MARTA ZIENTEK

Jagiellonian University / Cracow University of Economics

mzientek@message.pl

Can female bosses act as change agents, queen bees or cogs in the machine?

About role congruity theory and business practice.

Czy kobiety-szefowe przyjmują role liderek zmian, autorytatywnych przełożonych czy też

niedocenionych kierowników wykonawczych? O teorii zgodności postaw i biznesowych

praktykach.

Introduction

The background of this paper is connected with my continuous interest in the subjective

aspects of high IT managerial professions as a precondition for forming working knowledge

and self-esteem (perceived by group of subordinates as social status) as well as for working

out such crucial factors as conceptions of self-regulation and individual or team consciousness

of anti-discrimination practice in business. In this context it is a very interesting political as

well theoretical issue to understand both the supervisor and the subordinate identities related

to the gender differentiation in the IT organizational domains. Moreover, these high-status

professions are similar in absorbing relative distinct work job’s domains based on specific

knowledge, language and skills that must be acquired by all the members of IT department.

It’s worth to mention that they enjoy a societal recognition and are treated by environment as

full rewarding jobs, too. In times when still the non-gendered-biased and mostly subjective

importance of IT work is questioned and conceptions of its culture and codes acculturation are

prevailing, it seems to me particularly important to study empirically how these structural

forms and ranks of IT professions are constantly changing due to the process of globalization

and migration of a highly diversified and skilled workforce. This research was conducted in

Spain, a country where masculine, patriarchal context of work and functional approach to

professions hierarchy are, unfortunately, still kicking and alive, especially in technology

sector. This approach stems from an imprinted, cultural code in Spanish society’s mind which

divide world into internal and external parts, differently appropriate to both genders with the

overestimated value of external sphere of life, professionally bordered to men’s roles. Taking

into consideration last overcoming changes of labor markets, more and more highly qualified

jobs, not only in Information Technology sectors, are relevant backbones of modern societies.

Their functions materialize the basic principles of rationality in economics and broaden

divisions of labor in the area of revenue. In addition, these computer-savvy, geek professions

secure some cohesion of society in spite of division of very useful tasks and finally they

secure the identification of its members with their rational and constructive role in special

time, space and for special reasons. Women and man IT managers, are nominated by

hierarchy to the status of duty-bound workers who embody social expertise with full

rationality and who assume the responsibility for the general availability of this expertise by a

social agreement (in cooperation with low status workers). IT professions and IT

professionals, both genders, have been playing a very positive role in the process of

modernization and have been using a high legitimacy based on the specialized knowledge and

the professional responsibility. The traditional idea for gaining scientific, computing

knowledge without a core competence in this position is outdated. All women and men - IT

specialists, having managerial power, should act in the workspace as geeks who gained

collective experience and business practice to quality others work in certain IT sectors and to

occupy democratization of knowledge and shared control among collateral workers. Their

positive self-esteem and attitudes connected with given tasks to fulfill should be closely

linked in coherence with feelings of their counterparts and cooperatives of lower professional

status in organizational workspace, recognized by researchers in their self-consciousness and

predominant awareness of synergy.

This paper consists of three main parts. First focus on role modeling and career stages’

construction in organizational hierarchy with the significance of developing managerial

identity of women and men in specific time.

Second part is about the role congruity theory of managers and its both constructive and

destructive influence on genders, including not only the issue of occupational achievement

through motivation but also expectations and attitudes among diversified workforce.

Third part presents some empirical examples and conclusions of recently finished

research, conducted in Spanish IT companies during last two years.

ROLE MODELING AND CAREER STAGES

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts"

William Shakespeare “As You Like It “(Act II, Scene VII)

Our world is an imagination based on culture –a theatre with: special space or stage to act and

defined time to present an effective role-play. Every individual constructs her or his identity

thanks to this given space and structured time, acting consciously out of socially defined

cultural categories and imprinting appropriate and permitted forms of behavior. According to

the role theory in sociology and social psychology, the theatre is a metaphor often used to

describe space of personal acceptance and identification with the role in specific time. The

mind, the self-esteem and the self-consciousness are its precursors and when actors approve

of roles’ scheme, treating them as legitimate and constructive, then they are able to consider

how closely their behavior is related to the audience or society expectations and how

empirically testable particular role attitudes may be in this symbolic interaction. Some

sociologists, practical researchers agree with the assumption that such social categories as

cultural role of status, gender roles or in ad-hoc specific-situation roles are the most important

implications to individual or group acting. Moreover, they also focus more precisely on the

role conflict which can be observed in a situation when the individual do not accept the

assessment of others concerning his or her performance but has limited amount of practical

tools and symbolic power to interact by rejecting these biased categorization. Having mind

and self limited by low social status or norms which depreciate actors’ efforts and

effectiveness, it’s impossible for them to search for positive space to provide an active and

awarded life. Nowadays we can observe many adults - man and women - facing problems in

finding new roots and a livable life. They tell stories about their trials and strategies for sitting

down in well-known but full of symbolic oppression places or unbelievable motivation to

struggle against daily experiences of exclusion, violence, prejudice and gendered-biased

stereotypes. Building unconscious description of others matters shortcuts in absorbing their

real personalities and finally provides to differences and diversity in assistance to vertiginous

changes in the field of building pictures of identities. Furthermore, this situation leads to

artificial processes of constructing, de-constructing and re-constructing sociocultural and

territorial identities and these are encouraged by social contact and networks and can have

deep influence on social cohesion or inequality. Individuals’ perception is under pressure of

harmful symbols that put their own experiences away of the centre where may discover their

own value and where conscious self can be build. The actors - subordinatives are merely

players who are not able to learn their roles and can’t create an artistic plot because they do

not receive the constructive feedback from their supervisors. What’s more, their theories of

themselves and life experiences are damaged, the writing of memories and their sharing in a

group of “others” are not aimed to produce thoughtfulness, constructive reflexivity and

meaningful deliberate action. In critical theory this lack of understanding mutual cooperation

means serious need for new blood in managerial positions. Learning cooperation among ranks

is partly an individual process which is based on sharing ideas and participation between

different professionals in the space of workplace. Unfortunately there seems to be also lack of

cooperation between experts and decision makers. Firstly, when democracy is apprehended as

a mode of associated living it is lacking in our examples. Secondly, everybody should

understand that culture of participation is the central and essential element of democratic

citizenship in each organization. Furthermore, it is also a cause to approach of experience

formation and a way of appropriation of the own formation power. Building professional

competences and self-esteem in a workplace means making construction of the

autobiographical work from the existential and introspective formation and research. This

triple movement of getting conscience and taking power by the person about its own

formation seems to be the background of a conceptual definition of the self-education through

fulfilling job’s requirements. The self-education is the same as working knowledge and it

appears in the situation of fear like the emergency of an original consciousness in the

interaction with the context. To some extent the profession may remain predominantly male

even with female actors but, on the other hand, it seems likely make difference and our

preliminary observations confirm that the relation between gender, gaining experience and

professional identity really exists. The gender quality of work and the analysis of gendered

aspects of identity process make it clear that professionalization is rather specific combination

of rationalization process, division of labor and cultural transformations, instead of linear,

though a-synchronous, progressive development of knowledge and experience based on work.

