1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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,

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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)

16. “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)

17. “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)

18. “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

19. 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)

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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.

23. BIBLIOGRAFIA
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en.html

24. 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).