Ethnic diversity and creativity in small groups

There is a growing belief among managers that ethnic diversity when well managed, can provide organizations with certain competitive advantages. But the belief in this value-in-diversity hypothesis rests largely on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence. Results are reported of a controlled experimental study that compares the performance on a brainstorming task between groups composed of all Anglo-Americans with groups composed of Anglo-, Asian, African and Hispanic Americans. The particular brainstorming task used-The Tourist Problem-was chosen for its relevance for diversity along the dimension of higher quality. The ideas produced by the ethnically diverse groups were judged to be of higher quality-more effective and feasible-than the ideas produced by the homogeneous groups. Members of homogeneous groups reported marginally more attraction to their groups than did members of diverse groups. Directions for future research with respect to the degree of diversity, the nature of the task and group process are discussed.