By: Clint Tosland, Sean Lechtenberg, Connor Gjurasic, Alyssa Hoirup, and Valerie Campbell
Florida Institute of Technology. (2020). How to Combat Ageism in the IT Industry. Retrieved from Florida Tech website: https://www.floridatechonline.com/blog/information-technology/how-to-combat-ageism-in-the-it-industry/
Goodwin, B. (2006). Our industry is the worst for age discrimination, say IT professionals. Computer Weekly, 9. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=24600475&site=ehost-live
This source originates from the UK in 2006. It was a study conducted on how different ages experience working in the IT field. The study was conducted by the Premium Content Editor for Computer Weekly, Bill Goodwin. He has been an investigative editor for almost 20 years. The purpose of this article is to give some real-world statistics to the topic that we are writing about. Goodwin included many percentages and real experiences from diverse ages working in the IT field. This source has value in those numbers that give validity to an argument about ageism in the workplace. It is further valuable because although not conducted in the US, the UK has a very similar job market, and is very comparable. This source is limited by its length, as it is not very long, and that it is a bit older (2006) and thus the data may be slightly skewed from how things are today.
Martin, L. (2018). Ageism – Ensuring High Quality Talent Now and For the Future: What You and Your Organization Needs to Know and Do. Workforce Solutions Review, 9(1), 8–10. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=128512597&site=ehost-live
This source is a recently published academic journal in February of 2018. Its purpose was to look at the presence, or lack of presence, of ageism in the tech industry, debunk myths relating to ageism, and closes with advice on combating ageism. This source is valuable for us as it directly relates to our research question of how to successfully manage diversity and within that, various age ranges of employees. The author is a well-respected business professional with an HR background, but has also been known for her research in workforce intelligence. Another great source of value this journal provides is its publication date being within the past two years. This means the data, trends, and myths Martin discusses will likely still be prevalent today. The main limitation of this source is one of the focus’ being myths relating to ageism, as we are trying to provide an effective outline for managing diversity and ageism. With that said, Martin does acknowledge the presence of ageism in the industry, so the myths she talks about could be used as rebuttals/counterarguments. A second limitation of the source is its length and depth, some of the approaches offered seem rather surface level.
Moody, J., Beise, C., Woszczynski, A., & Myers, M. (2003). Diversity and the information technology workforce: Barriers and opportunities. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 43(4), 63-71.
The type of this source is an article. It is a secondary source and was published in 2003. The purpose of this source is to explain IT in the workplace and how implementing diversity increases the performance of the workforce. It gives detailed information about how people perform in regard to these diversity categories including; gender, ethnicity, age, and disability. When this source was being created it was during the time computer technology was relatively new and people were starting to understand the potential of computer technologies. Diversity was a growing topic as well and people began to realize the potential of adding diversity to the computer systems workplace to increase performance. The limitations of this article include that this was created in the early 2000s. It has been almost two decades since this was made, and technological advances have increased exponentially which can affect the performance of diversity in a workplace negatively or in a positive way.
Moran, G. (2016). 4 signs you might be more ageist than you think. Retrieved from Fast Company website: https://www.fastcompany.com/90452268/4-signs-you-might-be-more-ageist-than-you-think
Oudshoorn, N., Neven, L., & Stienstra, M. (2016). How diversity gets lost: Age and gender in design practices of information and communication technologies. Journal of Women & Aging, 28(2), 170–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2015.1013834
This is an article written in 2016 about older generations and women in the Information Technologies workforce. This article was inspired by surveys stated and linked in the article. The purpose of this article is to inform the reader about the biases and lacking diversity when it comes to the older generation. It also focused on how we can implement them into the workforce. One of the main points from the article is that an older generation can help businesses thrive by helping the company to tell the likes and dislikes of products to have them there too an older generation which is a new market to sell to. Another point was that many companies don’t have people who are older working on goods for people of that age demographic. This article will help support our statement of how managers can support the
older workforce and implementing them into the IT workforce.
Smith, A. (2014). Five Tips for Avoiding Age Discrimination. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/avoiding-age-discrimination-.aspx
Swanner, N. (2018). Ageism Still a ‘Major’ Problem in Tech: Dice Survey. Retrieved from Dice website: https://insights.dice.com/2018/06/12/ageism-tech-major-problem-survey/
Woszczynski, A., Myers, M., & Moody, J. (2006). Student Perceptions of Diversity Issues in IT. Journal of Information Systems Education, 17(4), 449–458. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=23720691&site=ehost-live
Student Perceptions of Diversity Issues In IT gives a general overview into differing types of diversity and how they affect motivation and performance in the IT work world and provides significant insight into how students preparing for jobs in IT, like three members of our group, view these diversity issues and future outlooks. The study evaluates the values of the given group of students such as: preference for working in teams, values of work life balance and even how important they believe diversity and then further separates the survey responses into categories such as ethnicity and major. The article makes a strong argument and stance that diversity is key to high levels of performance and creativity in the IT workforce but the caveat here is that this is only supported by subjective options of students; which does not devalue the research done but it requires a supplemental backing with more hard data. Furthermore, the article is lacking in that it provides now solution to the diversity problems in the IT industry.