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Can Cooperation Help Explain the Demographic Diversity–Business Performance Relationship?

2017; Academy of Management; Volume: 2017; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5465/ambpp.2017.14775abstract

2376-7197

Patrick F. McKay, Derek R. Avery, Eugene Son, Emily Rosado-Solomon, Sasha Pustovit,

Environmental Sustainability in Business

The 'value in diversity' perspective holds that diversity provides organizations with a variety of knowledge resources, background, and perspectives to bear on organizational functioning. A key requirement for fully realizing the benefits of diversity is that the work context supports the utilization and leveraging of heterogeneous worldviews and skillsets. The present study examined cooperation as a boundary condition of the relationships between racioethnic and gender diversity with business performance. Diversity was expected to be more beneficial to business performance when cooperation was higher among those in the work environment. In addition, the investigation explored diversity climate as a mediator linking diversity, cooperation, and business performance. In cooperative environments, greater diversity should coincide in greater appreciation of difference, enhanced diversity climate, which should empower employees to perform better. When cooperation is lacking, diversity should bear little upon diversity climate and subsequent performance. These predictions were tested in two diverse, yet complementary studies. In Study 1, racioethnic diversity was significantly and positively related to sports team performance only when cooperation was higher. Study 2 results showed further that within cooperative retail settings, racioethnic diversity was positively related to diversity climate which, in turn, corresponded with lower voluntary turnover and higher sales revenue.