Diversity and the "Bottom Line", con't

One of the constant claims about "diversity" is that it increases business success. This claim should be looked at carefully.

One entry to this debate is:

The Business Case for Diversity by Gwen Moran (Newark: Allegiant Media, 2006). On page 3 this book states that “Managers who need the cold, hard facts to support a proposal for increased diversity will find them here.”

Here is what I found:

1. A claim that at PepsiCo, affinity groups helped contribute to adding 1 percent to the corporate bottom line by providing input on such products as guacamole-flavored Doritos and soft drinks aimed at black consumers. Occasionally, this claim is presented in soft language (“helped contribute” ) In any event, it is tedious but possibly revealing that in this report this claim is asserted at least three times.
2. DiversityInc, the magazine linked with The Business Case for Diversity compared its list of award-winning companies in 2005 with Standard and Poors. Here is what it found: “All publicly traded companies in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity have been placed in a stock index, which is calculated by Standard & Poors. When examined over a 10 year period, with dividends reinvested, The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity Index yields a 23.5 percent higher return than the Standard & Poors 500.” To point out the obvious: if there was any proof or even evidence of causality, I missed it.

There is little in this book that I found significant.

None of this is to criticize diversity programs per se. We just need to subject all claims of business improvement to careful scrutiny.