The advancement and persistence of women in the information technology profession: An extension of Ahuja's gendered theory of IT career stages

Differential Impact of Content in Online Communication on Heterogeneous Candidates: A Field Study in Technical Recruitment

Recruitment is a critical activity for companies, and companies often communicate how they value their employees along with job requirements to potential candidates in a bid to attract them. However, there is an overall lack of understanding of how candidates react to such information and how their motivation toward the job changes with such online communication. Although there is substantial work that examines the decision-making process of managers who do technical hiring, to the best of our knowledge, there is a paucity of work that investigates the decision-making process of technical candidates. The broad research question studied is how including certain content in online communication about a technical job opportunity may (de)motivate heterogeneous candidates differently in applying for the job. We capture mediating variables, such as candidate prior performance and candidate experience level, that influence the effect of different online content on candidates’ propensity to apply and on candidates’ minimum acceptable salary increase. By testing actual job application behavior in a field study, we find that content related to employee work efforts or personal interests can attract high performers while discouraging low performers from applying in different contexts.

Women authorship in library and information science journals from 1981 to 2020: Is equitable representation being attained?

This study examines the proportion of women as first authors in major library and information science (LIS) journals over the years 1981–2020. Author name and year data were collected for 10 LIS journals – five that are associated more with library topics and five with information science topics – and analysed using the genderize.io tool. Both general trends over time and comparisons of information science versus library science journals are presented. The findings indicate significant growth in the proportion of women authors among the LIS journals, but primarily concentrated only among the library science journals, with information science journals falling well behind. Representation of women authors (~60%) still lags well below the overall representation of women in librarianship (~80%). These findings suggest that there is still considerable growth needed to decrease the gender gap among authorship in top LIS journals.

The influence of supervisor proactivity on perceived job demands and job outcomes among information technology subordinates in IT-related service projects

Purpose

This study explores how the relationship between supervisor's proactivity, job demands and job outcomes is based on dyadic interpersonal interaction based on the literature of the job demands-resources model and conservation of resources theory.

Design/methodology/approach

In this work, valid data from 272 participants (241 information technology subordinates and 31 project managers) in professional service firms are used in measurement and structural analyses based on a cross-level research framework. Additionally, the hierarchical linear modeling technique and a cross-sectional dataset were used to evaluate the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The results reveal that supervisor proactivity is a critical resource during the execution of professional service projects and is significantly related to perceptions of job demands on the part of subordinates while positively moderating the relationship between job demands and job satisfaction and job demands organizational commitment.

Originality/value

The answer to the question as to whether extensive use of job resources (i.e. supervisor proactivity) in service projects is beneficial and inconclusive in the current information technology (IT) industry literature. Currently, the IT industry continues to experience rapid growth and is a dynamic sector in the global economy that results in increased demands on supervisors because of the specific characteristics of their positions. Consequently, it is necessary further to examine both the direct and moderating effects of resource crossover driven by supervisor proactivity on subordinate behavior, including job demands, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Although proactivity is a relatively mature concept, some issues related to the negative effects of proactivity on factors, such as job demands, technostress and addiction, need to be further addressed. However, studies specifically focus on investigating this issue are missing from the literature. The findings of this paper thus address these research gaps by validating the direct and moderating relationships of such factors using the proposed cross-level research model.

Interventions for Improving Professional Networking for Women: Experimental Evidence from the IT Sector

Professional networks are vital for individuals’ career advancement. Research demonstrates, however, that women are often disadvantaged in their access to such networks. Using a randomized field experiment at an IT conference, we found that women had worse networking outcomes than men. Relative to men, women met 42% fewer new contacts, spent 48% less time talking to them, and added 25% fewer LinkedIn connections. We theorize that in fields where women are underrepresented (e.g., IT) two networking barriers—search and social—differentially affect men and women. We designed and experimentally tested interventions for reducing these barriers. The search intervention was designed to facilitate locating diverse contacts and information. The social intervention was designed to facilitate helping behavior and connecting across social boundaries. Our findings indicate that the search intervention increased the number of new contacts women met by 57%, the time they spent talking with them by 90%, the number of LinkedIn connections they added by 29%, and their odds of changing jobs by a factor of 1.6. The social intervention also increased the time women spent talking to new contacts by 66%. However, the interventions did not improve men’s outcomes. Our results show that simple interventions can help women expand their networks and find jobs.

