From Negotiator to Note-Taker: The Role of Women Leaders and Academic Technology Cultures

Authors

Leslie Zenk, University of North Carolina at CharlotteFollow
Susan Harden, University of North Carolina at CharlotteFollow

Date of this Version

4-2-2021

Document Type

Article

Citation

Zenk, L.R. & Harden, S. (2021). From negotiator to note-taker: The role of women leaders and academic technology cultures. Journal of Women in Educational Leadership, 2021 doi: 10.32873/unl.dc.jwel.199 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/jwel/

Comments

Copyright (c) 2021 Leslie R. Zenk & Susan Harden

Abstract

For years, there has been a perceived inaccessibility of the field of Information Technology, centering on an organizational culture of “men and their machines” (Clark, 2012). This paper examines the role of women who lead technology initiatives in higher education and presents the experiences of these women leaders and their collision of organizational cultures as part of a comparative case study of two public institutions. Findings suggest elements of culture within the IT field that contribute to the experiences of women leaders in IT, and illuminate that leading a technology project may add a layer of gender expectations and gender roles that are more entrenched in the IT world than in other areas of higher education.