Reference 3

Diversity

There is a large body of evidence to show that diversity in the workplace, and particularly within teams leads a number of significant benefits. By diversity we mean differences such as gender, race, social background and cognitive preferences.

One study completed by McKinsey which looked at 366 large companies across a range of industries in Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and the United States found that:

Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
Companies in the bottom quartile both for gender and for ethnicity and race are statistically less likely to achieve above-average financial returns than the average companies in the data set (that is, bottom-quartile companies are lagging rather than merely not leading).
In the United States, there is a positive linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance.
In the United Kingdom, greater gender diversity on the senior-executive team corresponded to the highest performance improvement: for every 10 percent increase in gender diversity, earnings before tax rose by 3.5 percent.
The unequal performance of companies in the same industry and the same country implies that diversity is a competitive differentiator shifting market share toward more diverse companies.

In addition, there is specific evidence that including cognitive diversity in teams leads to greater problem- solving abilities.

For further reading and evidence see: