Thomas & Ely (1996) - "Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm For Managing Diversity," Harvard Business Review

Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity
This summary of the article includes excerpts, concepts, and references from the
following article:
Thomas & Ely (1996). “Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing
Diversity,” Harvard Business Review
Purpose of this reading:
In the global economy of the 21st century, diverse teams are a cornerstone of
successful organizations. As future global leaders, it is important to understand where
firms fail despite their best efforts at encouraging diversity within the workplace. The
following summary of Thomas and Ely’s Making Differences Matter, A New Paradigm
for Managing Diversity will demonstrate the key difference between truly embracing
cultural differences as opposed to just applying diversity in the hiring practices.
Throughout this material, generate your examples of the different paradigms given.
Have you ever had experiences in a company that forced assimilation onto its
employees? Did you, or anyone you know feel trapped into their role solely based on
their diversity? Begin matching your personal experiences and observations to the
concepts within the summary while also brainstorming how implementing the integration
paradigm could mitigate some of those problems.
Summary:
A diverse workforce has been linked to increased profitability. Additionally, according to

research by Thomas and Ely, the benefits of diversity can include “[improved] learning,
creativity, flexibility, organizational and individual growth, and the ability of a company to
adjust rapidly and successfully to market changes.” Truly embracing diversity enables
organizations to capture the full value created by their employees.
Their research shows that most efforts to increase diversity are driven by increasing the
number of individuals from “traditionally underrepresented ‘identity groups.’” In the US,
this translates to hiring females and individuals from specific ethnic groups. Most efforts
stop here. Traditionally, companies expand workplace diversity in one of two ways: the
Discrimination-and-Fairness Paradigm or the Learning-and-Effectiveness Paradigm.
The Discrimination-and-Fairness Paradigm is the most common approach. This

paradigm is often accompanied by a call for increased respect for cultural differences,
as well as the creation of development programs for the targeted groups. The success
or failure of these programs is generally determined by recruitment and retention rates.
A major drawback to this paradigm is that, typically, the expectation communicated is
that all employees are equal. In practice, this perspective can wash away the
advantages of having a diverse workforce.
The second paradigm is the Access-and-Legitimacy Paradigm. The objective is to hire
for diversity and then use the identity groups to interact with matching clients or other
key stakeholders. For example, a firm may hire a Latino employee to interact with
Hispanic clients. While this paradigm provides the opportunity for employees to apply
their cultural backgrounds in the workplace, it tends to pigeon-hold selected employees
into specific roles, often with little or no room for growth.
Thomas and Ely devised a third paradigm that blends these two approaches: The
Integration Paradigm. This approach comprises the important first step of encouraging
the hiring and retaining of diverse employees, while also allowing them to use their
diverse experiences to shape all facets of the business. The major difference is that
integration seeks to draw out the essential value-added of diversity: cognitive originality.
The ways in which individuals solve problems or complete tasks is often based on their
cultural backgrounds. Insights and innovations are dampened when people from
different cultures or identity groups are assimilated fully into the dominant culture. Also,
when diverse employees isolated into interacting only with clients or other stakeholders
of their same identity group, opportunities for learning and innovating are diminished. By
bringing diverse cultures into one place and integrating them into the organization, all
employees can benefit as they learn from one another. Moreover, complex problems
may be solved more readily when diverse individuals are given voice via the integration
paradigm.
Per Thomas and Ely, there are eight criteria for successful implementation of the
Integration Paradigm:
1.) The company places a premium on opinions and insights coming from any location,
2.) Management accepts both learning outcomes and potential pitfalls attributable to
encouraging differing opinions from multiple sources and cultures,
3.) The organizational requires high performance from all employees,
4.) Professional development is a cornerstone of the organization,
5.) Organizational structures are in place to mediate conflicts that may arise out of
differences of opinions,
6.) The company values their employees,
7.) The mission of the company is strong and understood by employees,
8.) The company structure is egalitarian in nature, so that hierarchical and dominant
subcultures cannot suppress the fruits of integration.

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Thomas & Ely (1996) - "Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm For Managing Diversity," Harvard Business Review

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Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity

Purpose of this reading:

A diverse workforce has been linked to increased profitability. Additionally, according to

The Discrimination-and-Fairness Paradigm is the most common approach. This

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