A new vision of liquid modernity with all its disadvantages is an innovative view of socio-

economic space where progressive development of professions can be investigated in the light

of the struggle by a certain, emerging group of professional bodies to achieve a goal: a strong

recognition of legal rank and its material privileges, totally different measurable than previous

ones. This is an approach which is useful to describe some negative, sudden aspects of

professional motives, mostly because of unpredictable, liquid actions in organizational

domains. There is no doubt that a professional identity is subjective effort identification, in

which individuals-actors, within their life history and gender (which are constituted in a long

period of time), become able to fulfill already existing tasks to some more extent by acquiring

not-only-already existing knowledge. Apart of that, they are expected to develop collectively

their own managerial practice and socio-work identity at the same time. Above perspective of

the highly-qualified professional identity, a strong coherence of many experiences gained

through the personal effort and the ongoing struggle with the demands of the task should be

visible and easy to understand. Moreover, most of them are closely integrated in their own

time-consuming life experience after being estimated as profitable experience of each

company. All workers who have core competences in relevant IT sector get status of hired-

them stage. Both supervisors-leaders and their subordinates have to deal with department’s

indoor requirements, outdoor expectations of latest co-workers. Furthermore, they should be

accurate with leadership skills such as fresh ideas and innovative competences not forgetting

about their own inabilities in relation to up-to-date tasks and their dynamic unconsciousness

because of the fast growing liquid environment. Each process depends on the interplay not

only with more and more unstable and risk-taking in work organizations but also decisive

bodies and societal division of labor on the one side – and on the experience and the possible

identification of specific group of workers, on the other side.

To review the use of role models in professional identity formation we should focus on the

social theories of identities to illuminate the process of role modeling and forming career

stages as its impacts’ identity work in its organizational demographic context. Shapiro1

defines role models as individuals whose behaviors, personal styles and specific attributes are

emulated by others and argues that modeling contributes to identity construction. A role

model can be a symbolic entity, an inspirational person, a worker from whom others can learn

and can create desired attitude by company requirements to fulfill tasks. An ideal role model

can be seen as a cognitive construct based on the attributes of people in social roles which are

perceived to be similar by everyone by observation, adaptation and rejection attributes of

multiple character resulting on a behavioral change. The constructing positive attributes role

model is also known as a specific degree to which the individuals think they are sufficiently

similar in their professional environment. That point of view links to social comparison theory

which states that people generally seek others with some similarities as they are informative

for making accurate self-assessment and can be fruitful for self-improvement which is

1. 1 S.P. Shapiro, Agency Theory, “Annual Review of Sociology”, vol. 31, p. 263-284, Palo Alto

2005.

essential part of the identification process. There are also other dimensions: close (well-

known in working environment) and distant (completely unknown) when it comes to the

structural model theory.

According to modeling career stages approach, the most crucial to current situation are the

mid and late career stages in which highly specialized IT women and men are situated. In this

context career stages differences arise during the process of role formation with the

assumption of ageing influence. When workers get older, confidence in self-concept increases

and hence the requirements for role model diminish2. The role model diminishes not because

of the age but more in case of changes in the emphasis placed in different dimensions. In early

career, which is known also as acquiring stage, workers build viable self-concept by

emulating others and using positive, close roles models and a range of attributes needed to

create the real professional identity. During mid-career (refining stage) individuals seek to

refine their self-concept as confidence starts growing, selecting specific and generally positive

attributes from role models. At this stage people usually emphasize the importance of having

role models to choose freely and accept their character by being conscious of their availability

before different task transactions. During this time people are unstable and look for better

conditions of work to improve their motivation, state value of ambiguity and they sometimes

can interact with the feeling of uncertainty and lacked guidance, especially confronting

visible, strong role models. Respondents also maintain that, as time passed, their career

choices become limited with further restricted hierarchically availability among interesting for

them role models. On the other hand, workers’ ability to get useful attributes grew, supporting

them with a better sense of their own self and life. In late career (affirming stage) people want

to improve and affirm their self-concept by learning appropriate skills tied to specific goals.

Workers agree to absorb both – positive and negative role models to affirm their own sense of

uniqueness and finally to integrate shared role of models into parts of one global model of

multiple roles. What’s more, employees often believe the role model has similar values and

goals to themselves. Gibson suggests that supervisors should recognize the growth needs of

mid-stage IT managers by emphasizing exposure to exemplary peers or IT supervisors. In the

era of rapid organizational and career changes, IT managers and IT leaders should have the

opportunity to establish their own network of developmental relationships among other geeks

and computer-savvy employees, varying in strength and diversity. Moreover, the role model

couldn’t be defined only as cognitive because it consists also of the importance of symbolic or

inspirational effects and, of course, emotive values.

Some researchers3 point out that the context of working environment influence the process of

gender identity formation which is easy to being observed in the asymmetric power of

2. 2 A.H. Eagly, Sex differences in social behavior: A social role interpretation, Nowy Jork 1987.

3. S. Skiffington, P.& Zeus, , Behavioral Coaching : How to Build Sustainable Personal and

Organizational Strenght, Nowy Jork 2003.

organization where the majority dominate and marginalize the minority and where structures

preserve this harmful situation. In this case, scientists say about homophile and tokenism

which premised on the assumption that people prefer working with similar others. Through

the process of assimilation, polarization and exaggeration, stereotypes are used to heighten

boundaries. It is frequently assumed that by hiring more women (which usually have the

stigma of token), the power balance will improve, but identity groups need to be equal in their

access to power resource in the workplace. Thanks to Ely approach4 we are accustomed with

the situation when there is a proportional representation of women at the top of IT ladder and

how it influences the relationships between other women employed in the same place. It is

proved that in IT firms hiring few top IT women managers, others were less likely to

experience gender as a positive factor for identification with other women, less likely to

perceive senior IT women managers as role models with legitimate high authority and more

likely to perceive competition in relationships with women peers, and finally less likely to

find professional support in these relationships. The presence of IT women executives is a

mirror of the level and likelihood of possible promotion of other women with lower status.

Organizational gender compositions at senior levels of IT can explain turnover differences for

both women and men, though with the higher number of women. These women, who were

hired in lower ranks, were more likely to leave than these who were in the middle or higher

positions. Probably lower ranked women were prone to think about such distance between

them and were sure that women executives limited their views of possibilities to change. In

contrast, higher level ranked women were more similar and closer to the top IT women who

had the power and legitimate resources to affect their working conditions. Balanced

representation at peer level would reduce sex-role stereotyping and could promote a greater

sense of common work for better working conditions. Following social identity and self-

categorization theories, women evaluate other women’s attributes less favorably to the

company’s criteria of the success. It provides to thought that firms, with considerably more

than token numbers of women in management at all levels, have greater latitude in gender

roles with the women consciously enacting masculine and feminine roles as they saw fit. In

male-dominated firms, women’s discomfort with sex roles and rate themselves less favorably

in relation to the firm’s requirements for success would explain lower levels of job

satisfaction, lower expectations and motivation to be promoted. In sex-integrated companies,

biological sex is usually less tightly linked to bipolar construction of gender. Women IT

managers have a better sense of acceptance, higher satisfaction in solving IT tasks in

cooperation with other IT co-workers and, in the end, are optimistic about their prospective

career in IT. Ely carried out another approach two years later. Junior and middle male and

female IT managers were asked their perceptions of the personality and behavior

characteristics associated with success within their organization. In many cases, women and

men identified the same issues, but the significance of them for their own decision-making

and the way others interpreted their behaviors and attitudes varied – especially in relation to

the perceived incompatibility between active parenting and senior roles. The uncertainties

