The question of diversity is one that we have discussed previously on the Brain for Business podcast. While the benefits of diversity are often taken for granted and assumed in the popular press and discourse, research examining the actual benefits of diversity in terms of team effectiveness and performance have – up until now – been sadly lacking.
In a paper to be published shortly in the Journal of Business of Psychology, our guest today, Dr Lukas Wallrich and colleagues seek to address this gap in the literature.
Dr Lukas Wallrich is a Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck Business School , University of London, where he teaches on organisational psychology master programmes and primarily researches how workforce diversity can be harnessed to improve organisational performance. Other research interests include the effect of intergroup contact on pro-social behaviour, the development of stereotypes and implicit associations and the influence of traditional and new media on public attitudes.
Prior to moving into academia, Lukas worked as a consultant with McKinsey and Co.
Lukas’s personal website is as follows: https://www.lukaswallrich.coffee/
A pre-print copy of the article discussed is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nscd4
The interactive web app with the data from the article can be accessed here: https://lukaswallrich.shinyapps.io/diversity_meta/
Series 2, Episode 48 – How does diversity impact team performance? With Dr Lukas Wallrich, Birkbeck Business School, University of London