Document Type

Article

Peer Reviewed

1

Publication Date

12-20-2016

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Integration

Abstract

With the current movement to increase the number of women in STEM-related careers, modified IT hiring practices may be considered debatably unethical. Studies cited in this work have asserted that female representation in STEM fields is integral not only to encouraging continued progression toward gender equality in the workplace but also to creating more inclusive products. In turn, some argue that when faced with reasonably comparable female and male candidates, a hiring manager should select the female candidate in order to increase the female representation in the company and provide a female perspective. However, it is simultaneously debatably unethical and even unconstitutional to provide a candidate with any sort of preference based solely on gender. Also relevant is the impact of automated talent acquisition systems on gender bias, and in turn the causes and effects of introducing a bias into hiring practices, whether consciously or unconsciously through humans or automated systems. The primary debate then becomes that while female representation in STEM fields is important, there may or may not be sufficient reasoning that this cause should supersede the efforts toward true gender equality in IT hiring practices. As a result, this paper analyzes the different frameworks that contribute to the ethics both in favor of and against introducing any form of gender bias toward women into IT hiring practices.

Comments

Senior seminar paper

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