TY - JOUR

T1 - A Circulatory Loop: The Reciprocal Relationship of Organizations, Digitalization, and Gender

AU - Baumgart, Lene

AU - Boos, Pauline

AU - Braunsmann, Katharina

N1 - Funding Information: The scientific work of the authors is funded by the inter‐ disciplinary DFG priority program 2267 Digitalization of Working Worlds and the VolkswagenStiftung. The authors express their gratitude to their colleagues Laura Fiegenbaum, Korbinian Gall, Celine Geckil, Tabea Koepp, Chris Schattka, and Falk Justus Rahn for their valuable feedback and helpful comments. Special thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their constructive comments on previous versions of this manuscript.

PY - 2023/11/15

Y1 - 2023/11/15

N2 - In the digitalization debate, gender biases in digital technologies play a significant role because of their potential for social exclusion and inequality. It is therefore remarkable that organizations as drivers of digitalization and as places for social integration have been widely overlooked so far. Simultaneously, gender biases and digitalization have structurally immanent connections to organizations. Therefore, a look at the reciprocal relationship between organizations, digitalization, and gender is needed. The article provides answers to the question of whether and how organizations (re)produce, reinforce, or diminish gender-specific inequalities during their digital transformations. On the one hand, gender inequalities emerge when organizations use post-bureaucratic concepts through digitalization. On the other hand, gender inequalities are reproduced when organizations either program or implement digital technologies and fail to establish control structures that prevent gender biases. This article shows that digitalization can act as a catalyst for inequality-producing mechanisms, but also has the potential to mitigate inequalities. We argue that organizations must be considered when discussing the potential of exclusion through digitalization.

AB - In the digitalization debate, gender biases in digital technologies play a significant role because of their potential for social exclusion and inequality. It is therefore remarkable that organizations as drivers of digitalization and as places for social integration have been widely overlooked so far. Simultaneously, gender biases and digitalization have structurally immanent connections to organizations. Therefore, a look at the reciprocal relationship between organizations, digitalization, and gender is needed. The article provides answers to the question of whether and how organizations (re)produce, reinforce, or diminish gender-specific inequalities during their digital transformations. On the one hand, gender inequalities emerge when organizations use post-bureaucratic concepts through digitalization. On the other hand, gender inequalities are reproduced when organizations either program or implement digital technologies and fail to establish control structures that prevent gender biases. This article shows that digitalization can act as a catalyst for inequality-producing mechanisms, but also has the potential to mitigate inequalities. We argue that organizations must be considered when discussing the potential of exclusion through digitalization.

KW - digitalization

KW - gender bias

KW - gender inequalities

KW - organizations

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177419415&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17645/si.v11i4.7056

DO - 10.17645/si.v11i4.7056

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85177419415

VL - 11

SP - 160

EP - 171

JO - Social Inclusion

JF - Social Inclusion

IS - 4

ER -