4. 4 R.J. Ely, The power of demography: women social constructions of gender identity at work,

“Academy of Management Journal”, vol. 38, p. 589 – 634, Londyn 2004.

around succeeding as a woman were considered to be reinforced by the small number of

visible women – senior executives who could act as role models. These women who had

made it to senior roles were described as having lost their femininity. Proportion of women at

the various hierarchical levels made a difference to men’s but not to women’s cross sex-role

modeling patterns. Women in sex-balanced organizations were less likely to place importance

on same sex-role models. In companies with higher amount of female partners, women were

more prone to agree they had good role models available to them for career success, though

their role models were top IT women managers. This research was helpful in providing quite

new standards in recruitment policy. Increasing the number of women hired in senior IT

positions may help organizations reduce turnover and draw a wide range of women talent.

These studies also suggest that visible role models of women in authority can be related with

an increase of women’s ambitions and motivation level because their presence enables them

to change the old gendered schema of status and power.

THE ROLE CONGRUITY THEORY

Role congruity theory stems from the descriptive nature of social role theory by

considering multiple social roles simultaneously and examining the congruity between

expectations and perceptions. According to Eagly and Karau5 role congruity theory admits

that one social group (women) will be positively evaluated at work when its professional

attributes, attitudes and characteristics are noticed by society (working environment) as

appropriate to this group’s social roles. This statement pertains to the congruity between

gender role and role model typical for it, including leadership top IT managerial positions.

Gender roles are consensual believes about the attributes and skills of women and men that

are normative for each sex so there are typical male- and female-congenial working

environments. Characteristics typical of leaders or top IT managers are defined in agentic and

instrumental areas which biologically are prescribed more to men, so IT sector is much more

better professional place to develop for men than women. Due to this perception, men, more

than women, are concentrated in professional roles that emphasize power, core competition

and authority which are correlated with post-modern, innovative-fluctuating organizations. At

the same time, women traditionally are bordered by their sex and can have easily entered

professional, low-waged roles e.g. in education or social work which are considered suitable

to feminine stereotyping. Hence, these characteristics associated with high status, executive

and leadership roles have been attached still more and more rather by men than women. As a

consequence it is assumed that all decisive and innovative in meaning jobs such as leader and

change agents, executive managers or top IT specialists are more congruent with the

masculine gender role. This situation fosters to prejudice and gender discrimination by

creating the selection of different jobs by males and females, thereby producing sex-

5. 5 A.H. Eagly, S.Karau, Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders,

“Psychological Review”, vol.109, p. 573-598, Londyn 1995.

segregated, dual labor market and employment policy. The perception of these jobs as typical

masculine follows to different generalized assumptions that people are prone to accord more

authority to men so men are generally more influential and decisive in groups and

consequently women may adopt these characteristics that are prescribed strongly to men in

order to be perceived by others as leaders and to exert authority. Moreover, women often face

job discrimination in relation to many innovative and decisive managerial positions,

especially in those areas of business (e.g. Information Technology sector) that are male-

dominated. Furthermore, this masculine stereotype contributes to the segregation of the labor

force whereby men tend to monopolize all positions perceived as prominent in authority. It

has also determines how women think about themselves as prospective and current leader not

only in IT sector but in every other managerial field of workspace. Women can feel less

appropriate persons to fulfill requirements connected with decisive roles, less confident and

comfortable in a leadership position than their male counterparts. As far as the predictions are

taken in mind, females will be described as more feminine when they work in a women-

dominant profession that is congruent with historically bordered gender roles and, on the

contrary, more masculine when they are hired in the labor field, more incongruent with their

biological roles. It is a process that involves environmental expectations about what is

desirable for each sex, together with descriptive (present situation) and injunctive (ideal

situation build by willing as a prediction of future better status) rules and norms giving guide

to act in the socio-economic context. The congruity and incongruity asymmetric proportion

among both genders is strictly under pressure of people’s expectations in relation to gender

attitudes, placing women in low-status, communal stages of organization and distributing

agentic, based on higher status, task-oriented jobs to men. “Given the incongruence of being

female with leadership (the role incongruity principle) women have less potential to emerge

as leaders than do men and will be evaluated more harshly than men when women do assume

leader roles”6. It provides to stereotyping conclusions that women are generally less likely to

be seen as leaders and decisive managers in high technology because of their worse brain

conditions to learn agentic qualities. What’s more, they are seen less favorably, even though,

they hold managerial positions and display the required agentic behaviors because they

violate their biological ought to and diminish their injunctive gender role. Women tend to

have more androgynous views of managerial and leader role than their male co-workers. That

statement provokes conclusion that women believe in the need of both – agentic and

communal qualities to fulfill professional roles, and in contrast, men are more addicted to

understand leadership and management role solely as agented. According to a feminist

approach, women in leader and managerial positions face dual challenges: one that derives

from observers’ views as “women are agented” and second challenge that categorizes them as

“merely leaders”. Moreover, when agented traits are especially for leader roles, role congruity

theory and categorization theory would predict that the negative evaluations attributed to

female top leaders may be even further compounded at top levels in organizations. The

concept of double standards of competences for both exists in the field of strict requirements,

applied to workers of lower status groups and, consequently, inferences about their traits and

abilities are aligned with their lower category of membership. The use of double standards is

distinct from biased evaluations that are used to present gender differences in management in

6 Ibidem, s. 187.

the role congruity theory. Prejudices in accordance with the role congruity theory principally

occur when gender stereotypes remain undisputed by performance evidence and are then

presented to define the work-pertinent attributes of the leader. On the contrary, double

standards exist when performance evaluations have taken place and are deemed to be

objective. Using performance evaluations of middle managers and senior-level managers from

Spain, we observe that women who were promoted to upper levels of management received

higher performance ratings than men who were promoted. All these women really changed

their positions to more decisive because they simply had to perform much better than men in

order to be promoted7. Such double standards can actually provide the background for a future

advantage for women top managers, because these higher scores serve as a source of

information about the agented abilities of women who occupy senior level positions. This one

example of research has shown that unambiguous and comprehensive evidence demonstrating

the abilities of female leaders and their ability way to mitigate the negative effects of role

congruity among the workforce. When information of previous, documented performance

with explicit standards of women-managers are presented, women have been shown to be

perceived as confident and influential, and gendered-biased expectations have been presented

as completely irrelevant. Furthermore, when women leaders not only achieve top positions

but also demonstrate success in them, they are likely to be evaluated by the business

environment as able to demonstrating even greater evidence of management capability in

particularly challenging situations. Therefore, achievements of these women may be

examined favorably relative to men because some causes facilitate attributions made to

behaviors whereas other causes inhibit attributions made to specific behaviors. When both

facilitating (abilities) and inhibiting (gender) parts co-exist, the facilitating fact will be viewed

as the more probable causal mechanism. Thus, the augmentation principle suggests that when

women occupy roles for which their gender may be an inhibiting cause (e.g. masculine roles

such senior level or IT managers), their co-workers are likely to assume that such women

have exceptionally high agented traits that allowed them to overcome barrier to lead that role

posed by their gender.

