Executive Overview The recent business trends of globalization and increasing ethnic and gender diversity are turning managers' attention to the management of cultural differences. The management literature has suggested that organizations should value diversity to enhance organizational effectiveness. However, the specific link between managing diversity and organizational competitiveness is rarely made explicit and no article has reviewed actual research data supporting such a link. This article reviews arguments and research data on how managing diversity can create a competitive advantage. We address cost, attraction of human resources. marketing success, creativity and innovation, problem-solving quality, and organizational flexibility as six dimensions of business performance directly impacted by the management of cultural diversity. We then offer suggestions for improving organizational capability to manage this diversity.

This study examined the hypothesis that differences in the cultural norms of Anglo-Americans and three other ethnic groups-Asian, Hispanic, and Black Americans-will result in different behaviors on a group task. Student subjects were assigned to ethnically diverse or all-Anglo groups. Individual and group responses were measured using a Prisoner's Dilemma task in which participants could choose to compete or cooperate with another party. We hypothesized that groups composed of people from collectivist cultural traditions would display more cooperative hehavior than groups composed of people from individualistic cultural traditions. Results confirmed this hypothesis. Implications for future research and for organizations seeking to manage diversity are discussed.

No abstract

There is a growing belief among managers that ethnic diversity, when well managed, can provide organizations with certain competitive advantages. But the belief in this value-inl diversity hypothesis rests largely on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence. Results are reported ofa controlled experimental study that compares the performance on a brainstorm ing task between groups composed of all Anglo-Americans with groups composed ofAnglo-, Asian, African, and Hispanic Americans. The particular brainstorming task used-The Tourist Problem-was chosenfor its relevancefordiversity along the dimension of ethnicity. The ideas produced by the ethnically diverse groups were judged to be of higher quality-more effective andfeasible-than the ideas produced by the homogeneous groups. Members of homogeneous groups reported marginally more attraction to their groups than did members of diverse oroups. Directions for future research with respect to the degree of diversity, the nature of the task, and group process are discussed.

In this article, hypotheses concerned with how race, gender, and mentoring experiences account for compensation outcomes among master of business administration (MBA) program graduates are considered. African-American and Hispanic MBAs were less likely than their White counterparts to establish mentoring relationships with White men. Women with MBAs were less likely than men with MBAs to form such relationships. Graduates who had been able to establish mentoring relationships with White men displayed an average annual compensation advantage of $16,840 over those with mentors displaying other demographic profiles. There were no compensation differences between those who had established mentoring relationships with women or minority men and those who had not established a mentoring relationship.

No abstract

No abstract

Twenty-five years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, the full integration of racial minorities in the Unites States workforce has still not been achieved. Recent demographic trends indicating that the workforce will be increasingly composed of racial minorities make this a critical issue for academics and practitioners alike. This paper reports on a review of journal research -addressing issues of race in organizations. Articles published in twenty major outlets for organization behavior research between 1964 and 1989 were reviewed. Data on the quantity, types and topics of published work are presented. Results indicate that the amount of total published research is small relative to the importance of the topic, that the recent trend is for less rather than more research, that the designs and research questions have been very narrow, and that the topics covered are not representative of the domain of organization behavior. Based upon the findings, some suggestions for future research are offered.' An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Career Division Workshop of the 1988 Academy of Management Meeting. We are grateful to Clayton Alderfer and David Thomas for their suggestions in revising the manuscript.