Cultural diversity drives innovation: empowering teams for success

Jones, Graham B.; Chace, Bernardita Chirino; Wright, Justin M.

doi:10.1108/ijis-04-2020-0042

Cited by 53 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(68 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The lack of social, cultural, ethnic and gender diversity within many research communities [52][53][54] and the lack of geographical and cultural diversity in current research [24] lead to the dominance of Western White middle-class narratives in academia. Achieving diversity in research more broadly is an important issue in itself, but we should also acknowledge that the lack of diversity hinders knowledge production [55,56], which costs us all. Indeed, one of our regrets about this issue is the overrepresentation of researchers based in Western institutions royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb Phil.…”

Section: How To Cross Disciplinary Bridgesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who cares for women with children? Crossing the bridge between disciplines

Emmott

Myers

Page

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has long been acknowledged that women with children require social support to promote their health and wellbeing, as well as that of their children. However, the dominant conceptualizations of support have been heavily influenced by Western family norms. The consequence, at best, has been to stifle our understanding of the nature and consequences of support for mothers and children. At worst, it has led to systematic discrimination negatively impacting maternal–child health. To fully engage with the complexities of social support, we must take multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches spanning diverse cultural and geographical perspectives. However, multidisciplinary knowledge-processing can be challenging, and it is often unclear how different studies from different disciplines relate. To address this, we outline two epistemological frameworks—the scientific approach and Tinbergen's four questions—that can be useful tools in connecting research across disciplines. In this theme issue on ‘Multidisciplinary perspectives on social support and maternal–child health’, we attempt to foster multidisciplinary thinking by presenting work from a diverse range of disciplines, populations and cultures. Our hope is that these tools, along with papers in this issue, help to build a holistic understanding of social support and its consequences for mothers and their children. Overall, a multidisciplinary perspective points to how the responsibility of childrearing should not fall solely onto mothers. Indeed, this multidisciplinary issue demonstrates that successful childrearing is consistently an activity shared beyond the mother and the nuclear family: an insight that is crucial to harnessing the potential of social support to improve maternal–child health. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Multidisciplinary perspectives on social support and maternal–child health’.

show abstract

Section: How To Cross Disciplinary Bridgesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who cares for women with children? Crossing the bridge between disciplines

Emmott

Myers

Page

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Members also participated in CQS assessment profiling which, based on a series of inter-related and weighted responses, generates a composite profile based on four attributes: the respondents cultural quotient (CQ) knowledge, CQ strategy, CQ action and CQ drive (Jones et al, 2020). The IC members generally scored highest in the CQ drive component (all scales 0-100 against mean for all respondents), possibly reflecting motivation toward the subject matter.…”

Section: Technical Research and Development Innovation Program: Catalyzing Crossfunctional Ideationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Diversity and inclusion are cornerstones of modern day industry and strategies to enhance, expand and champion have reaped dividends in all sectors (De Abreu Dos Reis et al, 2007). In addition to helping establish inclusive environments which model and represent society at large there is growing recognition that this provides competitive commercial advantage (Lorenzo et al, 2018;Jones et al, 2020). Over millennia, our evolutionary path has relied on genetic diversity to drive growth through provision of competitive advantages in the face of new environmental challenges.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural diversity drives innovation: modeling in the global pharmaceutical industry

