Knowledge-Intensive Organisations: Women's Promised Land? The Case of the Irish Software Companies

Abstract

This article investigates the contention that the organisation of work and the model of industrial relations in knowledge intensive companies are less iniquitous for women than in other industries. It does so by analysing a series of biographical interviews conducted with a number of women working in the Irish software sector. In contrast to bureaucracies, knowledge intensive companies promote time flexibility, collaborative work environments, immediate human relations, autonomy and performance-related career progression. These features are generally deemed to be less prone to the reproduction of gendered practices and values and to facilitate women's dual role in society. The findings of the empirical investigation suggest that the process of feminisation of the Irish software companies has not been matched by a distinctive process of recognition of the gendered nature of workplaces; as a consequence, they are failing to accommodate female presence in the industry. Whilst no clear discriminatory behaviours and practices emerge in the sector, new and different forms of inequality have come to surface in the industry.