Discretionary power of project managers in knowledge-intensive firms and gender issues

Abstract

en

The scarcity of women among highly qualified professionals in business-to-business information and communication technologies (ICT) in Europe and in North America has been noted as recently as the late 1990s (Panteli, Stack, Atkinson, & Ramsay, 1999). The organization and management of work in such firms is typically project-based. This has many consequences, including: long working hours with fierce resistance to any reduction, unpaid overtime, high management expectations of employee flexibility to meet unanticipated client demands, and the need for employees to negotiate flexible work arrangements on a case-by-case basis with a project manager who often has much discretion on whether to accommodate such requests. We found that women are particularly disadvantaged in such a system, which could partly explain their under-representation in such jobs. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

fr

On compte peu de femmes chez les professionels qualifiés des services technologiques aux enterprises, métiers de l'informatique, en Europe et en Amérique. Le mode d'organisation du travail qu'on y pratique est celui de la gestion par projets, qui a de multiples conséquences en termes de conditions de travail: l'importance des longues heures et la résistance à la réduction du temps de travail, les heures supplémentaires non payées, la très grande flexibilité exigée des employés, les aménagements d'heure ou lieu de travail sujets a négociation avec le chef de projet, selon des critès arbitraries. Les femmes sont celles que défavorise until système, car on observe un lien entre la flexibilité à cet égard et le fait d'avoir la responsabilité principale des enfants. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.