The article, with the help of various studies, concludes that diversity under visionary leadership leads to competitive advantage.
Fannie Mae, the abbreviated form of the Federal National Mortgage Association in the US, is the second largest financial institution in that country after the Citigroup. In this group they deliberately create and foster diversity in demographic terms in its workforce. They claim that this gives them a distinctive competitive advantage. Their diversity is in terms of race, skin color, religion, sex and what not. They have won national recognition from several bodies for this feature of theirs. In many American companies, this thrust towards diversity is becoming a part of their HR policies. Notable among them, are two great American business institutions, the American Express and the IBM. It seems America has come a long way from the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) dominated companies not too long ago. Perhaps, this phenomenon reflects the fast heterogenization of the American Society with the immigration of the Asians, the Hispanics and other groups, as also the fast integration of the Black community with mainstream America after all those Civil Rights struggles. The WASP homogeneity was first challenged by the late 19th century and the early 20th century exodus from non-Protestant Europe. It seems the culmination of all those forces is finding expression through our aforesaid diversity in the American workplaces. But, let us turn away from descriptive history, and go back to our original question, "Does this diversity give a company a competitive advantage?"
At this stage, it may be worthwhile to define the terms, homogeneity, heterogeneity, diversity etc. A couple of researchers in the US (Earley and Mosakowski, 2000) have used the following definitions:
a. Homogeneous are those teams, in which members perceive themselves as sharing some key salient characteristics. Similarities are based on, not some objective characteristics, but on perceived commonalities. |
