Pauline Assenza wrote in part: << I teach Org Beh and basic Mgmt and have
been a practicing mgmt consultant for some time. I witnessed the birth of the
"Managing Diversity" movement in the late 1980's, and now see chapters in
textbooks, organizational job titles and whole semester courses focused
on this topic. I do not argue against the importance of the concept, or the
necessity of educating new managers or society in general about how cultures
are diverse and that diversity is valuable for many reasons. I do question
the assumption that "managing" to increase or value diversity in
organizational settings is good for business. Therefore my question: Does
anyone know of any research that quantitatively measures the relationship
between diversity and performance? Particularly in a for-profit organization,
does increased diversity lead to improved organizational performance? Is
there a correlation? >>
I'd like to suggest that the way Pauline has posed her question may be
misleading. For me, the reason why diversity training is important is that
there is NOT a direct relationship between diversity and performance. If
there were, we could simply hire a bunch of diverse people and watch our
performance increase. Wouldn't that be nice? But of course things are not
that simple. Diversity can lead to collaboration, learning, synergy, and all
kinds of marvelous outcomes. It can also lead to disagreement, conflict,
misunderstandings, and all kinds of organizational tragedies. The reason why
diversity training is important is that organizations recognize that
diversity is a two-edged sword, and we naturally want to maximize the
advantages and minimize the possible downsides. Perhaps a more useful way to
phrase Pauline's question would be: Is there any research that shows what
kind of managing diversity practices are most likely to lead to positive
outcomes, and what kinds of managing diversity practices are most likely to
lead to negative outcomes?
Emre Yucel has already posted an excellent list of references concerning the
effects of diversity on groups in response to Pauline's original question.
Here are a few more items to add:
Chatman, J. A., & Flynn, F. J. (2001). The influence of demographic
heterogeneity on the emergence and consequences of cooperative norms in work
teams. Academy of Management Journal, 44(5), 956-974.
Dadfar, H., & Gustavsson, P. (1992). Competition by effective management
of cultural diversity: The case of international construction projects.
International Studies of Management and Organization, 22(4), 81-.
Granrose, C. S., & Oskamp, S. (Eds.). (1997). Cross-cultural work groups.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Hambrick, D. C., Cho, T. S., & Chen, M.-J. (1996). The influence of top
management team heterogeneity on firms' competitive moves. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 41(4), 659-684.
Harrison, D. A., Price, K. H., & Bell, M. P. (1998). Beyond relational
demography: Time and effects of surface- and deep-level diversity on work
group diversity. Academy of Management Journal, 41(1), 96-107.
Hoffmann, L. R., & Maier, N. R. F. (1961). Quality and acceptance of
problem solving by members of homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62, 401-407.
Jackson, S. (1992). Consequences of group composition for the
interpersonal dynamics of strategic issue processing. In P. Shrivastava & A.
Huff & J. E. Dutton (Eds.), Advances in strategic management (Vol. 8, pp.
345-382). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Kirchmeyer, C., & Cohen, A. (1992). Multicultural groups: Their
performance and reactions with constructive conflict. Group and Organization
Management, 17(2), 153-170.
Maznevski, M. L. (1994). Understanding our differences: Performance in
decision-making groups with diverse members. Human Relations, 47(5), 531-552.
McLeod, P. L., Lobel, S. A., & Cox, T. H. (1996). Ethnic diversity and
creativity in small groups. Small Group Research, 27(2), 248-.
Milliken, F. J., & Martins, L. L. (1996). Searching for common threads:
Understanding the multiple effects of diversity in organizational groups.
Academy of Management Review, 21(2), 402-433.
O'Reilly, C. A., Caldwell, D. F., & Barnett, W. P. (1989). Work group
demography, social integration, and turnover. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 34(1), 21-37.
O'Reilly, C. A., Snyder, R. C., & Boothe, J. (1993). Effects of executive
team demography on organizational change. In G. P. Huber & W. H. Glick
(Eds.), Organizational change and redesign: Ideas and insights for improving
performance (pp. 147-175). New York: Oxford Press.
O'Reilly, C. A., Williams, K. Y., & Barsade, S. (1998). Group demography
and innovation: Does diversity help? In D. H. Gruenfeld (Ed.), Research on
managing groups and teams (pp. 183-207). Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
Thomas, D. C. (1999). Cultural diversity and work group effectiveness.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30(2), 242-263.
Watson, W. E., Kumar, K., & Michaelsen, L. K. (1993). Cultural
diversity's impact on interaction process and performance: Comparing
homogeneous and diverse task groups. Academy of Management Journal, 36(3),
590-602.
I hope this is helpful.
William A. Weech
Leadership and Management School
Foreign Service Institute
U.S. Department of State