Technology Management: Power Women and the Global Economic Sectors

As part of continuing studies of management of technology for the developing service sector, a recently developed analytical technique, data surface mining (DSM) has been applied to a variety of data bases. In this study, the Forbes data base ofthe world's 100 most powerful women was analyzed to ascertain the relative presence of the service sector and the goods sector. It was found that 84% of the power women operate in the service sector and 16% operate in the goods sector. The 16% in the goods sector were also observed to be disproportionately present in companies related to food, health and personal products. It was further found that thirty-two (35%) of the women in the service sector were in public service or government, pointing to these areas providing upward mobility career paths for women. The implications for technology management in the two economic sectors and the issue of minor involvement of power women in technology management are reviewed.