New research from the Academy of Management Journal finds minority executives are cautious of showing enthusiasm for increasing diversity – because they know it can spell disaster for their own career
This article from Alex Fradera, staff writer at BPS Research Digest, is an important read for business. It discusses research by an international team headed by David Hekman of the University of Colorado that looked at why minority executives are cautious of showing enthusiasm for increasing diversity.
The team recruited 350 American executives from a range of organisations: one in 10 of them were non-white and about 30% were women. The executives’ bosses and roughly three of their peers rated them in terms of their competence and performance, including readiness to be promoted, and their diversity-valuing behaviour, an example being “values working with a diverse group of people”.
For female and non-white executives, the more they valued diversity, the worse they were rated for performance and competence. And the non-white leaders who received very high performance ratings (higher even than the white majority) showed the least interest in diversity.
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