Diversity (business) - Benefits

Benefits

Diversity is beneficial to both the organization and the members as noted above. Diversity brings substantial potential benefits such as better decision making and improved problem solving, greater creativity and innovation, which leads to enhanced product development, and more successful marketing to different types of customers. Diversity provides organizations with the ability to compete in global markets. Simply recognizing diversity in a corporation helps link the variety of talents within the organization. The act of recognizing diversity also allows for those employees with these talents to feel needed and have a sense of belonging, which in turn increases their commitment to the company and allows each of them to contribute in a unique way. Standpoint theory suggests that marginalized groups bring a different perspective to an organization that challenges the status quo since their socially constructed world view will differ from that of the dominant group. Although the standpoint of the dominant group will often carry more weight, a transformational leader will encourage conflicting standpoints to coexist within an organization which will create a forum for sanctioned conflict to ensue. Conflict stems from challenging the way things have always been done, and/or ideas and problems that have not been explored from multiple perspectives. Standpoint theory gives a voice to those in a position to see patterns of behavior that those immersed in the culture have difficulty acknowledging. These unique and varying standpoints help to eradicate groupthink which can develop within a homogenous group. Scott Page’s (2007) mathematical modeling research of team work reflects this view. His models demonstrated that heterogeneous teams consistently out-performed homogeneous teams on a variety of tasks. Page points out, however, that diversity in teamwork is not always simple and that there are many challenges to fostering an inclusive environment in the workplace for diversity of thought and ideas.