Previous research on communal and agented ratings, consistent with the tenets of congruity

role theory, argued that women who violate gender role expectations by exhibiting agented

traits, risk being judged as insufficiently communal. This type of prejudiced statements about

females holding masculine positions derives from the prescriptive norms of gendered roles

which delineate views about how women ought to behave rather than how women act because

of specific profession. These norms reject the possibility of transformation in “typical”

leadership behaviors not seeing cooperation between communal and agented traits, especially

in the environment of feminized, lower status of management. However, there are some

changes in evaluating women managers, still gender stereotypes continue to have complex

effect on perceptions of behaviors within organizations. When considered in context of role

congruity theory, gender stereotypes have a substantial impact on the selection and on the

promotion of women and the end result is fewer women in upper-management or managerial

functions in IT sectors. Although this interpretation stands in contradiction to what previous

EU employment policy declared in different gender mainstreaming and anti-discrimination

actions, it is consistent with findings that women report experiencing bias and employment

barriers in the workplace. Stereotypes activation may require minimal semantic processing,

not merely exposure to an individual representing a particular group of workers. Although

stereotypes are automatic, unconscious process, they are more functions of the social context

and that’s why they can be controllable at the organizational stage. They have their own effect

of rebounding which is affected by personal characteristics, such as level of prejudice as well

as situational factors such as the appropriateness of expressing stereotyped behaviors. That

exposure to information about gender stereotypical roles can lead to false recognition of roles

and traits, provoking the creation of false memories. Some examples of situational

stereotyping women are closely linked to the evaluation process in the organizations and

that’s why have more direct implications to the process of hiring and promoting women in

upper-managerial IT positions. A common finding is that the better we know somebody

(depth of information in department), the less likely we are ready to stereotype him or her. It

can be visible when women in high managerial positions are more likely to be promoted

within the department rather than hired from outside. Other studies suggest8 that ratee sex

alone does not provoke rater bias, but rater bias results from a more complex consideration of

rate masculinity and femininity. Whether or not women are burdened by the consequences of

stereotypes, it is in part a function of working conditions that are under the control of the

organization. Bearing in mind this approach, the key lies in the role an organization can play

in controlling the impact of context on the stereotyping process. In most cases the gender (this

which is mentioned here) is salient when it comes to most interactions in the workspace and

because of its character people experience subtle acts of prejudice which are very difficult to

recognize and usually are unnoticed by a casual observer. However, focusing on its nature,

their implications are harshly damageable for a female employee who constantly receives

constructive depreciation because of their cumulative effect in terms of motivation, self-

esteem, career aspirations and even performance. There is a relevant application of the

cumulative effect which exists in the research of stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is an

anxiety created from the fear of validating a negative stereotype of a group which an

individual is a member of and, unfortunately, people are likely to shed light on its

development and casual mechanisms. This commonly accepted belief rejects systematically

conscious considering prejudices in a proper context, one in which their potential impact is

not on one decision but on every decision with the necessity of identifying the cumulative

impact. People being in the group have increasing tendency to devalue female’s professional

role when her managerial skills and leadership attitude are enacted in a stereotypically

masculine style, particularly when this style is autocratic or directive and when she occupies

stereotypically male-dominated roles, especially IT professions. Stereotyping is a common

cognitive process now and due to different roles in women’s professions, prejudices are

divided into various subtypes which fluctuate dependently of women’s influx into the

workforce. Subordinates are more likely to be subjected to stereotyping by their supervisors

than contrary. Managers have many subordinates so it makes sense for subordinates to focus

7 7 Cuadrado, I., Estilos de liderazgo y genero: Una perspectiva psicosocial, Tesis Doctorada

publicada en edición electrónica, ISBN 84-8240-597-7, Almería 2002.

on what these supervisors are really like rather than to rely opinions about them on

stereotypes. A set of studies show that people pay attention to others who control their

outcomes and they pay attention to stereotype-incongruent behavior of bosses so that they can

behave appropriately around them. Similar the way people see their bosses, it is easier to

stereotype the majority – those who are in subordinate positions or who do not control

important outcomes. There is less incentive for supervisors to react to stereotype-incongruent

behavior of lower status workers. In fact, they may even misremember stereotype-incongruent

behavior as behavior consistent with stereotypes. Given that women, especially being in

minority, tend to be overrepresented in subordinate positions, they may, relative to men, be

more subject to discrimination.

To ensure more objective perceptions and evaluations in organizational context, managers

should strive to minimize the effects of stereotypes in work settings. Due to the fact that more

women aspire and achieve top levels of management and leadership, it will be increasingly

important to effectively evaluate and utilize women’s leadership styles and behaviors to

accomplish high organizational goals. Moreover, attracting and retaining top female talent

could be influenced by managers’ ability to build a fair and appealing work environment

where men and women alike, are able to reach their full potential. Effective, both sexes

leaders not only need to have proper environment to be achievement-oriented, competitive,

decisive and independent in their roles, but also must recognize the value of building strong

relationships, collaborating with others and have space to take care of their subordinates

through coaching and development.

SPANISH WOMEN IN IT SECTOR – SOME EMPIRICAL EXAMPLES

Spain is the Mediterranean country. The word Mediterranean has many metaphors because of

various perceptions of its interior sea which, nowadays, can be seen as a bridge or a frontier,

depending on the discourse is presented (without forgetting about the problems of the country

surrounding it). Bearing in mind an unstable nature of women, it is easy to compare it with the

images of water, mostly turbulent – usually perceived as distorted but when the sea is calm –

very clear and realistic. Spain is imaged by sociologists and anthropologists as a country of

lots of inverted, mutual images in the context of religion as well as many other socio-cultural

ones. Its space has got a history full of blending cultural exchanges. Women in these diverse

cultures have always been decisive actors in the process of transmission of such goods as:

language, oral literature, beliefs or artistic knowledge. Moreover, thanks to education and

modern training women have had the possibility to push the business together with the

scientific and cultural world over the last decades. But the status of Spanish women,

especially on the southern shore, is growing very slowly, not only because of mentalities but

also because of lack of financial resources and real political will. The productive work of

women, currently, apart from the traditional related to caring for the family, is much more

wider than the statistics show in general. The issue of stereotypes still affects the north and the

south of Spain, the slanted vision of women is repeated through media and some textbooks,

which are the common generator of the cultural, gender-biased imaginations. All these forces

has a great influence on Spanish labour market and its economical tools.

During last fifteen years Spain has experienced the sharpest increase in unemployment among

all European Union countries, especially presented by economists as structural problems.

Very high severance payment of permanent contracts has resulted in a rigid dual market with

adverse effects on unemployment and productivity. The wage bargaining system, mostly

collective in its power, has led Spanish companies to macroeconomic shocks, bringing their

negative effects to a head on the labour market. Spanish government has just prepared labour

market reform legislation. It is mainly focused not only on reduction of enormous protection

of workers employed in permanent contracts but also on decrease of high level of collective

agreements, even though it is uncertain whether the courts interpret it sensibly. Some negative

aspects of Spanish labour market are strongly correlated with a huge drop-out rate from lower

secondary schools and then from universities which is an important factor of a large

unemployment rate among young workers ( 18 – 26 ). There are also very significant

differences in unemployment across sectors and regions and some of them are caused by the

lack of geographical mobility of Spanish workers, slowing the relocation of workers from

high- to low-unemployment regions, and therefore stifling labour market trend overall. High

structural unemployment is likely to have increased mostly during the current crisis.

