Best Practices or Best Guesses: Which Corporate Diversity Programs Work?

1
Best Practices or Best GuessesWhich Corporate
Diversity Programs Work?

• Frank Dobbin
• Harvard University, Department of Sociology

Excellence Empowered by a Diverse Workforce
Achieving Racial Ethnic Equity in
Chemistry Arlington, VA, September 26, 2007
Thanks to the National Science Foundation,
Russell Sage Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study, and to my collaborators, Alexandra Kalev,
Erin Kelly, and Daniel Schrage
2
White Men and Women in Management
White Men
White Women
National Sample of 829 Firms
3
Minority Men and Women in Management
Black Men
Black Women
Hispanic Men
Asian Men
Hispanic Women
Asian Women
4
(No Transcript)
5
Approaches to Diversity

• Establish Responsibility (Theory of Bureaucracy)
• Diversity Taskforce
• Diversity Manager
• Combat Bias (Cognitive Psychology)
• Diversity Training
• Alter Incentives (Agency Theory in Economics)
• Diversity Evaluations
• Combat Social Isolation (Network Theory)
• Network Program
• Mentor Program

6
National Sample of 829 Firms in 2002
7
(No Transcript)
8
Which Programs Increase Diversity?

• Establishing Responsibility
• Diversity Taskforce
• Diversity Manager
• Combating Bias
• Diversity Training
• Altering Incentives
• Diversity Evaluations
• Combating Social Isolation
• Network Program
• Mentor Program
• Another Instance of Establishing Responsibility?
  

9
Part II Transparency vs. Targeting

• Formal, Transparent, Rules
• Pro Minimizes Discretion, Bias
• Con Disconnect Practice Doesnt Change
• Targeted Solutions
• Pro Pinpoint Problems
• Con Elicit Backlash

10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
Part II Conclusions Transparency vs. Targeting

• Transparency Has Small Effects
• Hiring and Promotion Dont Change?
• Bureaucracy May Institutionalize Inequality
• Targeting Increases Diversity
• Focuses Attention on Change
• Identifies Candidates

14
What Can Academic Departments Do?

• What Works in Firms?
• Assign Responsibility Taskforces, Diversity
  Managers
• Mentoring
• Targeted Recruitment

• What Doesnt Work?
• Diversity Training
• Networking
• Diversity Performance Evaluations
• Transparency/ Bureaucracy

15

• frank_dobbin_at_harvard.edu

16
(No Transcript)