In my prior post on this topic, Money
Is Diversity Or Diversity Is Money?, I discussed performance-based
rationales for board diversity, but noted that there is no consensus on the
crucial question of whether board diversity improves corporate
performance. In my remaining posts
in this series, I’ll discuss research (undertaken with co-authors Lissa Lamkin
Broome and John M.
Conley, both at the University of North Carolina) regarding what corporate
insiders say about why diversity matters.
Our research does not address psychological motivations, or
the actual effects of diversity on board behavior, or the business performance
outcomes that may or may not stem from board composition. Our question is a more direct one: what
do the protagonists say about the significance
of diversity? That is, what
narratives (or, synonymously, stories or accounts) do board members,
executives, government officials, and others produce when asked to explain
whether and why diversity matters on corporate boards?
The fact that a member of a cultural group analyzes and
interprets the world in a particular way does not, of course, permit one to
make strong claims about what other members are thinking or doing. Nonetheless, the study of narratives
can support a limited but significant kind of generalization. If members of a group repeatedly tell a
similar story about an event or phenomenon, then it may be reasonable to
characterize it as a master narrative: an account that achieves accepted,
taken-for-granted, hegemonic status in the relevant group. (For more on narrative
see here).
Despite over two years of work and something approaching 100
hours of interview tape, our research is still ongoing and our findings
preliminary. Nonetheless, some
common themes have already emerged, of which I’ll sketch out only a few here.
Our principal observation is that—thirty-one years after the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision introduced the term into
public discourse–corporate insiders appear not to have arrived at a master
narrative to explain the pursuit of diversity on boards of directors. Instead, their accounts stress a
variety of factors and feature few concrete examples.
(1) The importance of board diversity
Our respondents were nearly uniform in their statements that
board diversity was an important goal worth pursuing. Yet, explaining precisely
how difference can make a difference is apparently as challenging in the
corporate world as it is with respect to the Supreme Court. When asked immediate follow-up
questions about why board diversity
mattered and whether the respondent could provide examples or anecdotes
illustrating that importance, most subjects acknowledged difficulty in
illustrating theory with reference to practice.
(2) Strands of different rationales
Elements of each of the diversity rationales discussed in my
prior post, Money
Is Diversity or Diversity Is Money?, appear, but no coherent master
narrative emerges. Our subjects mentioned their beliefs that diversity creates
a “richer conversation,” “an entirely new perspective,” “different points of
view,” and “a very positive dynamic,” but, overall, failed to provide concrete
examples or illustrations.
For example, a number of our subjects advanced theories of
why boardroom exchanges are— or at least should be—more productive when a board
has race and gender diversity. The most succinct statement of how diversity
might improve boardroom communication came from a white female director who
said that diversity “makes for a richer conversation. It’s not just all about the good old boys then.” A few invoked fairness or risk reduction
rationales. Finally, signaling
rationales proved relatively popular.
As stated by one subject:
To me, that’s why some boards go for diversity in part, they
want to look like they’re the majors, I’m sure they want to look like world
businesses, they want to look like businesses that understand the galaxy. . . .
And so, yeah, I think a piece of it is symbolic speech. That used to make me
ill when people would say, “Well you want to look like your community.” But in
truth, you do. Or the community you want to be. Better yet than that, you want
to look like the community you aspire to be.
(3) The Lack of a master narrative
Our relatively small sample of interviews provides no
evidence of the emergence of what might reasonably be called a master narrative
of board diversity. And regardless
of content, our subjects’ theories of diversity almost always prove difficult
to illustrate with reference to practice.
I’ve used only the sparsest of quotes here, but our articles
– Signaling
Through Board Diversity: Is Anyone Listening and Narratives of
Diversity in the Corporate Boardroom: What Corporate Insiders Say about Why
Diversity Matters — contain extensive quotes from the transcripts and take
up other board diversity-related topics that I have not addressed here. In my next – and final – post on this
topic, Wrapping It Up: The Struggle To
Explain Why Difference Makes a Difference, I’ll conclude this discussion,
and return to where I began: the struggle for a generally accepted theory about
whether diversity matters and, if so, why and under what conditions.
Related Posts:
I.
Sotomayor, Diversity, And Group Dynamics: Why
Do We Care? What Do We Know?
II.
Do The Right Thing, So Long As It’s Free
III.
Money
Is Diversity or Diversity Is Money?
V. Wrapping
It Up: The Struggle To Explain Why Difference Makes a Difference