Networks of exclusion in a gendered organization in the high-tech industry

Abstract

As part of the reinvigorated #MeToo movement against sexual harassment following the 2016 US presidential election, a wave of high-profile complaints of sexism have surfaced against prominent technology companies including Google and Uber. Innovative technology companies in the United States widely assert their commitments to diversity, but the high-tech industry nonetheless remains dominated by young, white men. Efforts to advance women in knowledgebased industries regularly focus on networking, evidenced by the plethora of support programs designed to help women build strategic relationships to overcome powerful, male-dominated networks commonly referred to as "old boys' clubs." This dissertation explores the everyday, gendered practices of networking through a qualitative case study of an American high-tech organization that I call Data, Inc. I contribute to gendered organizations theory, critical feminist studies of technology, and social network theory by examining the interplay between individual agency and organizational structures. I argue that networks and practices of networking inadvertently reproduce intersectional inequalities in work organizations in the new economy, characterized by intensified economic precarity and workplace transformations like globalization and the rise of information technology. Networking interactions reproduce exclusionary mechanisms such as implicit bias and stereotypes, creating symbolic boundaries that limit opportunities for women and minorities. An organizational framework reveals how features of Data, Inc., including its gendered segregation and masculine culture of engineering, serve to constrain women's relationships with influential organizational actors.This dissertation project is comprised of three empirical articles. In the first paper, I explore the gendered networking strategies and behaviors of individuals working in high-tech -finding men to spontaneously build connections with each other through informal, masculine activities 4 like video games, while women struggle to make connections with influential colleagues at formal networking programs, as they are often only women-only spaces. This article critically examines the company's women's group, which I find to inadvertently exclude women of color or other marginalized women who do not fit the dominant company culture. The second paper examines the gendered organization and culture of the high-tech industry through the lens of Data, Inc., revealing how organizational restructuring leads to the implementation of bureaucratic features that differentially shape women and men's networks. Finally, in the third paper, I draw on my participant observation at networking conferences to show how women-only networking events individualize women's responsibility for their careers, circulating the neoliberal notion that women can "have it all" through practices of self-improvement. Women-only events ignore persistent institutional barriers to women's advancement and inclusion such as discrimination, stereotypin...