Employment and unemployment react in a very truculent way to the cycle as is seen during

last unstable economic situation. The strong reaction of these factors can be sometimes

explained by nominal wage interia and by frequent use of temporary contracts. It can be

useful to allow wages react in a more flexible way which could be a tool for absorbing and

relocating workers. Decreasing the diversity between workers and available jobs could make

the shifts allocate strictly to create an export-led economic development. Dual labour market

has harmful effects on both unemployment and productivity policy. According to the OECD

report, 34% of all Spanish workers have been hired on temporary contracts and positive or

negative employment growth is driven only by changes in an amount of jobs on temporary

contracts. On the contrary, the amount of permanent workers was slightly higher and the

juridical procedures protecting this privileged group of workers have led to the long-term

wages paid them by previous employers. Very high dismissal costs of permanent contracts

makes Spanish companies reluctant to convert temporary contracts into permanent ones and,

consequently raise turnover in this country. Even firms are satisfied with the work of their

permanent workers, it is more cheaper to fire them and, after a short time, seek new kids on

the block. Higher turnover is likely to raise unemployment rate as workers look for new jobs.

The larger dualism in the labour market is, the larger unemployment rate can be measured in

practice. This situation is deeply correlated with wage bargaining system which protects the

interests of permanent workers, because insider’s power may keep wages for all workers

above market-clearing levels. Although unemployment workers find jobs, they may have to

go through many spells of unemployment and low productivity entry-level jobs before

obtaining better - regular ones. Moreover, the dual labour market may interfere with human

capital accumulation which would slacken productivity growth. Besides reforms of

employment protection, the 2010 labour market reform aims also at improving the

adaptability of the labour market to shocks. First, the law changes the conditions under which

a firm can opt out ex post from collective agreements: it widens the causes under which firms

can opt out from lower level agreements as is the case, for instance, for specific company-

level pacts. Moreover, it eases the conditions for opting out from higher level collective

agreements at sectoral or regional level. In this case, firms that want to opt out no longer need

to ask for consent from the social partners (notably trade unions); instead, agreement between

employers and their employees would be sufficient. If such an agreement between employers

and employees cannot be reached, collective bargaining must provide for solutions through

arbitration. Furthermore, firms can now also opt out as regards a larger range of working

conditions, beyond wages, including working time and firm organization. Second, the law

opens up company-internal flexibility in terms of reductions in working time (including short-

time work). Such flexibility is now given independently of the number of workers concerned;

previously it could be applied only in the case of full suspension of contracts or collective

dismissal. In addition, the law extends existing employers’ social security rebates in the case

of short-time work if such work was combined with training of the workers concerned. The

2010 labour market reform foresees a reform of the collective bargaining process within six

months since the law was passed by Parliament. If social partners do not reach an agreement,

the government is willing to adopt necessary initiatives such as to further improve the

collective bargaining process.

In terms of employment the growth in women’s rate in Spain has been spectacular, increasing

from 35% in 1997 to almost 56% in 2006. The analysis reveal that women in the age group of

55-64 years have experienced the highest raise between 2000 and 2006, while the younger age

group of 16-24 / 25-54 presented a much lower growth rate. Taking the whole period into

consideration, the highest growth has been recorded for the youngest age group, followed by

the oldest age group. The lowest increase was among women in the middle age group

coinciding with the largest likelihoods of family responsibilities. In the case of men, on the

contrary, the employment rate surpassed the EU averages, although employment growth was

much lower than that women’s one. For men, there has been a distinct higher growth period

between 2002 and 20069

The number of female researchers increased in Europe in all economic sectors: the Higher

Education Sector, the Government Sector and the Business Enterprise Sector. In the former,

the proportion of female researchers grew from 34% in 2000 to 37% in 2006. It is important

to remember however that we are measuring the countries of the European Union, with a

population that changed between 2001 and 2006 in size and number of countries concerned.

The female researchers' population grew even more considerably in the Government sector,

going from 31% in 2000 to 39% in 2006. Regarding private sector researchers, 15% in 2000

were women and 19% in 200610

.

9 9

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/eie/statistical_annex_key_employment_indicators_

en.html

10 Ibidem.

The number of female PhDs in Europe grew from 39.6% in 2001 to 43% in 2003 and 45% in

2006. The balance of the presence of female PhDs across fields of sciences didn't change

considerably between 2001 and 2006, with women being more numerous in the fields of

Education, Humanities and Arts, Agriculture and Veterinary, and Health and Social Services.

The Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction field had 20.6% of female PhDs in 2001,

21.90% in 2003 and 25% in 2006. The proportion of women attaining the top level of an

academic careers, defined here as "Grade A professorship", moved from 15.20% in 2000 to

15.3% in 2004 and 19% in 200711

.

There are positive trends for women in Spain in terms of job to job mobility. However, Spain

has the highest rate of fixed term employment in the whole of the EU and it is almost 5

percentage points higher for women than for men. This means that, in principle, there are

different factors driving the high mobility rates compared to the EU and that they result in

very different outcomes in terms of conditions and pay as well as the impact on the overall

economic performance. In the case of Spain, the high turnover and lack of job security can

lead to a negative impact, especially in terms of productivity. However, the trend in the ICT

sector might follow a different logic. Although no other readily available data can be used to

investigate this point further, the analysis of the sample of women in ICT jobs taken in Spain

for this project will shed some light on this issue. Moreover, there also seems to be a

correlation between the classification of welfare states and the levels of job mobility in the EU

countries. At the high end of the job mobility scale are the social-democratic and liberal

welfare state countries. Corporative regimes, such as Germany and France, score lower in job

mobility. The countries of Southern Europe such as Portugal, Greece and Italy show higher

work security but show the lowest overall job mobility rates. Spain is also included in this

group, but is somewhat of an exception since it shows job mobility levels closer or above EU

average not correspondent with its welfare state regime classification and in fact has one of

the lowest geographical mobility rates in the EU. However, mobility in the ICT sector is

particularly high for Spanish women.

There were 50 women and also 50 men, IT managers, who took part individually in the on-

line surveys and then who decided to record their opinions during mixed-gender focused-

group interviews. Although the sample is clearly not representative of the labour market

figures analyzed nor is it statistically valid, their views of the conditions in the ICT sector

provides an important qualitative perspective. In the beginning the idea was to interview

young women but couldn’t be realized because the reality of this sector is that women

between 30 – 40 are the most numerous group (70 %). On the contrary, about 65% of male

managers were between 26-35 years old. The interviews were organized in such cities as:

Sevilla, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid, with the amount of 10 women and 10 men

in each place. The women interviewed were mostly self-employed (55%), working on regular

basis in offices and then at their homes. 30% of them were part business owners and, finally,

20% of them had fixed-term contracts in big international IT firms. All women and men had

very long working hours and schedules, clearly incompatible with reconciliation of work and

11

Ibidem.

family life (starting late and ending late in the day with a long midday break, typical of

Spanish businesses).

