ICT, Intermediaries, and the Transformation of Gendered Power Structures

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are believed to hold much potential to empower women, both socially and economically, in low-income and rural communities. In this paper, we focus on rural women who mediate ICT use as telecenter operators in India and as helpers and enablers for family members in rural China. We explore under what circumstances they may be able to renegotiate existing gendered power structures. We argue that acts of reconciling or confronting these different spaces they inhabit can allow intermediaries to remake their own identities and positions in their community. This process, rather than the potential associated with ICTs, is where spaces for empowerment often lie

The Effect of Freedom of Expression and Access to Information on the Relationship between ICTs and the Well-being of Nations

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been found to improve national well-being. However, nations differ in their norms and laws regarding freedom of expression and access to information. It is the objective of this study to examine how a country’s laws and norms regarding freedom of expression and access to information moderate the effect of level of ICT use on national well-being. Prior research shows that ICTs improve national well-being by allowing citizens to more easily create and use social capital, granting access to education and healthcare, and giving marginalized groups a chance at social inclusion. The ability of ICTs to facilitate these positive outcomes may be affected by legal and cultural norms about speech and information access. Keywords: National well-being, ICT policy, ICT use, Social Inclusion, Censorship, Human Right

Gender Gap in IT in Latin America

The under representation of women in IT related majors such as computer science, computer engineering, and information systems (IS) has been evident all over the world. As a result, many private and public institutions have created programs aimed to increase enrollment, recruitment, and placement of women in the field and reduce the gender gap in the field. Several journal publications about this kind of research can be found in the scientific literature about studies mostly conducted in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, but very few publications about this kind of research in Latin American countries is available in the literature despite the fact that in the last ten years, countries in Latin America also developed a variety of programs with the same goal with the support of international organizations like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), giant technology corporations like IBM, and local governments. There are very few publications in international scientific outlets about Gender Gap in IT in Latin America. In this panel, seven Latin American academics will share recent related projects they have been part of, compare project results, challenges, and discuss what kind of dissemination practices could be more appropriate

The Contribution of ICTs to Women Empowerment: A Capability Perspective

This paper examines the developmental impact of ICTs on African society by concentrating on the use of WhatsApp; a mobile social media platform. Specifically, we investigate the promise of empowerment associated with the use of WhatsApp by Women in the remote city of Kano, Nigeria. We employed the five instrumental freedoms of the capability approach to evaluate how WhatsApp has empowered women by concentrating on the opportunities provided for expanding their freedoms to participate in social, economic and political activities. Our analysis shows that WhatsApp can contribute to the empowerment of women by enabling their freedoms to participate in developmental activities, however some contextual factors impede the ability of the women to take full advantage of these developmental opportunities WhatsApp offers. The paper concludes with some implications for policy makers advancing an agenda for “ICTs for Development”

The Effects of Gender On The Adoption of Social Media: An Empirical Investigation

This study develops a research model to gain a deeper understanding on gender comparison relating to social media continuance/usage. The theoretical background for our research model is based on the diffusion of innovation and the technology acceptance models. We collected 290 datasets from college students that are enrolled in a large university located in North America. The statistical techniques to analyze our datasets are confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results of our data analysis show that females have stronger and significant perception of ease of use, compatibility, relative advantage, and risk when using social media compared to males. Also, our results show that males have a stronger perception of satisfaction and information quality when using social media compared to females

MARGINALISED WOMEN AND TIME SCARCITY: A MIXED METHOD STUDY ON ‘ON DEMAND WORK APPS’

On-demand work applications (ODWA), a form of digital platforms, are the primary enablers of short-term or ‘gig’ work economy. In this paper, we study these platforms in their role as enablers of women belonging to low socio-economic sections. These women act as the primary unpaid workers while being expected to make economic contribution. Hence, they suffer from classic case of time scarcity. Gig economy enabled by these ODWAs have made this possible to some extent. We employ the theoretical lens of affordance theory to delineate the affordances that are provided by the various features of ODWA and their impact on these women. We do a mixed method study employing inter-views of gig workers supplemented with survey of 927 workers of one of the largest ODWA in India. Our analysis points to the sense of identity and individuality that these platforms provide. We also find that the presence of a digital platform between the customer and these women lowers the societal boundaries that have been the biggest challenge in their inclusion. Our research is, hence, significant from both information systems and inclusion research perspective as it contributes to the theoretical understanding of the impact of digital platforms on breaking societal structures

Gender Bias in Information Systems Research: A Literature Review

Gender bias is a systemic, unfair difference in the way men and women are treated in a particular domain. We conduct a thematic review of 82 papers out of 7,260 total papers found in the IS Basket of 8 journals that centre on themes related to gender, identifying extant domains of contribution and qualifying gaps in gender bias research. The papers fall into three broad categories that i) incorporate gender as a variable in empirical research, ii) study gender imbalances in the IT industry, or iii) discuss gender bias in the academic IS profession. Based on the review, we delineate an agenda for further work to investigate the role of gender in the IS academic space