Overcoming the barriers to women's career in information and communication technology business

• Date: 23 June 2023
• Pages: 23-40
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2022-0265
• Published date: 23 June 2023
• Author: Lauryna Naseviciute,Rita Juceviciene

Overcoming the barriers to women’s

career in information and

communication technology business

Lauryna Naseviciute and Rita Juceviciene

School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology,

Kaunas, Lithuania

Abstract

Purpose –The paper focusses on the intrapersonal vs environmental barriers to women’s career advancement

to the top leadership positions in the information and communication technology (ICT) business and envisages

the individual, organisational as well as societal practices for overcoming such barriers in the given sector.

Design/methodology/approach –The study relies on the qualitative research method of expert interviews

with top-level women managers in the leading ICT companiesin Lithuania. The study allowed identifying and

structuring the key barriers to women’s careers and three-level practices for overcoming them.

Findings –The research has shown that the key intrapersonal barriers are related to the lack of self-

confidence and perceived glass ceiling. The main environmental barriers are male domination and socially

gendered professions. The practices for overcoming women’s career barriers can be categorised into three

levels –individual, organisational and societal. The study has shown that the most important individual

practices are the ability to continuously self-educate and self-affirmation. On the organisational level, the

following key practices can be applied: mentorship and inclusive company culture. The societal practices for

improving women’s career advancement in ICT are mainly represented by the visibility of successful leaders as

role models and initiatives increasing awareness for an inclusive society.

Research limitations/implications –The research limitations are largely related to the research sample

selected for the qualitative research (interviews). Therespondents are already established in the top leadership

positions, so may only have a retrospective view on the obstacles to the respondents’careers. A larger sample

could provide a more generalisable data, whilst a larger number of interview participants for preselected

categories, like company category or tenure in a position, would provide insights on the different stages of

career growth and company’s influence for the individual’s growth. The authors encourage extending research

to other sectoral and national contexts.

Practical implications –The research sets out the key barriers that can be overcome with the help of

individual, organisational and societal practices. This provides a comprehensive list of practices that can be

adopted by the organisations (in the ICT and beyond), as well as the policy makers on the societal level.

Social implications –Addressing the issues of gender balance and women’s career advancement in one of

the fastest growing industries (ICT) has profound social implications. Qualitative research has shown how the

barriers can be overcome at different levels of the social system.

Originality/value –The paper marks one of the first attempts to introduce a three-level approach to

addressing the intrapersonal and environmental barriers to the advancement of women’s careers with a

particular focus on the ICT sectoral context.

Keywords Career barriers, Empowering practices, ICT, Women, Lithuania

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Gender equality at the workplace is a frequent topic of discussion; however, there are still

important issues to address. The underrepresentation of women leaders is significant in

companies operating in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). Based

on the Gender 3,000 report, published by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, in 2016, women

were occupying only 16% managing positions in the ICT globally (Catalyst, 2020).

Women’s

career in ICT

business

23

Conflict of interest: The research presented in the paper contains no conflict of interest and was not

supported by any external funding

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 16 September 2022

Revised 30 January 2023

14 April 2023

Accepted 25 May 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 1, 2024

pp. 23-40

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-09-2022-0265

Extant research shows positive effects of gender equality on economic development and the

importance of ensuring equal gender access in the key business sectors, including ICT.

Research in the area usually focusses on general barriers to women’s career advancement

(Festing et al., 2014;Oakley, 2000;Palmer and Bosch, 2017;Holton and Dent, 2016;Hurley and

Choudhary, 2016;Cross and Linehan, 2006;Darguzaite and Litvinaite, 2019;Smith et al.,

2012b;Fischlmayr, 2002) with Anglo-Saxon countries over-represented in the sample (Holton

and Dent, 2016;Lyness and Grotto, 2018) and providing general insights, without focus on a

specific sector. Michailova and Hutchings (2016) also observe a lack of research regarding the

matter of women in the international business field. This lack is even more pronounced in

positive topics of women in business, like career development and women in leadership

(Madsen and Scribner, 2017). The extant research does not sufficiently address the specific

barriers to women’s career advancement towards the top leadership in ICT, nor does it

attempt to structure the individual, organisational and societal practices for overcoming

these specific barriers, which represents an important research gap. Thus, the aim of this

paper is to analyse the intrapersonal and environmental barriers to women’s career

advancement in ICT and link them with the most appropriate practices –on individual,

organisational and societal levels –for overcoming them.

The research presented in this paper was conducted in the ICT sector of Lithuania, which

represents an appropriate context for addressing the aforementioned research problem. The

country’s economy is characterised by a fast-growing sectoral representation ofICT, it is also

amongstthe global leadersin FinTech developmentand investment(Findexable Limited, 2019),

whilst the capital Vilnius takes the first place in Tech Start-up FDI Attraction Index (Irwin-Hunt,

2019). On genderequality front thepicture is more mixedand marked by controversies. Onone

hand, Lithuania had 24% share of women amongst ICT specialists and 27,9% share of women

scientists and engineers in the high-tech sector in 2019, both higher than European Union’s

average. Onthe other hand, the genderpay gap in ICT in Lithuaniawas 18%, which is higher

than the EU’s averageby almost 7% points (Gender Equality Index, 2020). Thus, it represents

the context of an increasing yet insufficient ge nder equality in a leading technological sector of

the economy.Lithuanian economy and society are still undergoing dynamictransformation. It

can beapproached as a certain“laboratoryof changes”whereobserved findingsmay be subject

to generalisableimplications.The focus on theICT sector and theway it deals with diversityand

gender equality issues canprovide a blueprint for other sectors in the future.

In this paper,we focus on womenleaders, who reachedtop-level managementpositions and

investigate practicesthat helped themovercome barriersin their careers.First, we overview the

potentialbarriersand conceptualpractices coveredby the extant literature,but we envelopthem

in our own conceptual structure. Second, we use a qualitative research method to interview

women,who have gone throughexperiencesof getting to the topleadership positionsin the ICT

sectorin order to get a deeperunderstandingof the issue. Finally,we discuss the researchresults

in relation tothe different types of barriers and levelsof interventions.

Barriers to women’s career advancement to top management positions:

conceptual overview

In this paper we rely on the classical distinction between intrapersonal and environmental

barriers to career advancement (Crites, 1969). We adopt them specifically for the presentation

in the context of women’s career progression.

Intrapersonal barriers to women’s career advancement

Intrapersonal career barriers are related to an individual’s internal attitudes, self-concepts,

motives, interests and value systems that inhibit certain career tracks. Intrapersonal barriers

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