Robin J. Ely

David A. Thomas

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Context</h5>
  <p>Business leaders often make a business case for diversity, claiming that hiring more women or people of color results in better financial performance.</p>
  <h5>The Problem</h5>
  <p>There’s no empirical evidence that simply diversifying the workforce, absent fundamental changes to the organizational culture, makes a company more profitable.</p>
  <h5>A Better Approach</h5>
  <p>Companies <em>can</em> benefit from diversity if leaders create a psychologically safe workplace, combat systems of discrimination and subordination, embrace the styles of employees from different identity groups, and make cultural differences a resource for learning and improving organizational effectiveness.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>“The business case has been made to demonstrate the value a diverse board brings to the company and its constituents.”</p>

S/0BqDV1jUcsTFzgFYjIwQDJJ/H701dnGaApqVRVjtpuGqcY3cYFmYrTrM5ZNHN9gJafMqIox7zjbGU2Z2mLZlBofjyVVIEGD9nSUt+iA09rGyCCtIa2hb/5OoNVTU910s8I7wbjw72pPdepyQJSKC9Nxd6Dxsxb97nnXP32tPRwSAvZnaoB1vN/YyqlpS+7

<p>Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company&#8217;s performance. This article critiques the popular rhetoric about diversity and revisits an argument the authors made 25 years ago: To fully benefit from increased racial and gender diversity, organizations must adopt a learning orientation and be willing to change the corporate culture and power structure.</p>
<p>Four actions are key for leaders: building trust and creating a workplace where people feel free to express themselves; actively combating bias and systems of oppression; embracing a variety of styles and voices inside the organization; and using employees&#8217; identity-related knowledge and experiences to learn how best to accomplish the firm&#8217;s core work.</p>

Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular rhetoric about diversity and revisits an argument the authors made 25 years ago: To fully benefit from increased racial and gender diversity, organizations must adopt a learning orientation and be willing to change the corporate culture and power structure. Four actions are key for leaders: building trust and creating a workplace where people feel free to express themselves; actively combating bias and systems of oppression; embracing a variety of styles and voices inside the organization; and using employees’ identity-related knowledge and experiences to learn how best to accomplish the firm’s core work.

Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

Summary.

Partner Center