The educational level of the women surveyed wasn’t more diversified than men. In six cases

the women had a different than technical basic educational background which they

complemented with specific formal education in ICT. On the other hand, 75% had specific

basic formal training in ICT followed by more formal training (masters degree) in the same

areas. In the rest of the cases (25%) university training has been acquired not related to ICT.

As to the different jobs of Information Technology being carried out, practically all were in

higher level occupations as directors/owners and qualified specialists (ISCO 1 and 2). In 65%

of the cases the occupations were related directly to ICT. Those who have their own

companies or work as freelance professionals have mostly entered in the sector after some

years working for others and only a few have directly started to work in the ICT sector as

independent professionals. In the case of those who are in dependent employment, there is a

variety of answers as to how they obtained their present position. This can be resumed into

two main methods: through recommendations and through free market competition (including

public administration entrance exams, school to work transitions through internships or final

university projects). This is a most interesting finding since in Spain top level jobs are usually

not obtained in this manner. This finding is not consistent with the answer to the second

question. Indeed, around half think that women are hired on the basis of their professional

worth compared to men or that the industry does not prefer either one or the other. Another

half thinks that women are definitely not preferred to men. Here some examples of their

opinions:

“Yes, I consider that this association exists, and that you can definitely find more men

working in technical occupations than women...but to be able to say that his idea harms the

access of women to the technological sector would be, for me, a bit exaggerated” (33 years

old, system analyst web designer).

“ (….) It does harm, but I believe that if a women has vocation for a profession in the IT

sector, this type of stereotypes ideas will not matter to her””( 30 years old, Educational

Software Designer).

“I do not believe that it affects, in any case the use of the ITs has much to do with services, at

least in the case of an operator of telecommunications so, this association would be beneficial

to access certain positions. But I have never witnesses a situation in which one could apply

this associations [of ideas]” (38 years old, Senior Applied Techniques Engineer)

“I had no idea of the existence of such an absurd association of ideas. I suppose that there

are people who follow these ideas, but I don’t believe that this association of ideas harms

women who actually want to accede to the IT sector. I believe that the existing stereotypes in

this sector are the same ones that exist in other sectors. Stereotypes are a common

denominator in all European cities.” (36 years old, Local Area Network Administrator).

“I am not sure of that. They usually associate very technical knowledge with men, although

they say” that they prefer us because we are better at solving problems.””(40 years old,

Computer Applications and Systems Advisor / Programmer)

“During the first month of my work here, a new Web Marketing Manager and I were having

our very important meeting with our prospective client. We were on equal levels at the

company that time but he constantly neglected copying slides and tried to burden me with the

responsibility of this dull work. We didn't get along well after that, but finally he ended up

getting fired. This sort of stuff happens a lot in the IT sector with men of all ages.” (31 years

old, Computer Technician and Project Manager)

“Yes, I have met social obstacles, mainly because I have come across many professionals who

are engineers or economists who can’t understand that a woman can contribute with a more

practical vision of some aspects.” (35 years old, Web Developer/Analyst)

“It is difficult to remain updated in an environment that changes so much as this one does.

Apart from this, a certain degree of specialization is required in my case. I left the technology

per se to become an advanced user, capable of selling and proposing technological solutions

to my customers that would fulfill their needs.”” (40 years old, CEO)

“Until now not that many [obstacles], or perhaps I ignore them, I believe that I am also

constructing them myself.””(30 years old, Project Manager)

“(…) Obstacles are personal reason. Only that I had to learn to deal with more men than

women. Though, in more recent years, there are more women entering programming jobs.””

(32 years old, Information Technologies Engineer)

Next stage in the questionnaire was describing present tasks and obtained technical

knowledge requested to perform IT jobs with the correlation to the team work and mobility.

Final part had questions addressed the division of labour along gender roles in the responders

workplace. Here are some examples of further statements:

“I sell knowledge products, information with a high added value, channeled usually through

a computer toll or through internet, giving a great emphasis to design so that it facilitates to

the maximum extent possible the fulfillment of the product’s objective… I need to be up-dated

on the most recent market trends, on the possibilities that new technologies offer in the field

of knowledge management, of technical requirements that limit the application of one type of

technology or another, of the costs of the different technological developments and the

applicable legislation in each case… Regarding skills and abilities I would say that curiosity,

fast understanding, imagination for designing creative solutions, attention to detail, a wide

vision (being able to see the big picture) and ability to establish priorities.”” (39 years old,

CEO)

“It is as important, as it is in any other sector. In this case it can influence the speed of

change, it is always important to work in teams as there will always be someone who will be

able to detect innovation or change before others, and who will communicate this in order to

exploit the opportunity created.”” (33 years old, Senior R&D Engineer)

“In my task it is very important since the commercial and technical area must agree in the

service that we are giving to the client as well as making it feasible. We must communicate

continuously.”” (34 years old, Account Manager)

“In my field it is of utmost importance. Problems cannot be solved if the products are not

built considering different points of view. Technological tools must be at the service of people.

If the engineers/computer technicians worked solely in the development of applications

destined to disabled people, but without considering their needs, it is highly probable that the

tools will not function correctly. On the other hand, technology is a unique ally to provide

solutions to many of the problems that disabled people face. For this reason it is necessary to

create multidisciplinary teams that can combine interests and criteria.”” (36 years old, IT

Project Manager)

“There are the same barriers as in the rest of sectors. Family and children usually are the

main barriers for women’s mobility. So, that’s why I am not able to gain specified IT

knowledge as quickly as my colleges do. I must to analyze institutions’ needs and determine

quickly what programs and systems are the most adequate to serve these needs. My job goes

from creating complex computer programs to solving small computers’ conflicts. These tasks

are timely restricted” (35 years old, Senior Computer Technician, owner)

“(…) Not really. Moving is not only easy, but that there is an element added to mobility which

is telecommuting which helps and it is happening more and more. If one wants to hire

workers who you will never meet, it is very easy. Through Internet you can find many people

who love to work in very concrete projects, who will do the job from their own places, then

they will send them to us and we can integrate their part into the larger project. The concept

of mobility has extended. In addition this is a sector that favours the fact that to do a project

not everyone has to work in the same place or with the same time schedule. It is a sector

different from the others in that sense. This is also a sector that is in continual change, which

I n act favours mobility.” (38 years old, IT Partner-Director)

“I am responsible for automatic regulation of commuting control systems together with

planning in telecommunication industrial sector. These fields of knowledge are likely to be

fast advanced in science and I need to constantly update my skills and get new working

experience. I lead a 12-technician team and I must have both technical and organizational

knowledge to fulfill different, technically-detailed requirements and stay in good, effective

relations with my c-workers. It isn’t easy but I manage … “(32 years old, Computer and

Telecommunication Systems Manager)

“It is true that it is a very masculine” sector and that in many occasions it can be distant from

the “worldly problems”, but in general it is a very dynamic sector that moves at a great

speed, which poses a daily challenges and the need to permanently renovate yourself. That’s

the clue of working in such labour segment. You can move fast and create useful tool under

the pressure of time. ”” (36 years old, IT Project Manager)

“As an example, during the telecommunications gala dinner, only 3.5% of the people present

were women engineers. In addition to that, I believe that when you are a woman and you are

attractive, occupying a good position both women and men question your worth as

professional, they question your intellectual capacity and the means by which you arrived to

your current position. I believe that there is labour discrimination from men to women, but

also from women to women.”” (35 years old, Technical Engineer)

“(…) I believe that our abilities to communicate and to deal with people are much better,

something that is decisive when managing people and working in groups.”” (33 years old,

R&D Computer Engineer).

