Training for Business Success: Does Diversity Training Improve Productivity, Performance, and Fair Promotions?

Abstract

There is a great deal of pessimism about the impact of diversity. Some critics have declared that diversity training programs do not work. Using data from the 2002 National Organizations Survey, this paper offers an examination of the relationship between the presence of diversity management and training in business organizations and assessments of business performance, business productivity, and fairness in the job promotion processes. The results suggest that, even after taking into account the size of the organization, the age of the organization, the percentage of workers who were minority, the percentage of workers who were female, and whether the organization was a private corporation, companies that have diversity training are more likely than are their counterparts without diversity training programs to report higher productivity than their competitors. Similarly, business organizations with diversity training programs are more likely than are other business organizations to report better business performance than their competitors. Also, companies with diversity training are more likely than are companies without diversity training programs to report that their employees believe procedures for determining promotions are fair. Such results go a long way toward dispelling the notion that diversity training programs do not matter. They show that diversity training programs can lead to positive outcomes.