As stated at the beginning of the chapter, this research is a preliminary exploration of some of the issues related to the retention of women in IT. To allow us to conduct qualitative, open-ended interviews, the sample size was deliberately small. Future research must confirm whether or not some of the issues that these women […]

Several interesting themes emerged during the interviews with the women in IT. The women who participated in this study articulated sev­eral barriers and enhancers to their careers. The answers agree with Quesenberry and Trauth’s (2007) assertion that individual experiences, temporal situations and environmental factors influence how women make career decisions. It is also apparent that […]

Differences in workload were related to industry and professional area in IT. The workplace ac­commodations for women also varied greatly. Twenty-one women mentioned the stress that a heavy workload and required travel put on their lives. Internal IT auditors tended to work normal workweeks. Managers and women in financial and Big 4 consulting companies worked […]

Few ofthe women in this sample worked in organi­zations with formal mentoring programs. Women from engineering, the Big 4,2 and the insurance industry said the mentoring programs were inef­fective because of lack of interest of the mentor and lack of fit to the mentee’s career. At one Big 4 consulting firm, employees got two mentors: […]

In coding the interview dataset, themes were identified using note taking and tagging features of the software. Tables 2 and 3 list the most com­mon categories of career barriers and enhancers and the numbers of women who spoke about the listed category in the table. Women, were asked to tell their career stories, and then […]

The data in this qualitative study came from inter­views with 38 women with IT careers in Southern California. A qualitative approach seemed moresuitable 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 […]

Women are underrepresented in IT college pro­grams (Computer Information Systems, Computer Science, Management Information Systems), and the numbers of women in IT careers is declining. Many attribute this to the declining interest of women seeking degrees in technology related disciplines, a phenomenon dubbed the ‘pipeline’ problem (Blickenstaff, 2005; Camp, 1997; Soe & Yakura, 2008). Mitigation […]

Elaine K. Yakura Michigan State University, USA Louise Soe California State Polytechnic University, USARuth Guthrie California State Polytechnic University, USA ABSTRACT Research on the declining numbers of women in the Information Technology (IT) workforce focuses on ‘filling the pipeline ’ by attracting women into IT disciplines at colleges and universities. This research looks at the […]

This research has highlighted a number of issues and unanswered questions which require research in order to develop an improved understanding of the role and use of ICT in female operated busi­ness, specifically the mompreneur. It was found that respondents did not capture the full benefits of ICT. Despite good access to computers and high […]

The responses centred on a range of external and internal challenges. From an external perspective increased uncertainty in the economic climate and in the marketplace was a common concern to all respondents. This was particularly the case for firms selling domestic household related ser­vices. In a related manner the need for increased marketing and selling […]