For this project, the goal was to start with a small topic and expand it into a greater field of research and perspectives, making the discussion bigger and bigger. We started with the simple definition of organizational culture, and then expanded it to the positives and negatives of it. Through this we found an opposing ideal, which champions diversity as a means for greater success. We discussed all of this within the realm of the workplace, with some readings relating it further. What interested me most was when I first saw the connection of diversity to success made to something extremely different from the workplace realm. This was when in the “Expanding the Canon” assignment, someone included an article of a study which theorized a connection between diversity and success inn international, professional soccer.
From here I wanted to research a theory that diversity inherently means greater success. In stating this theory, I was able to find more avenues of research in looking to disprove it. This was done in the “complicating your research” activity, where I found information that proves diversity doesn’t, in fact, equate to immediate greater success. The article I found conducted a study that showed diverse groups performing equal to or less than less diverse groups. The study then implemented two things into the groups – trust, and openness in communication – and analyzed how that changed their level of success. The result was eye-opening for my research, because implementing these two things made the diverse groups outperform the non-diverse groups significantly. This brought me to my final avenue of research, which I decided would be my focus. I wondered if these two variables could be the connection between diversity and success in any sense, including in the real world, beyond a team or office.
This path of research I took all guided me to this inquiry, which I plan to dive into next to finish off this research project. Can some form of implementation of trust and openness in communication solve a gap between diversity and success in the real world? Meaning could it solve some of the issues with race our country has been plagued with for centuries and up to this day? Or does this relate back to one of my article’s claims that “diversity and inclusion” type of workshops in the office don’t help, but actually make minority employees feel more uncomfortable? Or how could these things be implemented without uncomfortable and useless workshops? These are the questions I will seek answers to as I finish my research.