PERSPECTIVES Women's Representation in ICT Employment: Approaches to Bringing about Organisational Change

Women's representation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) employment remains low in the UK and even shows a small decrease over the last 10 years, with a similar picture in Europe. This Perspectives article reviews an approach to bringing about changes in organisational diversity – the so-called ‘business case approach’. The business case approach is often contrasted with a ‘social justice approach’, and many writers argue that the businesscase approach will be ineffective in the long run without social justice underpinnings. We argue that this is a difficult judgement to make and we make the case for two approaches that might bring about change: the systematic evaluation of existing change initiatives so that effectiveness could be established; and a systems approach to organisational change.