Understanding How Organizational Interventions Mitigate the Barriers Women Face in the IT Workplace: A Theoretical Framework

Hala Annabi, The University of Washington
Sarah Pels, New York University Stern School of Business

Description

Forbes Insight (2011) reported that 97% of companies surveyed have implemented interventions to improve the retention of women and minorities in the workplace. Despite organizational interventions, women are not staying in IT workforce¬. In fact NCWIT (2015) reported that 57% of women leave the IT workforce within the first five years of their career. These alarming figures raise questions about the effectiveness of these interventions. Information systems research produced little theoretically sound gender research to facilitate our understanding of organizational interventions and their effectiveness to retain women in IT (Trauth 2013). This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and provide a theoretical framework to enhance our understanding and our empirical investigations of diversity interventions within organizations.

 
Aug 11th, 12:00 AM

Understanding How Organizational Interventions Mitigate the Barriers Women Face in the IT Workplace: A Theoretical Framework

Forbes Insight (2011) reported that 97% of companies surveyed have implemented interventions to improve the retention of women and minorities in the workplace. Despite organizational interventions, women are not staying in IT workforce¬. In fact NCWIT (2015) reported that 57% of women leave the IT workforce within the first five years of their career. These alarming figures raise questions about the effectiveness of these interventions. Information systems research produced little theoretically sound gender research to facilitate our understanding of organizational interventions and their effectiveness to retain women in IT (Trauth 2013). This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and provide a theoretical framework to enhance our understanding and our empirical investigations of diversity interventions within organizations.