In a release Alinean sent out after the article appeared, entitled "Alinean Research Shows That IT Does Matter, " the firm notes that its research in fact shows no correlation between IT spending per se--at any level--and corporate performance.

CNN: Does IT matter? CEOs and CIOs sound off

But a piece of research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University, near Chicago, suggests an alternative that it is not a person's sex, per se, that is the basis for discrimination, but the level of his or her testosterone.

ECONOMIST: Women, testosterone and finance