The data in this qualitative study came from interviews with 38 women with IT careers in Southern California. A qualitative approach seemed more
suitable for issues related to IT careers because it allowed these women to describe their experiences to us, without prompting and in their own words. Collecting oral histories as primary documents of women’s experience at work uncovered a variety of different phenomena and gave insight into the complex issues of the IT workplace that impeded and supported the success of these women.
The initial list of women contacts were graduates of the Computer Information Systems and graduate business programs at Cal Poly Pomona University. A snowballing technique (Berg, 2001), located additional interviewees from local companies, professional organizations, and LinkedIn. The sample included women from “extreme” cases (in career longevity, age, organizational level) as well as “typical cases” to achieve “maximal variation in the sample” (Flick, 1998). The resulting sample represents different ethnic cultures, different age levels, a wide range of organizational levels, and different industries (see Table 1).
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After completing a form advising them of confidentiality precautions taken in this research, the women spent from 60 to 90 minutes reflecting
on several different aspects of their careers. In this chapter, the themes of barriers and enhancers to their careers are reported along with the types of support they received from firms and mentors. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed and coded, using the qualitative data analysis software Atlas-ti 5.0. Coding used top-down and bottom-up (in-vivo) coding (Lewins & Silver, 2007). Top-down codes reflected research assumptions covering issues such as cultural references at the societal, occupational, organizational, and workgroup levels, and other recommendations for improving the status of women in IT, such as mentoring and networking. A grounded approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) using in-vivo coding or bottom-up coding looked for recurring themes that evolved during the study that emerged from the data. For example, a surprising number of capable women ascribed their success to “luck” and “good fortune.” Further coding identified and separated positive and negative quotations about the same topic, and identified other issues.
FINDINGS
and talked about barriers they faced (and still face) as well as characteristics in themselves and the profession that aided success. This chapter examines cultural barriers in organizations and the IT occupation, as well as elements that mitigated those barriers for these successful women, such as mentoring, workload and other firm-provided special accommodations for women.