Diversity in Workplace Enhances Bottom Line

 From the press release:

The commitment to diversity must be more than superficial, the researchers say.

“There are organizations that are doing what research and popular practice tells them to do. They are showing pictures of diverse workers on their website and say they have a commitment to diversity, but they’re not really going beyond what people may see as simply window dressing,” said Kristyn Scott, lead author of the study, The Diverse Organization: Finding Gold at the End of the Rainbow, and a professor with Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management. “That’s contrasted with an organization that has woven diversity into every fibre of its corporate culture and business practices.”

Scott and her co-authors, Professor Joanna Heathcote of University of Toronto at Scarborough, and Professor Jamie Gruman, University of Guelph, conducted a review of about 100 studies, mostly from the U.S. but some from Canada and elsewhere, from 1991 to 2009. They evaluated the studies based on six key advantages of corporate diversity as outlined by Cox and Blake’s framework, a U.S.-based study published in 1991, which are: recruitment, greater creativity, problem-solving, flexibility (better reaction to change), cost (employee turnover) and marketing (i.e. – stronger financial performance).

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Scott, K. A., Heathcote, J. M. and Gruman, J. A. (2011), The diverse organization: Finding gold at the end of the rainbow. Human Resource Management, 50: 735–755. doi: 10.1002/hrm.20459 [fee]

Abstract
The breadth and depth of research on organizational diversity reveals the complex nature of diversity in organizations. Indeed, research in the realm of human resource management focuses on diversity applied to a variety of topics, including recruitment, retention, succession planning, and work-life management, among others. In this article, we use Cox and Blake's (1991) advantages as a framework to review the diversity literature and suggest that organizational culture may be key to understanding when organizations will benefit from a diverse employee base. Specifically, organizations that emphasize inclusion and integrate diversity into all policies and practices may benefit to a greater extent compared with organizations focusing on diversity as a stand-alone practice. Through an examination of academic research and the award-winning diversity program of Campbell Soup Company (Catalyst, 2010), we make culturally based propositions to further diversity research in, and the practice of, human resource management. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.