The Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award

Recognizing Organizations that Support Technical Women

“True change for women in technology will happen when organizations are places where technical women can thrive. With the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award and Workshop, we recognize and engage with organizations who are working for this change.” -Telle Whitney, Anita Borg Institute CEO & President

Diversity has been shown to be critical to innovation, decision making, and organizational performance.1 Companies comprised of greater gender diversity benefit from better decision making, a positive image with their customers, and are better able to penetrate new and existing markets for business success, in turn increasing shareholder return.2

The Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award recognizes an organization that has demonstrated measurable results in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women at all levels. Grounded in organizational research and based on quantitative data, the award measures the current representation of technical women as well as improvement in women’s representation over time. The Top Company is widely recognized as a leader in leveraging diverse talent for greater innovation. The award winner is honored at the annual Women of Vision Awards Banquet.

Why Participate?

Benefits of Participating in the Award Process

    Customized Analysis and Feedback
    This award process is about more than finding a winner; the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology aims to assist all applicant organizations in increasing the recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women. As part of participation, each organization receives a customized analysis and feedback with benchmarking information from the Anita Borg Institute researchers, comparing the company’s performance to the aggregate performance of all other applicants and research-based industry standards. All data are kept confidential, as are the names of participating companies, other than that of the company chosen as the winner of the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women.

    Be a Leader in the Engagement of Technical Women
    Technical women are looking for companies that recognize the value of a diverse workforce. The award serves as a tool to attract and retain top female technical talent, increasing the return on investment of diversity and employee engagement initiatives. The winning organization can display the award logo in its recruiting and retention efforts. Internally, the award is a tool to drive internal awareness and change. The award winner is celebrated as an employer that recruits, retains, and advances technical women effectively, based on demonstrated results. The winner will be recognized at the prestigious Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards, attended by 800 technology professionals, and executives from the winning company will speak at the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Workshop. The winner will also be recognized at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the premiere conference for women in technology and a top recruiting destination for companies. The award winner will be widely featured in our newsletter and online communities outreach.

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Award Process and Methodology Overview

How are data collected?
Applications for the 2013 Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award should be received by October 14, 2012. As instructed on the application form, companies provide data on technical women in their U.S.-based technical workforce (regardless of where a company is headquartered). Data exclude temporary staff members who are contracted through a third-party agency.

What are the criteria for participation?
Participating companies can be publicly or privately-owned so long as they have a total workforce of 2,000 employees or more in the US.

Corporate Award eligibility
A company that has won the award is not eligible to win again for a period of 2 years.

How are companies evaluated?
Each participating company is evaluated on the basis of 1) current representation, retention, and promotion percentages of technical women (in calendar year 2011), and 2) demonstrated improvement in each of these areas (from calendar year 2010). For each of the metrics under consideration, companies were scored on a 1-5 scale. The Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women is the company with the highest average score across all metrics.

How is the Top Company chosen?
To determine the winning company, an evaluation rubric has been formulated in cooperation with a social science advisory task force composed of academic experts on gender in organizations and women in computing disciplines. Companies are evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

1) Benchmarks in representation

2) Demonstrated improvement

The evaluation rubric considers technical women within participating companies’ U.S.-based technical workforce, in four levels and in both management and individual contributor roles.

Security and Confidentiality
The identities of participating companies, other than the company selected as the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women, will be maintained confidentially. The company selected as the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women will be notified in advance of any public disclosure of its selection as Top Company.

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology will take reasonable steps to maintain the security and confidentiality of the application data. Access to the data will be provided solely to personnel who are authorized to access the information on a need-to-know basis.  Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology researchers will sign a non-disclosure agreement when requested.

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Key Dates

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Application

Applications for the 2013 Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award are closed.

Click here for a copy of the application and metrics.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Project Leads and Advisory Committee

Project Leads

      Denise Gammal, PhD, Director of Research and Corporate Partnerships, Anita Borg Institute

      Caroline Simard, PhD, Research Advisor, Anita Borg Institute

      Shannon K. Gilmartin, PhD, Research Consultant, Anita Borg Institute; Director, SKG Analysis; Consulting Assistant Professor, School of Engineering, Stanford University

      Christine Chiu, Research and Executive Programs Manager, Anita Borg Institute

    Social Science Advisory Committee

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    References:
    1. Ashcraft, C. and Breitzman, A. (2007). Who invents IT? An analysis of women’s participation in IT patenting. NCWIT.
    Gruenfeld, D.H., & Preston, J. (2000). Upending the Status Quo: Cognitive Complexity in US Supreme Court Justices who overturn Legal Precedent. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
    Hamilton, B., Nickerson, J., and Owan, H. (2003). Team incentives and worker heterogeneity: an empirical analysis of the impact of teams on productivity and participation. Journal of Political Economy, 2003. 111: p. 465-497.
    Hambrick, D.C., Cho, T.S., and Chen, M.-J. (1996), The influence of top management team heterogeneity on firms’ competitive moves. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 659-684.
    London Business School. 2007. Innovative Potential: Men and Women in Teams.
    Page, S. (2009). The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton University Press.
    Pelled, L.H., Eisenhardt, K.M. and Xin, K.R. (1999). Exploring the Black Box: An Analysis of Work Group Diversity, Conflict, and Performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1): p. 1-28

    2. Gandz, J., (2005). A Business Case for Diversity. Canadian Department of Labor: Ottawa, Canada.
    National Academies of Science (2002), Committee on Diversity in Engineering Workforce. Diversity in Engineering: Managing the Workforce of the Future.
    Kathy Harris, D.M., Raskino, M. (2007). Women and men in IT: Breaking sexual stereotypes.
    Thomas, D. (2004). IBM finds profit in diversity. HBS Working Knowledge, 2004.

    Herring, C. (2009). Does Diversity Pay? Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity. American Sociological Review, 74 (2): p.208-224

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    QUESTIONS?

    Contact us and check out our Award FAQ