Diversity impacts a corporation's bottom line

Racial diversity in the workplace can enhance performance in an organization where a positive racial learning environment (RLE) exists, says a Harvard University professor who will speak on campus this week.

Ely (Photo courtesy Harvard Business School)

Robin Ely is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, where she co-wrote a paper with fellow Harvard professor David Thomas entitled, "Team Learning and the Link between Diversity and Performance."

Ely will discuss results of the paper and the concrete benefits of a diverse workforce at 4 p.m. Nov. 17 in the Johnson Rooms on the third floor of the Lurie Engineering Center on North Campus. The event is free and open to the public.

In its defense of the affirmative action lawsuits filed in 2003, the University presented extensive research supporting the benefits of a diverse academic environment. Ely, who investigates how organizations can better manage race and gender relations, while at the same time increasing their effectiveness, will discuss if such benefits apply outside of academia and if they can benefit a corporation's bottom line.

In the paper, Ely and Thomas investigated the impact of a work group's RLE on the relationship between racial diversity and bottom-line performance by analyzing two years of demographic, survey and performance data from more than 240 retail bank branches.

A bank's RLE was considered positive if both white and minority employees felt that the group welcomed a diversity of views, and was negative if minority employees, at least, did not.

" ... Racially diverse branches with positive RLEs outperformed their counterparts with negative RLEs on two of the three performance measures," Ely and Thomas wrote. In a follow-up, in-depth study of five branches, they found that "employees in branches with positive RLEs described using their racial diversity as a resource for learning, while employees in branches with negative RLEs embraced a color-blind perspective that foreclosed such learning opportunities."

The authors say they believe the study is grounds for optimism.

"Our quantitative evidence indicates that under the right conditions, culturally diverse groups—even those spanning the contentious racial divide—can avoid process losses commonly associated with diversity," they wrote. "Rather than incurring losses, diverse teams under the right circumstances may surpass culturally homogenous teams by virtue of their skill in creating open and constructive learning environments."

Ely's research focuses on organizational change, group dynamics, learning, conflict, power and social identity. She consults for organizations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors on issues related to race, gender and organizational change.

The Women in Science and Engineering Program, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, Industrial and Operations Engineering Department, Minority Engineering Program Office, and Tauber Manufacturing Institute will sponsor the lecture.

For more information, call (734) 615-4455 or e-mail: csdavis@umich.edu.