Effect of Gender on Willingness to Bid for Competitive and Uncertain Information Technology Work

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wang, Yifei; Langer, Nishtha; Gopal, Anandasivam
• 署名单位: University System Of New Hampshire; University of New Hampshire; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Nanyang Technological University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0742-1222
• DOI: 10.1080/07421222.2024.2415768
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1198-1229
• 关键词: labor-market; PROJECT PERFORMANCE; field experiment; women; RISK; COMPENSATION; preferences; Negotiation; environment; matrilineal

摘要

Are women more likely to shy away from competitive and uncertain environments when considering information technology (IT)-related work options, relative to men? Does gender play a role in the propensity to participate in the marketplace for competitive and uncertain work? The response to this has implications for understanding the participation rate of women within the IT sector, as well as for setting policy aimed at increasing the number of women in the IT industry. Addressing this question using data from organizations is difficult, given the presence of organizational and institutional confounds. In this paper, we investigate this research question through a series of lab experiments using three sets of suitable subjects: graduate students in Information Systems and Business Analytics programs, MTurk, and Prolific respondents with IT backgrounds. Using the experimental context of a competitive online labor market, we study how competition and wage uncertainty affect the decision to bid for a project as well as the wage expectations across gender. Our results across three studies show that (a) women are more likely to bid for projects with higher coordination needs: navigating, communicating across, and managing multiple domains, technological, functional, and geographical boundaries; and (b) women are also more likely to bid when there is higher competition. Our work contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of gender, competitiveness, and uncertainty within the IT industry, and informs managers and policymakers regarding the intrinsic preferences of early-stage IT professionals.