Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WEQUALITY (Professional social media platforms and women’s career advancement: factors impacting women’s career equality without backlash. A management research perspective)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-05-01 al 2025-04-30
Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto
The WEQUALITY project pursues three core scientific objectives aimed at understanding and advancing gender equality in the digital professional sphere. First, it seeks to develop new theory and metrics to assess whether the most widely used professional social media platform in Europe — with over 160 million users — enhances women's career equality by expanding their opportunities for self-promotion and networking (“pushed out” perspective). Second, it aims to determine whether such platforms actually help mitigate gender differences in these behaviors, offering an alternative to traditional workplace exclusion (“opting out” perspective). Third, the project investigates which interventions — by women themselves and by key stakeholders such as mentors, leaders, and coworkers — support or hinder women’s effective use of these platforms, and under what conditions such interventions contribute to meaningful progress toward gender equality.
As the world of work becomes increasingly digital, the tools we use to build careers are changing. Online professional networks like LinkedIn now play a central role in shaping how people connect, promote themselves, and access new opportunities. Yet, despite this technological shift, gender gaps in career advancement persist. The EU-funded WEQUALITY project set out to explore a critical question: Can professional social media platforms help close the gender gap in career progression, or are they simply replicating offline inequalities in digital spaces?
Launched under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01), WEQUALITY investigates how professional platforms impact the way women self-promote and network — two key behaviors that are essential for career success but often socially penalized when performed by women. Drawing from management, psychology, information systems, and communication studies, the project explores both the opportunities and risks that digital platforms create for women’s equality in the workplace.
Context and overall objectives:
The WEQUALITY project was developed in response to a growing challenge at the intersection of gender equality and the digital transformation of work: how can professional social media platforms — like LinkedIn — be leveraged to promote women's career advancement without reproducing the very biases that have historically held them back?
Strategic and Political Context:
Across the European Union, closing gender gaps in career advancement remains a top strategic priority. Despite progress, women continue to face underrepresentation in leadership roles, lower access to high-impact networks, and fewer opportunities for career mobility. This inequality was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the shift to virtual work but also reinforced gendered dynamics around caregiving, visibility, and professional engagement.
At the same time, the EU’s Horizon Europe program and European Research Area (ERA) emphasize gender equality as both a scientific necessity and a driver of innovation and competitiveness. There is increasing recognition that addressing complex societal challenges — such as economic inclusion, labor market participation, and leadership diversity — requires not only policy interventions but also robust, evidence-based research. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are specifically designed to support this kind of high-impact, interdisciplinary investigation.
The Growing Importance of Online Social Networks in the Workplace Professional online social networks (OSNs) — most notably LinkedIn — are now central infrastructures of modern career development. With over 1 billion users globally, and more than 304 million in Europe, LinkedIn is widely used across sectors for job searches, talent recruitment, knowledge sharing, and professional branding. In many industries, particularly in tech, consulting, and academia, LinkedIn profiles have become de facto CVs, and activities on the platform are routinely used to assess credibility, influence, and leadership potential.
Yet, while these platforms are theoretically democratizing — giving users the power to control how they present themselves and who they connect with — we still know very little about whether they truly reduce structural barriers, or if they reinforce existing gendered dynamics under a digital veneer. For instance, is self-promotion online evaluated differently depending on gender? Are women who reach out for mentorship on LinkedIn as likely to receive responses as their male peers? These are not just theoretical questions: they have direct implications for access to opportunity, visibility, and leadership pipelines in a digital-first world.
Given how pervasive and influential OSNs have become in shaping career trajectories, the absence of clear, evidence-based answers to these questions represents a major knowledge gap — one that WEQUALITY is uniquely positioned to address.
As the world of work becomes increasingly digital, the tools we use to build careers are changing. Online professional networks like LinkedIn now play a central role in shaping how people connect, promote themselves, and access new opportunities. Yet, despite this technological shift, gender gaps in career advancement persist. The EU-funded WEQUALITY project set out to explore a critical question: Can professional social media platforms help close the gender gap in career progression, or are they simply replicating offline inequalities in digital spaces?
Launched under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01), WEQUALITY investigates how professional platforms impact the way women self-promote and network — two key behaviors that are essential for career success but often socially penalized when performed by women. Drawing from management, psychology, information systems, and communication studies, the project explores both the opportunities and risks that digital platforms create for women’s equality in the workplace.
