{"id":7565,"date":"2026-04-22T13:43:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7565"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:44:11","slug":"the-truth-about-diversity-that-some-dont-want-to-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/the-truth-about-diversity-that-some-dont-want-to-hear\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth about Diversity that Some Don\u2019t Want to Hear"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jason Collins<\/a><\/p>\n

The value of diversity within an executive team goes far beyond quarterly earnings. Research by Academy of Management Scholar Sekou Bermiss<\/a> of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School has found no reliable evidence that financial performance is predicted by differences in ethnic diversity in top leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferences in diversity at the very top of these large organizations are not predictive of financial performance,\u201d Bermiss said. \u201cWhat it also means is diversity at the very top of these organizations does not hinder performance in any negligible way as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bermiss offered organizations and leaders some tips on how to interpret this insight. For one, organizations should not stop their diversity efforts. He said to start by recognizing that \u201cdiversity doesn\u2019t matter in the way that I think people think it matters. It matters in the margins and micro levels and decision-making in small groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business case for diversity needs to be altered,\u201d Bermiss said. \u201cIt needs to be changed from less of a purely revenue perspective and profit-driven argument for diversity and more to a moral argument and values-based discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Bermiss, when organizations are discussing how to implement diversity and representation, they should ask themselves, \u201cDo we care about representation? Is that important to us from a values perspective and not that it will make us more money, or will customers like us more?\u201d He added that organizations should carefully consider their decisions by asking, \u201cDoes that matter? Do we think that\u2019s representative of anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversity doesn’t matter in the way that sometimes people are talking about it,\u201d Bermiss said. \u201cDiversity is nuanced and contingent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jason Collins The value of diversity within an executive team goes far beyond quarterly earnings. Research by Academy of Management Scholar Sekou Bermiss of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School has found no reliable evidence that financial performance is predicted by differences in ethnic diversity in top leadership. \u201cDifferences in diversity at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,60,72,19],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[841],"class_list":["post-7565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-diversity","category-ethics","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Truth about Diversity that Some Don\u2019t Want to Hear - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The value of diversity within an executive team goes far beyond quarterly earnings. 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Research by Academy of Management Scholar Sekou Bermiss of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School has found no reliable evidence that financial performance is predicted by differences in ethnic diversity in top leadership. \u201cDifferences in diversity at…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7565"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=7565"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}