Jones

Chace

Wright

2021

IJIS

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The innovative capacity of an organization is typically realized through unit-level teams. Previous studies correlate innovation performance with cultural diversity of teams, but note that team dynamics need to be optimized to derive maximum benefit. Herein, this study offers an assessment of available team building instruments through the lens of diverse innovation teams. In a demonstration project in the pharmaceutical industry, this study then outlines specific tools and approaches which can be successfully deployed through team coaching and mentoring. Design/methodology/approach A cluster of nine innovation teams with varying degrees of cultural diversity was provided with assessment and management instruments which had been identified and field tested by a mentoring team. Content included cultural awareness tools, innovation team profiling methods and Team Science (SciTS) ideology. Teams were funded, coached and mentored through a six-month performance period and assessed at regular intervals. Findings Team assessments provided correlations between performance (measured by project completion and new intellectual property generated) and diversity together with wealth of information on intra-team culture and dynamics. Concrete recommendations from the study include adoption of appropriate communication standards to promote inclusivity, use of SciTS operational tracking metrics to enhance engagement, use of the FourSight group profiling methodology and cultural quotient scale cultural awareness instruments at team-forming stage to promote effective dynamics and enhance inclusivity. Practical implications Cultural diversity has a positive impact on innovation teams. This said, for maximum benefit cultural awareness of team members should be optimized to avoid unintended conflicts developing. Such issues can be exacerbated when teams are deployed remotely and preventative measures should be established. These issues became of heightened significance as a result of telecommuting imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and have longer-term implications, as corporations consider global air travel reduction through environmental concerns. A tracking tool is described to monitor team engagement and promote inclusivity. It is expected that the learnings can influence how teams can best form, normalize and operate within corporate innovation programs and form the basis of long-term impact studies. Originality/value This represents the first systematic study on the impact of cultural diversity and team dynamics within innovation programs in the pharmaceutical industry. The tools and methodologies deployed are widely available and can be adopted by innovation teams in many adjacent industries with established innovation ecosystems.

show abstract

“…While diversity can be broadly understood as the way in which members of a group differ in respect to demographic characteristics [18,19] like sex, gender, and other sociocultural factors [20], inclusion refers to people's resource accessibility, group involvement, and ability to play a role in decision making [19,21]. A diverse and inclusive workforce can help an organization like NIST advance its mission of promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness.…”

Section: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping employee networks through the NIST Interactions Survey

Espinal¹,

Young²,

Zwolak³

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As we begin to adopt approaches to help the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) become a more inclusive organization, we need a way to assess the current level of inclusivity. The extent to which individuals have access to information and resources is largely associated with inclusion in the workplace, suggesting that analysis of individuals' social networks may be an important component of this assessment. Network surveys provide a unique lens through which a wide range of networks, including networks of collaboration, mentorship, and trust, can be studied. As a result of such studies, efforts to improve on inclusivity can be directed towards where they are needed the most. Herein, we describe the NIST Interactions Survey-a data collection tool developed for mapping and analyzing personal ego networks of NIST Federal Employees and aimed at quantifying the work-and career advice-related networks. In this study, we assess inclusivity at NIST through the lens of social network analysis to provide NIST with insights about the current work climate.With an overall response rate of approximately 25 %, we find that the structure of the work-and advice-related ego networks provides important insights into the interaction patterns at NIST. An analysis of the network data confirms a siloed effect associated with the Organizational Unit affiliation of the respondents and their connections in the work and advice networks. Interestingly, we find that, while the composition of work ego networks tend to be quite aligned with what would be expected based on the workforce demographics, interactions in the advice ego networks reveal preferences associated with age and gender. In terms of gender, male employees show preference for male-dominated advice networks, which is not surprising given our predominantly male workforce. For female employees, however, we observe three distinct types of advice networks: two capturing strong preferences to seek advice from single-gender-dominated networks, be it male or female, and a third one with the gender composition quite evenly balanced. In terms of age preferences, we find that younger employees tend to seek advice from more experienced colleagues. Interestingly, no discernible differences are observed between the networks of minority and non-minority employees for either work or advice.Based on these findings, we recommend strategies for bridging the silos between the Laboratories and the rest of the Organizational Units, nurturing informal connections among female colleagues, and mapping employee networks among different minority groups (e.g. American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian, Other). Although other approaches are possible, we believe that the recommendations proposed in this report will be a good start for NIST to become the inclusive organization we aspire to be.

show abstract

Cultural diversity drives innovation: empowering teams for success

Cited by 53 publications

References 60 publications

Who cares for women with children? Crossing the bridge between disciplines

Who cares for women with children? Crossing the bridge between disciplines

Cultural diversity drives innovation: modeling in the global pharmaceutical industry

Mapping employee networks through the NIST Interactions Survey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About