“[Differences by gender] are disappearing. I know this because of what I see in my company

and in companies that I know in the sector. The tasks related to systems, communications

networks and hardware configuration have been associated to men. Programming has a

mixed association. But right now the number of women is equal to the number of men in the

sector. I do not believe that there is a division of tasks by gender, and even more, in a very

short time there are going to exist more women specialized in networks that there are men

this is what the University system statistics say!”” (40 years old, IT Partner-Director).

“Work culture [in Spain] is based on strong dedication to projects in the sense of the number

of hours dedicated to them the lack of training in project management favours a typically

masculine culture of high rotation, intensive work without a schedule, bad management,

unsolved conflicts, lack of attention to the emotional and personal necessities, etc. These are

the factors that can affect in a negative way the adaptation of women to a typically masculine

culture based on the negligence of balance between work and personal life. [Some of the

barriers are] the necessity to be always up to date, permanent trainings, the hyper

specialization of the sector, the enterprise policies of big companies, the deficiencies in

training of most of the technological project manages , etc. (…)”(38 years old, Senior Applied

Techniques Engineer)

Finally, during the interviews in Spain, female IT managers or female CEOs of IT companies

were asked about behaving female ICT leaders among other businesswomen in this

employment sector. Three general questions, in the beginning of the research, were further

supported by a couple of more detailed as: “Have you ever noticed a female rivalry in the IT

workplace?”, “Is it as harmful for women as sexism in holding back female’s career in IT?”, “

How do you act as a IT manager?”

Here are some answers to given questions:

“When I started my IT career in an international Spanish company in Zaragoza, I saw a

woman in managerial position discriminating against other, that with a lower status in the

company. It was possibly because they like to be the only female manager in the workplace. I

decided to change (after one year of full employment) my career track – I moved from graph

designing to computer system department where there were no women. I was supported by my

male colleges and I achieved my professional goal after five years of hiring there. I try not to

be so powerful when I interact with other women.”(28 years old, Computer System Manager)

“I do not agree that a female rivalry is as harmful as sexism in the workplace. Being CEO

and the owner of IT company, focused on web designing, here, in Barcelona, I haven’t even

tried to act as a queen bee among my four female IT middle-managers. I respect their

identities and roles they cope and I examine checking only their core competences. We have

been working together for five years and we know each other quite well. I do not see any

cases of female rivalry in my firm. Moreover, I consider our professional team as change

agents. It is visible especially when we realize our IT projects for co-workers who are mainly

men.” (35 years old, Graphic & Web Designer, CEO)

“I must say that I’ve never noticed a rivalry among women in the place where I work

currently. On the contrary, I experienced role stereotyping just after beginning my IT career

here. Now I am still the only woman – Technician Engineer in CPU Software here in Seville,

and I’ve managed with gender stereotyping and tokenism here. That’s because of new

management. My new boss appreciates my work and I have been given some official training

of common use of electrical appliances to provide better our automatic regulation of central

control system.” (30 years old, Computer System Programmer)

“Hopefully I have not. (…) All employees of our Bilbao subsidiary had to take a diversity

course after five weeks of being hired. We, men and women - merely IT specialists, had to

watch some videos and discuss what we had seen previously. One video showed a new female

boss who had appointed another female, a friend, to a position while a male complained the

previous boss had promised him this post. The male promised to take it up to higher

authorities if he didn’t get the promised this one. We had also special anti-discriminative

training to better understand the problem. I assume that here, in Basque region, we do not

observe gender stereotyping and its strong rivalry among females.” (IT Sales Technician)

These answers reveal a very wide range of activities and a great deal of energy into keeping

abreast of a fast changing sector. Moreover, it is interesting to note that both the entrepreneurs

or freelance group and the employed group, engage well in personal relations with clients or

users of the services and products they produce or manage. However, the question itself

beckoned a more technical answer, and in all the cases the answers reflect a high degree of

knowledge about the products and services as well as keeping up with the recent changes of

technical field. The question on teamwork brought out a number of interesting aspects.

Working in a collaborative environment is actually part of the IT sector, but it is also a

working method that supports the need to be continually updated and to have an innovative

edge. Also, the work not only within the IT part of the company but with others with different

skills is vital to the IT business and to its possible applications. During the interview women

were asked about obstacles to mobility in their IT career. The overwhelming majority of

answers was pointed out the reconciliation of work and family life. Some questions aimed at

eliciting information on the personal possibility of moving to another IT job, but also to

contrast with answers in the previous blocks. As could be expected from the answers in the

earlier part, the issue of reconciliation of work and family life features prominently as one of

the most important barriers. In this case those that had said in the previous block that there

were no barriers for women to enter the sector overwhelmingly say that there are barriers to

mobility, albeit due to social” not to workplace related causes, mainly in the area of work and

life balance responsibilities. Only in one case the answer was a flat out no.

As to the first question, the sample is dived exactly in half: half would move to another IT job

and half would not. However among those who have answered no, in four cases this would

have to be compared to the circumstances, mostly to the possibility of improving the present

situation and the need to renew present technical knowledge. On the side of those who

answered yes, it is interesting to note that in most cases the possibility of changing is linked to

an improvement in working conditions and simply to a change of working environment (for

example from the private to the public sector or vice versa).

The final block of questions aimed to get an idea of the specific gender relations affecting

working situations in the IT sector and the respondents’ particular views on the issues posed.

As to the first question, there is 50/50 split among those that believe that there are no specific

enabling factors or constraints due to being a woman in the IT sector and those who do.

Moreover, among the former, it is pointed out in several instances that advantages or

constraints depend on personality traits, not on being male or female. Only in two cases did

reconciliation of work and family life appear among the answers. Among those who believed

that there were no constraints, some enabling factors such as ability to listen, empathy, multi-

tasking, networking, and being more organized and efficient were highlighted. With regard to

the second question, only three respondents answered that they had been attracted by

technology in their younger years. But on answering the third question (attraction to the IT

sector), all respondents unanimously answered yes and for the most part pointed to the fact

that its dynamism and the continuous learning aspect is what they found most attractive.

The next two questions were directly related to existing prejudices at work and the way the

women interviewed felt in their labour market position with respect to men. With regard to

the existence of prejudices, discrimination and disadvantages, the sample was also split in

half. Those answering that there were none of these phenomena in the IT sector did not go

into much detail in answering and are mostly in line with their previous answers on obstacles

(that there were none). The women answering yes, felt that this was true in general and not a

problem of the IT sector in particular. However, in some cases the fact that it is a male

dominated sector in its highest levels was mentioned (for example felt at meetings and other

social events related to the IT sector). In some cases it is pointed out that the prejudices also

come from women. On the other hand, the question on whether the respondents saw

themselves as different from men labour-wise had a surprising outcome. In the case of women

who answered that they did not believe there was any discrimination, disadvantage or

prejudices, most also answered that they did not see themselves as different from men and in

the case they answered yes, the difference was that women have advantages over men (better

organized, multi-task, etc.). In the case of women who felt that there were prejudices,

disadvantages and discrimination, an overwhelming majority did not see themselves as

different from men in the labour or working aspects. However, some did mention that they

were getting less pay and less opportunities for progress at work, they saw themselves mostly

as equals. Finally, the last two questions addressed the division of labour along gender roles in

the respondent’s workplace and the transfer of stereotypes from the household into the labour

market. In this case there has also been a 50/50 split into those answering that in their

companies tasks are divided by gender. However, the overwhelming majority does believe

that stereotypes are transferred from the home to the workplace.

