The Role of Gender in Virtual Work Environments

Virtual forms of interaction at work are gradually replacing the traditional in-person work style across many knowledge-intensive industries, and this change could signal the beginning of a lasting shift in how work is conducted.

Despite obvious benefits, this emerging trend also raises an array of complex challenges, namely related to inclusiveness and participation in virtual work environment.

Understanding the complexities of inclusive interactions in these digital environments, and what new challenges may arise, is a crucial issue.

As a first step, this proposed research program seeks to focus on female participation and engagement on virtual work settings.

In doing so, it aims to investigate: how interactions from and towards women are different compared to their male peers in virtual work environments; What are the drivers of (potential) differences?

And finally, how digital platform architecture and design opportunities could be exploited to alleviate the barriers to female participation and interaction in these emerging work settings?

To address these questions, a large-scale randomized vignette (survey) experiment with actual professional respondents is proposed.

The results of the proposed experiment can enhance our understanding from the new virtual form of work and could generate implications for companies on how to arrange and design their virtual work environments.