Leveraging diversity to improve business performance: Research findings and recommendations for organizations

The challenge of increasing minority-group professional representation in the United States: intriguing findings

“…After controlling for the leader's ethnicity, racially aware leaders had higher minoritygroup professional representation at their institutions than leaders who were less sensitive to racial issues. This finding supports Dass andParker's (1996), Cox's (2001), Linnehan et al's (2002), Jayne andDipboye's (2004), andChilds' (2005) contentions that the genuine, deep level, commitment of top management is critical to successful diversity initiatives. This finding is also of interest given that leader race, a significant predictor of minority faculty representation, was already in the model.…”

“…Leaders must be aware of the impact of their behaviors in modeling ‗diversity-supportive' behaviors, those which demonstrate sensitivity to diversity issues (2001, p. 42). Focusing on the roles that different leaders may play depending on organizational level, Childs (2005) and Jayne and Dipboye (2004), industry experts with diversity management experience, report that senior management commitment and accountability are key drivers of successful diversity strategy implementation whereas consistent line management leadership is a cornerstone of effective tactical interventions. The impact of senior management commitment has been demonstrated empirically by Ng, Weisner and Jain (2005), Konrad and Linnehan (1995) and Linnehan, Chrobot-Mason and Konrad (2002).…”

“…Organizational climate is an important consideration when designing diversity strategies (Jayne and Dipboye 2004). An exclusionary workplace, created or reinforced (intentionally or unintentionally) by an employer, could include policies and practices which create a hostile climate for minority professionals.…”

“…They found that a higher education institution's responsiveness to institutional pressures (such as those from employers, advisory boards, and alumni) for demographically representative faculty and student bodies varied depending on institutional size, demographic composition of faculty and students, and institution type (private versus public). Additionally, institutional pressures for a diverse workforce derive from a need to grow and achieve a competitive advantage to serve a diverse customer base (Konrad 2003;Jayne and Dipboye 2004). As organizations face increasing pressure for diverse representation from customers, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholder groups, organizational leaders may accord increased strategic priority to minority-group employee representation.…”

Trickling Down: How the upper echelon effect diversity within an organization

“…In fact, the benefits of diversity are now considered to be one of the most important and influential factors for the success of a sport organization. This belief is primarily due to the evidence that it is related to increases in team performance (Cunningham & Sagas, 2004), enhanced creativity (McLeod, Lobel, & Cox, 1996), and a deep satisfaction found among diverse individuals (Jayne & Dipboye, 2004). With the clear potential for such positive effects, many sport organizations have begun to actively recruit diverse members to their organization and to create an atmosphere that celebrates diversity.…”