Context and overall objectives:
The WEQUALITY project was developed in response to a growing challenge at the intersection of gender equality and the digital transformation of work: how can professional social media platforms — like LinkedIn — be leveraged to promote women's career advancement without reproducing the very biases that have historically held them back?
Strategic and Political Context:
Across the European Union, closing gender gaps in career advancement remains a top strategic priority. Despite progress, women continue to face underrepresentation in leadership roles, lower access to high-impact networks, and fewer opportunities for career mobility. This inequality was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the shift to virtual work but also reinforced gendered dynamics around caregiving, visibility, and professional engagement.
At the same time, the EU’s Horizon Europe program and European Research Area (ERA) emphasize gender equality as both a scientific necessity and a driver of innovation and competitiveness. There is increasing recognition that addressing complex societal challenges — such as economic inclusion, labor market participation, and leadership diversity — requires not only policy interventions but also robust, evidence-based research. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are specifically designed to support this kind of high-impact, interdisciplinary investigation.
The Growing Importance of Online Social Networks in the Workplace Professional online social networks (OSNs) — most notably LinkedIn — are now central infrastructures of modern career development. With over 1 billion users globally, and more than 304 million in Europe, LinkedIn is widely used across sectors for job searches, talent recruitment, knowledge sharing, and professional branding. In many industries, particularly in tech, consulting, and academia, LinkedIn profiles have become de facto CVs, and activities on the platform are routinely used to assess credibility, influence, and leadership potential.
Yet, while these platforms are theoretically democratizing — giving users the power to control how they present themselves and who they connect with — we still know very little about whether they truly reduce structural barriers, or if they reinforce existing gendered dynamics under a digital veneer. For instance, is self-promotion online evaluated differently depending on gender? Are women who reach out for mentorship on LinkedIn as likely to receive responses as their male peers? These are not just theoretical questions: they have direct implications for access to opportunity, visibility, and leadership pipelines in a digital-first world.
Given how pervasive and influential OSNs have become in shaping career trajectories, the absence of clear, evidence-based answers to these questions represents a major knowledge gap — one that WEQUALITY is uniquely positioned to address.
Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti
Key Research Activities
Empirical Studies Conducted:
The project developed and executed a series of pre-registered experimental studies and archival analyses to test how gender dynamics play out in online professional contexts, especially LinkedIn. One major empirical component involved analyzing 690 LinkedIn profiles from MBA students across Europe and the United States. This archival data provided insight into natural self-promotion behaviors and how they differ by gender.
Two additional experiments, involving over 500 working professionals, were conducted to examine how self-promotion and leadership are perceived across virtual versus face-to-face contexts. These studies tested conditions under which backlash occurs and explored ways to mitigate it.
Theory Development and Integration
The research drew on and extended social role theory, leadership categorization theory, and affordance theory. A key theoretical contribution includes the development of an interdisciplinary framework that explains how virtual work technologies interact with persistent gender norms — offering a novel approach to analyzing equity in digital labor markets.
Scientific Writing and Manuscript Development
In addition to the manuscript that focus on addressing the proposal, during this period I have also developed three high-impact scholarly manuscripts have been produced based on the data and insights generated by the project. Each paper is either under peer review or targeted for submission at internationally prestigious journals listed on the Financial Times (FT) 50 list):
1. The Role of Professional Social Media in Improving Women's Career Equality. Uses LinkedIn data and experiments to examine whether digital platforms reduce penalties for women’s self-promotion.
2. Virtual Leadership Prototypes. Tests how virtual work reshapes perceptions of effective leadership and reduces gender bias in leadership evaluations.
3. Implicit Leadership Theories in a Changing Organizational Landscape. Identifies an “ethical turn” in leadership expectations driven by hybrid work and social change.
4. Virtual Work and Women’s Career Equality: An Interdisciplinary Review. Synthesizes recent empirical literature on virtual work and women´s careers and builds a theory-driven framework for future research in digital equity.
Overview of Work Performed and Main Achievements by Work Package:
Work Package 1 – Project Management. WP1 was successfully completed through consistent administrative, financial, and technical oversight. Regular reviews and supervisory meetings ensured agile adaptation to project needs. All Horizon Europe compliance requirements — including ethics and data protection — were met, and all planned milestones and deliverables were achieved on time.