IT careers have given an increasing number of women a chance to enter the sector, even if

their first choice of educational or vocational training was not IT related. Furthermore, given a

specific labour market context with a high degree of job to job mobility due to a high level of

fixed term contracts, the IT sector in Spain for women’s job to job mobility seems to be

related to other issues. These are mainly the personal drive to work for their own profit

(entrepreneurs and freelance professionals) and the opportunities that have presented

themselves, including the demand for professionals combining different knowledge bases (for

example legal or managerial with IT skills). One of the most interesting findings, in our view,

has been the fact that basic training in IT and interest in at an early age are not necessarily

obstacles for women to enter this sector. The combination of IT with other formal training

options and the creativity in different applications seem to be giving women an edge in the

sector, in spite of general and specific obstacles being faced. Mobility into and within the

sector as reflected in the education/training/work histories and the entry into the present post

confirm these statements. These types of experiences should be disseminated to encourage

more women into the sector. On the other hand, although almost half of the respondents were

not thinking of moving to another job in the near future, there were two main issues raised

with regard to job to job mobility in the IT sector: training and reconciliation of work and

family life. In fact geographical mobility is very much restricted by the latter, however, in

some cases the possibilities that ICT itself offers should be exploited further. Although it is

not clear from this survey, and given its statistical limitations, that there is a gender division

of tasks, it is true that the sector itself employs many women, but that they are not in the

highest levels of responsibility. Although in Spain this has to be tempered by the fact that in

the most important companies (all multinational and not Spanish) the CEOs or directors are

women (Google, Yahoo, and IBM, for example) Spanish companies might not be in the same

position. Gender stereotypes are also clearly barrier that continues to affect labour market

outcomes and are the basis for discriminatory attitudes and prejudices. Although some of the

respondents do not apply them to themselves or to other women, the advantages and skills

women have should encourage IT companies to employ and train both genders.

EU policies on lifelong learning and on reconciliation of work and family life are of particular

importance to encourage job to job mobility, but also geographical mobility within and

between member states. Fighting stereotypes and encouraging gender equality also play a key

role if both women and men are to enjoy the benefits of mobility and enhance the impact that

this has on the wider economy and society. A more decided support for companies to change

outdated management styles and models, which come into contradiction with the changes and

opportunities offered by IT services and products should also be promoted from within EU

institutions. Given the large SME and family owned fabric of businesses, this should be an

important part to be strengthened in the framework of the growth and jobs strategy for next

years.

SUMMARY

Although the proportion of women in management in different countries vary widely, IT

female supervisors or leaders are still in a minority in most Spanish companies and reasons

that have been put forward for its investigation including: the gendered structures of society,

the masculine image of the manager and the different kind of socialization processes to which

girls and boys are subject. Lots of earlier, international studies in management and leadership

concerned with women in such managerial positions and the possible differences between

male and female managers have been noticed. My study also raises the question whether there

are differences between male and female managers but more as regards to their work role

descriptions and attitudes towards subordinates than other prejudice factors. This research is a

part of my PhD thesis and was designed in NVivo 8 software to analyze on-line data with a

sample of 50 female Spanish IT managers and was carried out from January 2009 to

December 2010.

STRESZCZENIE

Pomimo, że liczba kobiet, posiadających kompetencje zarządcze, zmienia się na korzyść w

wybranych krajach, to jednak ilość kobiet-przełożonych w branży IT pozostaje wciąż w

mniejszości biorąc pod uwagę chociażby hiszpańskie realia. Przyczyn takiego stanu rzeczy

należy upatrywać w kilku obszarach: bazującym na strukturalizmie funkcjonalnym, silnie

zmaskulinizowanym społeczeństwie z jedynie słusznym wizerunkiem menadżera-macho i

ukierunkowanych na obie płcie, ale zróżnicowanych procesach socjalizacji. W poprzednich

latach, podjęto wiele międzynarodowych badań nad kompetencjami i postawami kobiet i

mężczyzn, pełniących funkcje zarządcze, próbując wyjaśnić czy i jak ich zróżnicowanie, ze

względu na płeć, może wpływać na zmiany zachodzące w sposobach organizacji

przedsiębiorstw. Moje badania również dotyczą tych kwestii, ale bardziej interesują mnie:

przyjmowanie przez obie płcie, określonych wzorców zachowań, wchodzenie w nowe role

pod wpływem podwyższonego statusu zawodowego oraz zmiana postaw względem

bezpośrednich podwładnych lub niższych w hierarchii pracowników. Przedstawiona przeze

mnie tutaj metodologia badań jakościowych oraz analiza danych, pozyskanych on-line, to

część ostatniego rozdziału rozprawy doktorskiej, w którym ostateczne wyniki uzyskano dzięki

takim narzędziom informatycznym jak NVivo 8.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

1. Arciszewski, K. , Poznanie, zbiorowośd, polityka: Analiza teorii aktora-sieci Bruno Latoura,

Wrocław 2008.

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3. Callon, M., Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and

the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay w: John Law (red.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology

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explicación de la discriminación de la mujer en puestos de dirección, “Revista de Psicologia

Social”, Madrid 2005.

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characteristics and transformational and transactional leadership behaviours, “Perceptual

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“Career Development International”, vol. 11, p. 560-578, Nowy Jork 2006.

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Organizational Strenght, Nowy Jork 2003.

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http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/eie/statistical_annex_key_employment_indicators_

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NOTA BIOGRAFICZNA

Marta Zientek jest doktorantką Instytutu Europeistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i

Katedry Socjologii Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie. Interesuje się szeroko

rozumianą problematyką zmian rynku pracy, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem

habitusowych zachowań kobiet i mężczyzn w świetle stereotypizacji ról zawodowych.

Ponadto, regularnie bierze udział w konferencjach naukowych, których tematyka

dotyczy: ageingu, kształcenia ustawicznego i edukacji dorosłych. W chwilach

wolnych od naukowych obowiązków, zajmuje się nauczaniem języka angielskiego na

wszystkich szczeblach edukacji szkolnej w Polsce. Jej publikacje można znaleźć w nie

tylko w takich pismach jak: Gazeta Bankowa, Monitor Rachunkowości i Finansów,

Zarządzanie Zasobami Ludzkimi (IPiSS), ale również w polskich i zagranicznych

monografiach pokonferencyjnych: Human Development and Adult Learning (2006),

Challenges of Social and Cultural Diversity: Diverse Lives, Cultures, Learnings and

Literiacies (2007), Między kulturami: Edukacja w wielokulturowej rzeczywistości

(2009).