FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University of Arkansas researchers have found that masculine, feminine and androgynous behavioral characteristics, rather than simple biological gender differences, more accurately determine an individual’s willingness to adopt and use new technology in an organizational setting.

The findings should be of great interest to employers and managers who are considering purchasing expensive software applications. The research also provides evidence of changing gender roles in today’s organizations and society, particularly for working women.

 “Our research suggests that a psychological conceptualization of gender, rather than biological gender, is a far more accurate predictor of the driving forces behind technology adoption and usage decisions in the workplace,” said Viswanath Venkatesh, George and Boyce Billingsley Chair of Information Systems in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “This is important because initial decisions that differ based on a psychological conceptualization of gender have a lasting impact throughout the technology-adoption life cycle. They influence long-term adoption and usage decisions.”

Venkatesh and Tracy Ann Sykes, a doctoral student in the Walton College’s department of information systems, published their findings in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

In earlier research, Venkatesh and researchers at the University of Virginia and Georgia Institute of Technology found significant differences between men and women with regard to technology acceptance, adoption and usage. Over a six-month period, the researchers observed 342 workers who were introduced to a new software application and found that men were motivated solely by instrumentality, an individual attitude of entitlement toward the technology. Women, on the other hand, exhibited a more balanced decision-making process. They were strongly influenced by social factors and environmental constraints, such as social pressure to perform well at work and perceived availability of resources and opportunities that affect how much control they have over learning new technology. 

To challenge these stereotypes, Venkatesh decided to investigate the importance of gender as a “psychological construct” in determining whether individuals will accept, adopt and use new technology. In other words, is an individual’s willingness to adopt new technology based on whether that person is a man or woman, or is it because that person, regardless of biological gender, embodies predominantly feminine, masculine or androgynous behavioral traits?

Venkatesh relied on Bem’s Sex Role Inventory, a scale of behavioral attributes accepted and widely used by psychologists and social scientists. The inventory consists of 60 characteristics, evenly divided into masculine, feminine and neutral categories. The 20 masculine characteristics, such as aggressive, forceful and independent, are stereotypically associated with men. The 20 feminine attributes, such as affectionate, compassionate and tender, are stereotypically associated with women. Finally, 20 neutral attributes, such as reliable, tactful and jealous, balance the inventory.

For one year, the researchers studied individual reactions of 552 workers to a new technology introduced in their workplace. Using the sex-role inventory, the researchers assessed the extent to which each individual embodied each of the 60 attributes. With this data, each person, regardless of biological gender, was categorized as predominantly masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated.

Most men tested masculine, and these individuals exhibited the same decision-making processes as did men in the previous research focused only on biological gender. Their propensity to accept, adopt and use new technology was influenced only by attitude toward instrumentality. A new finding was that women who tested masculine were also driven by instrumentality.

Women with stereotypically feminine traits were influenced strongly by factors such as perceived social pressure to perform or not perform a certain behavior and their perceptions of whether performing that behavior would be easy or difficult. They were not influenced by attitude toward using an instrument. However, in the psychological study, a majority of women were not characterized as feminine or masculine. Most women -- 67 percent -- tested androgynous, and these employees demonstrated what Venkatesh called a “balanced decision-making process” in that they were influenced by informational input from peers and supervisors and their own view of the technology. Although they were a much smaller group, androgynous men also exhibited the same balanced decision-making process.

“Androgyneity represents an endorsement of both the stereotypical instrumentality-oriented masculine attributes and the stereotypical social-interaction-oriented feminine attributes,” Venkatesh said. “The fact that most women tested androgynous suggests that the changing gender roles in today’s society are reflected in decision-making related to technology as well.”

Venkatesh and Sykes also found that men who tested feminine exhibited the same decision-making process as feminine women.