Assessing the complexity of diversity perceptions: Breadth, depth, and balance

Despite the wealth of prescriptive information on how to manage diversity, relatively little attention has been paid to measures of workplace diversity. The present study developed a set of measures that practitioners and researchers can use to assess the degree to which members of an organization hold simple or complex views on workplace diversity. Three measures of perceptual complexity were defined and examined in the study: perceptual breadth, depth, and balance. Data collected from 266 participants in three different organizational settings revealed statistically significant differences on all three complexity measures. Practical implications of the study are discussed and directions for future research are identified.