Up the ladder or out the door? Gender and networking for career advancement in tech

• In Event: 20817 - Stalled Gender Revolution: Precarity, Segregation, and Labor Market Attachment

Abstract

Women in tech face a stubborn glass ceiling, often segregated in lower-status positions with limited chances to move into the highest levels of leadership. Networking has long been suggested as a strategy for women to break through the glass ceiling. I investigate the role of networking in climbing the corporate ladder and ask: How do tech workers network as they try to move up the ladder in their firm? How are networking strategies involved in the promotion process gendered, and to what effect on career outcomes? Through an organizational case study, including ethnographic observations and interviews with workers, I find that to climb ladders, individuals must gain visibility and positive reputations by networking and engaging in self-promotion. Following these rules works well for men, who routinely network to get promoted. Men take on additional tasks and projects and locate mentors with senior-level men in the company who vouch for them in promotions. However, when women engage in similar strategies, they find themselves even more marginalized and sidelined out of upward mobility. Aspects of the company structure, including the organization of jobs, departments, and evaluations, and the company culture – which rests on a gendered status hierarchy – limit women’s networking into leadership, while enabling men’s promotions. Scholars of gender and work contend that bureaucratic organizations may benefit women by specifying evaluation criteria and circulating information about internal ladders evenly but, in this case, the rules of the game are not standardized, consistently applied, or clear to everyone. There are two sets of rules to get promoted – one for men and one for women. When women try following men’s rules, they are edged out of the game by men who refuse to play along. By allowing informal relationships to dictate job mobility and internal labor markets, the organization sidelines women and their careers.

Author

• Ethel L. Mickey, California State Univ-San Bernardino