Published: May 8, 2020
We’d like to think that our performance at work, regardless of our sex, is the primary deciding factor in deciding whether or not we are recognized for our work with a promotion. You do a good job, you earn recognition, right? Unfortunately, according to new research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research in certain fields, this might not actually be the case. For this episode, I am joined by Nishtha Langer, professor with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to discuss her study “Onwards and Upwards? An Empirical Investigation of Gender and Promotions in IT Services.”
Interviewed this episode:
Nishtha Langer
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Nishtha Langer is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics and A. W. Lawrence Junior Development Fellow at the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She teaches graduate and undergraduate students on aligning firms’ information technology (IT) strategy and business strategies for sustained competitive advantage, exploring new markets, and enabling grounded management and economic principles through the use of IT and business analytics.
IT’s organizational and societal impact is multidisciplinary and wide-ranging. Professor Langer is deeply influenced by the interdisciplinary research ethic of Herb Simon in “following the problem” in analyzing the value of key IT investments and resources. Her research benefits from her rigorous academic training at Carnegie Mellon University, combined with over five years of IT experience in India and the U.S. Using theory and techniques from different disciplines such as economics, operations management, marketing, analytics, and organizational behavior, she is interested in empirically analyzing how firms can use their IT capital and IT human capital most effectively. More recently, her research examines the biases in IT labor markets and the societal and business value of social media platforms such as Twitter.
Professor Langer’s research has been published in top-tier journals, including Management Science, Information Systems Research (ISR), MIS Quarterly, and Journal of Management Information Systems, among others, and widely presented and acclaimed by both academic and industry audiences. Her recent publication examining gender and promotions in the IT industry has been featured on INFORMS’ Resoundingly Human podcast and elsewhere.
Before joining Rensselaer, Professor Langer was an assistant professor of information systems at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. She was also a visiting faculty member at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining Gies, she worked as a systems analyst at Arbella Insurance in Boston, and as a systems engineer at Tata Infotech Ltd. in India (now part of Tata Consultancy Services). She earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Management (with specialization in information systems) from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
Episode Transcript
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New Research Finds Training has Strong Links to Promotion for Women in IT Over Work Performance