Work Package 2 – Training and Career Development. WP2 achieved its goals through the implementation of a comprehensive Career Development Plan covering six strategic training areas. Participation in IESE-led training, mentoring, and seminars enhanced my methodological and academic integration. The work resulted in strengthened research, pedagogical, and leadership competencies, all aligned with the project’s interdisciplinary mission.
Work Package 3 – Self-Presentation Research Study. In WP3, three studies — including archival LinkedIn data analysis and experimental designs — were conducted with robust, pre-registered methods and large samples. The findings, submitted to an FT-50 journal, revealed that professional social media can reduce gendered penalties in self-promotion. This work advanced both theory and empirical understanding of digital career behaviors.
Work Package 4 – Networking Research Study. WP4 was adapted to preserve scientific originality, transitioning from a planned empirical study to a high-impact theoretical review in response to overlapping external publications. A new manuscript is being finalized for submission to an FT-50 journal, offering an interdisciplinary framework that connects digital affordances, gender norms, and networking in virtual work contexts, drawing on over 90 recent studies.
Work Package 5 – Interventions and Public-Private Actionable Steps. WP5 focused on testing a theory-driven intervention around virtual leadership perceptions to reduce gender bias in evaluations. A multi-study experimental design demonstrated that emphasizing virtual leadership functions improves women’s perceived leadership potential. The manuscript is under review at an FT-50 journal and the findings are being prepared for dissemination and offer practical applications for inclusive talent management and policy design.
Work Package 6 – Communication and Dissemination. WP6 executed a multi-channel dissemination plan, ensuring academic and public visibility. Key achievements include conference presentations, Open Science practices, and teaching integration across eight programs. A collaboration with IESE Insight was also initiated. These efforts enhanced the project’s reach and laid the foundation for continued impact beyond the project’s lifecycle.
Empirical Studies Conducted:
The project developed and executed a series of pre-registered experimental studies and archival analyses to test how gender dynamics play out in online professional contexts, especially LinkedIn. One major empirical component involved analyzing 690 LinkedIn profiles from MBA students across Europe and the United States. This archival data provided insight into natural self-promotion behaviors and how they differ by gender.
Two additional experiments, involving over 500 working professionals, were conducted to examine how self-promotion and leadership are perceived across virtual versus face-to-face contexts. These studies tested conditions under which backlash occurs and explored ways to mitigate it.
Theory Development and Integration
The research drew on and extended social role theory, leadership categorization theory, and affordance theory. A key theoretical contribution includes the development of an interdisciplinary framework that explains how virtual work technologies interact with persistent gender norms — offering a novel approach to analyzing equity in digital labor markets.
Scientific Writing and Manuscript Development
In addition to the manuscript that focus on addressing the proposal, during this period I have also developed three high-impact scholarly manuscripts have been produced based on the data and insights generated by the project. Each paper is either under peer review or targeted for submission at internationally prestigious journals listed on the Financial Times (FT) 50 list):
1. The Role of Professional Social Media in Improving Women's Career Equality. Uses LinkedIn data and experiments to examine whether digital platforms reduce penalties for women’s self-promotion.
2. Virtual Leadership Prototypes. Tests how virtual work reshapes perceptions of effective leadership and reduces gender bias in leadership evaluations.
3. Implicit Leadership Theories in a Changing Organizational Landscape. Identifies an “ethical turn” in leadership expectations driven by hybrid work and social change.
4. Virtual Work and Women’s Career Equality: An Interdisciplinary Review. Synthesizes recent empirical literature on virtual work and women´s careers and builds a theory-driven framework for future research in digital equity.
Overview of Work Performed and Main Achievements by Work Package:
Work Package 1 – Project Management. WP1 was successfully completed through consistent administrative, financial, and technical oversight. Regular reviews and supervisory meetings ensured agile adaptation to project needs. All Horizon Europe compliance requirements — including ethics and data protection — were met, and all planned milestones and deliverables were achieved on time.
Work Package 2 – Training and Career Development. WP2 achieved its goals through the implementation of a comprehensive Career Development Plan covering six strategic training areas. Participation in IESE-led training, mentoring, and seminars enhanced my methodological and academic integration. The work resulted in strengthened research, pedagogical, and leadership competencies, all aligned with the project’s interdisciplinary mission.
