Google LLC, US Department of Labor Settlement Resolves alleged pay, hiring discrimination at California, Washington State Locations. United States Department of Labor. (2021, February 1). Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20210201
This news release by the U.S. Department of Labor discusses a settlement that Google had reached with the Department of Labor over allegations of systemic compensation and hiring discrimination that occurred at the company. The article discusses pay discrepancies that impacted female employees in software engineering positions at the company and discovered hiring rate differences that disadvantaged female applicants for software positions at the company. The release then goes on to say that Google has agreed to enhance their future compliance proactively and review current policies and procedures to proactively prevent discrimination. This news release is a current example of gender discrimination cases that have occurred at a major tech company in tech positions. It goes into the details of the settlement shown for the court case that is referenced from the Superior Court of The State of California. It shows how costly it can be for companies who engage in discriminatory practices and shows the need for improved policies and procedures to prevent gender discrimination in the tech field.

Jung, L., Clark, U., Patterson, L., & Pence, T. (n.d.). Closing the Gender Gap in the Technology Major. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from http://isedj.org/2017-15/n1/ISEDJv15n1p26.pdf
With the job opportunities in the technological field expanding, there is still a small percentage of women in tech majors. This article, published by the Information Systems Education Journal, addresses the influences that affect the selection of the degree related to technology. Additionally, it dives into the elements of how the gender gap came to be in the first place and how it impacts women and their choice in the technological field today.
For our presentation, it is important to know the factors that influence the gender gap discrimination (i.e. why women pick certain majors in the tech field) in order to address our underlying research statement. This article can provide us with more insight on the media portrayal of women in tech, social encouragement, influences of marketing, and the impact of education and how all those elements play into the gender gap. Furthermore, by utilizing the information provided in this article, we are able to identify how to achieve gender equality and how the gender gap in tech fields became so apparent in the first place.

KELLY ELLIS, HOLLY PEASE, KELLI WISURI, and HEIDI LAMAR individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. GOOGLE, LLC (formerly GOOGLE, INC.), Defendant. (SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA n.d.).https://googlegendercase.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Google_20180103_First _Amended_Class_Action_Complaint.pdf
This court document from the Superior Court of The State of California is an example of gender discrimination in tech. The suit shows allegations from three women that were former employees at Google that involve gender discrimination. In the first amended complaint listed in the court it describes the policies and procedures that google uses to determine wages for their employees. It then makes allegations that google across all their locations pay women less than their male counterparts in the same position with the same performance. The document then goes onto explain how Google’s hiring process causes this pay discrimination, through stereotypes and through using prior pay as a reference as to how much an employee will be paid. This court document shows how attempting to do automated processes within a large company can lead to unintentional discrimination, and how systems that seem fair on the surface can be warped by stereotypes held by those in decision making positions and can lead to gender discrimination.

OB-Related:
Annabi, H., & Lebovitz, S. (2018). Improving the retention of women in the IT workforce: An investigation of gender diversity interventions in the USA. Information Systems Journal, 28(6), 1049–1081.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1111/isj.12182
In this article Annabi and Lebovitz break down gender diversity and challenge how effective Organizational Interventions are in an IT workplace. In previous studies the authors noticed that the turnover rate in the workforce was nearly double than it was for men even though 74% of these women claimed to love their work. With that information in mind, they conducted a study involving 23 semi-structured interviews with women in the field to see where the issues lie. Some key common issues discussed were the double burden on balancing work and life, the lack of sponsorships and mentors for women due to the high turnover rate, and how home lives can lead to stereotypes in the workplace. Annabi and Lebovitz’s work is relevant to our presentation because the structural barriers women face in the IT workplace discussed in this article provides us with insight on ways to identify where gender inequality lies in the tech field.

Klenke, K. (Ed.). (2017). Women in leadership : Contextual dynamics and boundaries, second edition. Emerald Publishing Limited. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/lib/wwu/detail.action?docID =4916760
The number of women in IT has fallen despite the market for their skills expanding. The technology field is more than hardware and software, it has also become a complex social system with intended and unintended consequences. Leadership in the IT field requires a unique set of skills as well as an ability to use. Changes in organizational structure and work arrangements have become increasingly necessary in managing followers at a distance in IT. This article outlines women’s roles in e-leadership in taking the relationships among organizational members defined by an organization’s structure and enhancing it. What leadership in IT is is broken down, and the path women have to become leaders in IT as well as the effects of women and on women in IT are broken down. The benefits of gender equality are discussed in this article along with the struggles for a woman to arrive in a position of leadership in IT.

Smith, L. (2013), “Working hard with gender: Gendered labour for women in male dominated occupations of manual trades and information technology (IT)”, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 592-603. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1108/EDI-12-2012-0116
Knowing why gender inequality exists in the workplace is key to implementing a plan to create a gender equal work environment. Over the past 30 years equity strategies have been implemented in the male-dominated tech field but little results have been seen. The lack of results and abundance of research on gender inequality in the tech field has created an invisibility of sexual politics in the workplace and an ignorance around gender relations. Women have been faced with their gender being highly visible in the workplace while the effects of gendering practices have been highly invisible. The invisible effects of failed gendering practices arise from within the worker and have an emotive element. This article discusses how women in IT have to actively engage in “emotion work” in which they have to use their emotional potential to reduce the effect of potentially harmful gender practices. “Emotion work” by women in IT is closely related to the ignorance of the painful effects of abuse of power that is the result of modern institutional, organizational, and cultural structures.

Nupur Koirala, Ben Davis, Rohan Aitharaju, Brandon Edelman, Angelica Perez