Develop Morality Impressions Using Diversity

You’ve heard the argument: Racial and gender diversity on the management team increases an organization’s skills when responding strategically to competitive challenges.
     But that’s false advertising unless certain conditions are met, conclude researchers at University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Queen’s University in Ontario, Western University, and Rowan University. To fully realize the competitive gains in ways which increase financial performance, you must incorporate certain diversity management programs and diversity cognition policies.
     The diversity management programs include mentoring, succession planning, and formalized minority networking groups. The diversity cognition policies include making diversity management a performance appraisal dimension, awarding bonuses for achieving diversity objectives, and attending to diversity management in all or most employee training.
     Study results from University of Miami and Rice University suggest that an important reason for the gains from diversity among organizational managers is that consumers will consider the organization’s offerings to incorporate higher morality. The consequence is more positive attitudes toward the organization. Consumers perceive that having a variety of racial and gender viewpoints encourages consideration of the greater societal good.
     The effect was seen in experiments like these: 

• A team responsible for writing and broadcasting local news was assessed to be more moral when the team was composed of four men of different races than when the four men were all white. Those considering the diverse team also expressed greater interest in watching the news. 
• A fictitious Walmart ethics and compliance team composed of two African-American males and two African-American females was predicted to respond to suspected corporate malfeasance better than was the team composed of four African-American men.

     Other of the experiments ruled out alternative explanations for the presence of diversity leading to perceptions of greater morality.
     The researchers report that their study design placed high importance on “ecological validity,” which refers to the likelihood that experimental results obtained in a university laboratory will hold up broadly in real-world settings. Ecological validity came to my mind when thinking about the finding that television news teams with a diversity in membership are viewed more favorably by viewers. The researchers’ explanation is that consumers like morality in their TV news. But the polarization in American society is evidence to me that many consumers place a higher importance on support of their preexisting opinions than on morality. In this case, the receptivity to news which was seen in the lab might not be operative in today’s real world.

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