y Jackson and colleagues (1995, p. 217) as "the presence of differences among members of a social unit" (De Meuse, Hostager, Eau Claire, & O'Neill, 2007, p. 38). These differences can manifest in a variety of ways. While workers 50 years ago were essentially homogeneous within the context of a particular company, all having similar backgrounds, education, age, gender, and racial and ethnic characteristics, today's workers can vary across the board on these and other attributes. Within any work group can be found people of all nationalities in a range of age groups, each of which may have skills and perspectives divergent from those of the others.
Like many powerful influences, diversity has both its pros and its cons. On the positive side, diversity promotes innovation and "gives rise to multiple perspectives that result in questioning of the status quo, and a critical approach to resolving organizational problems" (Bassett-Jones, Brown, & Cornelius, 2007, p. 59). In addition, as Sacco and Schmitt (2005) indicate, "attaining workforce diversity has many positive social, legal, strategic, and competitive benefits for an organization" (De Meuse, Hostager, Eau Claire, & O'Neill, 2007, p. 38). Socially, diversity reflects a more fair and inclusive workforce selection approach, and legally, such a workforce is more likely to comply with legal guidelines on discrimination. Strategically, a diverse workforce gives an organization an armamentarium of diverse skills and viewpoints that are a far richer source of creative ideas than a homogeneous one would be. From a competitive standpoint, diversity can be a tremendous advantage in terms of collaborative innovation and the equipping of the organization for meeting the needs of a diverse target market.
On the other hand, diversity has many down sides as well. It can produce conflict, make collaboration problematic, increase the work of human resources departments, ...