I Am More Committed to My Profession Than to My Organization

Given its knowledge centred nature, retaining key talents is essential for any IT organization. Inability to do so reflects a failure in employee-organization relationship. Since IT professionals possess unique workplace behaviours, it is presumed that they leave organizations as more committed to the profession. Thus, the study aimed to investigate the influence of professional commitment and perceived organizational support on IT professionals' turnover intention. Data was analysed using a structural equation model. A sample of 96 software engineers revealed that professional commitment negatively influences turnover intention while its effect is partially mediated by job satisfaction. Surprisingly, unlike for other employees, for IT professionals, perceived organizational support had no influence on turnover intention: instead stimulated job satisfaction. Similarly, professional commitment stimulates job satisfaction. Job satisfaction negatively influenced the turnover intention. Gender showed no moderating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention while career stage moderated the relationship. The comparison between the findings of professional commitment and perceived organizational support directs IT firms to re-visit presumptions about IT professionals and to re-assess what is meant by organizational support to IT professionals. Since gender had no effect on the job satisfaction-turnover intention relationship, both male and female IT professionals must be acknowledged for their equal professionalism in the industry. IT companies must take initiatives to retain talented early career staged IT professional who have proven to easily leave their organizations compared to others. Such efforts can be integrated to professional commitment and job satisfaction.

An exploration of the professional and leader identity of IT professionals transitioning to a permanent hybrid role: a longitudinal investigation

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of professional and leader identity and the maintenance of identity, through identity work as IT professionals transitioned to a permanent hybrid role. This study therefore contributes to the under-researched area of permanent transition to a hybrid role in the context of IT, where there is a requirement to enact both the professional and leader roles together.

Design/methodology/approach

The study utilised a longitudinal design and two qualitative methods (interviews and reflective diaries) to gather data from 17 IT professionals transitioning to hybrid roles.

Findings

The study findings reveal that IT professionals engage in an ongoing process of reconciliation of professional and leader identity as they transition to a permanent hybrid role, and they construct hybrid professional–leader identities while continuing to value their professional identity. They experience professional–leader identity conflict resulting from reluctance to reconcile both professional and leader identities. They used both integration and differentiation identity work tactics to ameliorate these tensions.

Originality/value

The longitudinal study design, the qualitative approaches used and the unique context of the participants provide a dynamic and deep understanding of the challenges involved in performing hybrid roles in the context of IT.

A Seat at the Table and a Room of Their Own: Interconnected processes of social media use at the intersection of gender and occupation

Social media have enabled people to connect with others in unprecedented ways. Existing scholarship has so far provided conflicting insights regarding what people do with these connections. Here I propose that to make sense of what people accomplish with social media-enabled connections, one needs to examine more closely their foundations. Specifically, one key way to understand social media-enabled connections is to consider how social media enable people to come together on the basis of joint social identities. This study focuses on how people use social media in ways that connect them to one another at the intersection of gender and occupational identities, i.e. two social identities that have been central to many organization studies and are critical in today’s societies. The study relies upon the qualitative investigation of how women and gender non-binaries data scientists used social media. The study reveals that, at the intersection of gender and occupation, people use social media to engage in three interconnected processes of promoting inclusion, co-producing equalizing resources, and fostering exclusive enclaves. It brings light to new ambivalence reflected in people’s uses of social media as they seek, simultaneously, to reshape gender dynamics in their occupation and to protect their reputation as competent workers. It unpacks why and how, with social media, the professional and the political have become intertwined.