Work Package 3 – Self-Presentation Research Study. In WP3, three studies — including archival LinkedIn data analysis and experimental designs — were conducted with robust, pre-registered methods and large samples. The findings, submitted to an FT-50 journal, revealed that professional social media can reduce gendered penalties in self-promotion. This work advanced both theory and empirical understanding of digital career behaviors.
Work Package 4 – Networking Research Study. WP4 was adapted to preserve scientific originality, transitioning from a planned empirical study to a high-impact theoretical review in response to overlapping external publications. A new manuscript is being finalized for submission to an FT-50 journal, offering an interdisciplinary framework that connects digital affordances, gender norms, and networking in virtual work contexts, drawing on over 90 recent studies.
Work Package 5 – Interventions and Public-Private Actionable Steps. WP5 focused on testing a theory-driven intervention around virtual leadership perceptions to reduce gender bias in evaluations. A multi-study experimental design demonstrated that emphasizing virtual leadership functions improves women’s perceived leadership potential. The manuscript is under review at an FT-50 journal and the findings are being prepared for dissemination and offer practical applications for inclusive talent management and policy design.
Work Package 6 – Communication and Dissemination. WP6 executed a multi-channel dissemination plan, ensuring academic and public visibility. Key achievements include conference presentations, Open Science practices, and teaching integration across eight programs. A collaboration with IESE Insight was also initiated. These efforts enhanced the project’s reach and laid the foundation for continued impact beyond the project’s lifecycle.
Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)
The WEQUALITY project has made significant technical and scientific progress toward understanding the role of professional social media platforms in promoting or hindering women’s career advancement. The research program was designed to generate high-quality, interdisciplinary knowledge across management, psychology, communication, and information systems, using both experimental and archival methods.
The WEQUALITY project has produced robust empirical and theoretical contributions that deepen our understanding of how professional social media and virtual work shape women’s career outcomes. One study, “The Role of Professional Social Media in Improving Women's Career Equality” (under review), finds that LinkedIn enables women to self-promote more frequently and confidently than in face-to-face settings, but highlights that overstepping platform norms still leads to negative evaluations regardless of gender. A second paper, “Virtual Leadership Prototypes” (under review), shows that virtual work contexts soften traditional “think leader, think male” biases; moreover, when leadership behaviors suited to virtual settings are emphasized, women leaders are evaluated more favorably without penalizing men. A third study, “Implicit Leadership Theories in a Changing Organizational Landscape” (under review), demonstrates a broader societal shift in leadership expectations: ethical, communicative, and reliable traits are now valued more than traditional markers such as masculinity or authoritarianism, particularly in hybrid work environments. Finally, the integrative review “Virtual Work and Women’s Career Equality” develops a generalizable framework grounded in affordance and social role theories, showing how virtual work technologies can simultaneously empower and constrain women´s career equality.
These findings offer valuable insights not only for academic advancement but also for practical implementation. They contribute to theoretical development across multiple disciplines, provide tools for rethinking leadership evaluation in the digital age, and lay the groundwork for more equitable, evidence-based approaches to professional visibility and inclusion in virtual work environments.
The WEQUALITY project has produced robust empirical and theoretical contributions that deepen our understanding of how professional social media and virtual work shape women’s career outcomes. One study, “The Role of Professional Social Media in Improving Women's Career Equality” (under review), finds that LinkedIn enables women to self-promote more frequently and confidently than in face-to-face settings, but highlights that overstepping platform norms still leads to negative evaluations regardless of gender. A second paper, “Virtual Leadership Prototypes” (under review), shows that virtual work contexts soften traditional “think leader, think male” biases; moreover, when leadership behaviors suited to virtual settings are emphasized, women leaders are evaluated more favorably without penalizing men. A third study, “Implicit Leadership Theories in a Changing Organizational Landscape” (under review), demonstrates a broader societal shift in leadership expectations: ethical, communicative, and reliable traits are now valued more than traditional markers such as masculinity or authoritarianism, particularly in hybrid work environments. Finally, the integrative review “Virtual Work and Women’s Career Equality” develops a generalizable framework grounded in affordance and social role theories, showing how virtual work technologies can simultaneously empower and constrain women´s career equality.
These findings offer valuable insights not only for academic advancement but also for practical implementation. They contribute to theoretical development across multiple disciplines, provide tools for rethinking leadership evaluation in the digital age, and lay the groundwork for more equitable, evidence-based approaches to professional visibility and inclusion in virtual work environments.