little sexual harassment in sex-integrated jobs.
In this paper we analyse the state of women in IT occupations in the UK. Although the growing UK IT industry is experiencing skills shortages, there is a declining trend in the representation of women. Using data from nationwide surveys and case study research, the paper aims to increase our understanding of gender occupational segregation in the UK IT industry. Our findings suggest that even though the IT industry does not exclude women, it does little to promote them or even to retain them in the field.
In this book a leading theorist on sex and gender discusses how hidden assumptions embedded in our cultural discourses, social institutions, and individual psyches perpetuate male power and oppress women and sexual minorities. Sandra Lipsitz Bem argues that these assumptions, which she calls the lenses of gender, shape not only perceptions of social reality but also the more material things—like unequal pay and inadequate daycare—that constitute social reality itself. Her . . . examination of these hidden cultural lenses enables us to look at them rather than through them and to better understand recent debates on gender and sexuality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Identical questionnaire items were used to gather data from 2 samples of employees. One sample (n= 50) responded to a survey implemented on the World Wide Web. Another sample (n= 181) filled out a paper version of the survey. Analyses of the 2 data sets supported an exploration of the viability of World Wide Web data collection. The World Wide Web data had fewer missing values than the paper and pencil data. A covariance analysis simultaneously conducted in both samples indicated similar covariance structures among the tested variables. The costs and benefits of using access controls to improve sampling are discussed. Four applications that do not require such access controls are discussed.
This paper presents a rationale for why some researchers might consider using the Internet for research by addressing four
issues. First, a few unique research opportunities afforded by the Internet are discussed. Second, the utility of using newsgroups
and theTelnet protocol is described. Third, Internet research ethical guidelines in five areas are developed. Fourth, the data validity
issue is addressed, and previous research using Internet and introductory psychology subject samples is replicated. The samples
were similar on 5 of 7 demographic variables but differed in age and sex compositions, and response patterns for the two samples
were similar to those reported previously . Finally, some limitations of the Internet are considered, as are its potentials
to fulfill traditional research requirements and its use as an educational aid.
The relationships between procedural justice in promotion decisions for women and contextual factors deemed as contributing to glass ceilings were examined. The contextual factors examined were a lack of female role models, limited networking opportunities for women, gender segregation, and formal career ladders. It was found that gender schema is a moderator between procedural justice and the perceived number of female role models and between procedural justice and the perception of formal career ladders. Although gender schema was not a moderator in the relationship between procedural justice and gender segregation, nor in the relationship between procedural justice and networking opportunities for women, a significant main effect was found. These results are consistent with the notion that organizational justice perceptions are products of individual cognitive processes, which develop in response to cultural expectations.
Despite the significant demongraphic changes in the work force projected by the year 2000 and beyound, little empirical research has been made on the obstacles faced by women in the field of computing. Since career advancement prospects are especially salient for IS employees, and IS workers are considered a distinct occupational group, it is important to understand the career advancement prospects of IS employees. This study examines the impact of gender on job performance evaluations, job performance attributions and career advancement prospects. The results show that there are no signficant gender differences in job performance ratings; however, women are perceived to have less favorable chances for promotion than men. We found that job performance ratings play an important role in influencing an individual's chances for advancement. We also found that the effect of job performance on attributions is stronger among males than females. Additionally, we found that while the effect of job performance ratings on career advancement prospects is stronger among males, the effect of attributions of career advancement prospects is stronger among females. Suggestions regarding areas for future research are offered, and implications for human resource management are identified.
Designing women: A qualitative study of the glass ceiling for women in technology
- M Lemons
- M Parzinger
- M. Lemons
Schemas, affect, and communication
- W H Crockett
- W. H. Crockett
The nature of being schematic: Sex-role self-schemas and differential processing of masculine and feminine information. Unpublished dissertation
- B Girvin
Women gaining in IS ranks
- M Mcgee
- M Fillon
- M. McGee
Female IT professionals cope in a male-dominated industry
- E Messmer
Report of the ITAA Blue Ribbon Panel on IT Diversity. Presented at the National IT Workforce Convocation
- Itaa
Women and men in management
- G N Powell
- G. N. Powell