This project focuses on the ways in which gendered micro-practices of the workplace effect channels of information diffusion within the knowledge-based workplace. We argue that these micro-practices have consequences both for the individual and the firm. An individual’s career progression is often very dependent on the cultivation and use of social networks and the resources embedded in those networks. We explore the ways in which the structure of these social resources, the flow of information, and the nature of the mentoring system are all highly gendered phenomenon.
Another part of this study explores the relationship between gendered micro-practices of the workplace and innovation in the firm. Although most accounts of information diffusion and innovation are gender neutral, we argue that the diffusion of knowledge within the firm have strong gendered patterns and that this affects how innovation occurs within the firm.
Women in high tech … not such a new phenomena.
Funding from the EU, IST programme.
Publications
- Gray, M. and James, A., 2007. Connecting Gender and Economic Competitiveness: Lessons from Cambridge’s High Tech Regional Economy. Forthcoming in Environment and Planning A, 39(2): 417-436.
- Gray, M. and James, A. 2007. “Theorising the Gendered Institutional Bases of Innovative Regional Economies“ in (Polenske, K. ed.) Innovation and Regional Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Gray, M., Kurihara, T., Hommen, L. and Feldman, J. “Networks of Exclusion: Job Segmentation and Social Networks in the Knowledge Economy” Equal Opportunties International 26(2): 144-161.