Information systems (IS) employees perceptions of gender-based power politics and its impact on women in IS: a case of a South African bank

Abstract

This paper aims to study the impact of gender-based power politics on women in IS in South Africa. There is limited research which has focused on how women are affected by gender-based power politics in IS, in the South African context. Research has shown that women in IS are often marginalized, discriminated against, sexually harassed and often earn lesser salaries than their male counterparts and therefore, given the history of South Africa, this is an important issue that needs to be researched in-depth, as women in IS are affected by it daily. This qualitative, exploratory research addressed this gap by examining people’s perceptions of gender-based power politics in IS in the workplace, how gender-based power politics manifest and what impact gender based power politics have on women in IS, in the workplace Methodology The philosophical stance underpinning this study is interpretivism. The Revised Invisibility Vortex (RIV) framework was used as a theoretical lens for the phenomenon being studied. A single case study was used for this study and the research was conducted at Esona, a South African Bank. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Findings The findings from this research show that IS is still a male-dominated space, at least in terms of numbers. The findings also show that people’s perceptions are that gender-based power politics do exist in IS. Women have experienced gender-based power politics at different levels and in different roles in the IS space in the organisation, albeit that this is not all women. It is not always the men who are responsible for gender-based power politics, sometimes it is women against other women. This study also shows gender-based politics manifest for men as well. This study further shows that gender-based power politics manifest in various forms. Women feel that their ideas get ignored, that men get better salaries than women, that IS is an ‘Old Boys’ Club. This study also shows that there have been cases of harassment, not just against women, but against men too. This study shows that women deal with and are impacted differently by gender-based power politics. 5 Some deal with it by confronting it directly, others by influencing how men view women and some by strategically using their status of being the minority to positively influence men’s way of thinking. Being in the minority puts some of the women under a lot of scrutiny and some are strategically silenced. Interestingly, some men felt that the women put themselves under a lot of pressure to perform. Contributions A major theoretical contribution of this study is the adoption and modification of the RIV framework to study gender-based power politics in the IS context. The initial conceptual framework was extended to suggest that there is not a single circle of power, but that there are concentric circles of power, each with their margins. The key practical contribution of this paper is that it may help South African organisations to understand the phenomenon of gender-based power politics and the impact it has on both men and women, and thus help organisations with defining their gender transformation strategies.