ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND CREATIVITY IN SMALL-GROUPS

There is a growing belief among managers that ethnic diversity when we ll managed, can provide organizations with certain competitive advanta ges. But the belief in this value-in-diversity hypothesis rests largel y on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence. Results are reported of a controlled experimental study that compares the performance on a br ainstorming task between groups composed of all Anglo-Americans with g roups composed of Anglo-, Asian, African and Hispanic Americans. The p articular brainstorming task used-The Tourist Problem-was chosen for i ts relevance for diversity along the dimension of higher quality. The ideas produced by the ethnically diverse groups were judged to be of h igher quality-more effective and feasible-than the ideas produced by t he homogeneous groups. Members of homogeneous groups reported marginal ly more attraction to their groups than did members of diverse groups. Directions for future research with respect to the degree of diversit y, the nature of the task and group process are discussed.