Gender Bias in Information Systems Research: A Literature Review

Abstract

Gender bias is a systemic, unfair difference in the way men and women are treated in a particular domain. We conduct a thematic review of 82 papers out of 7,260 total papers found in the IS Basket of 8 journals that centre on themes related to gender, identifying extant domains of contribution and qualifying gaps in gender bias research. The papers fall into three broad categories that i) incorporate gender as a variable in empirical research, ii) study gender imbalances in the IT industry, or iii) discuss gender bias in the academic IS profession. Based on the review, we delineate an agenda for further work to investigate the role of gender in the IS academic space.

Keywords: Academic IS, Gender bias, Gender imbalance, Literature review

JEL Classification: I23, I24