CONTACTS: Eric Whittington, Assistant Director of External Relations [email protected] Patricia Divine, Assistant Dean for External Relations (336) 758-5030 or (800) 722-1622 Babcock Graduate School of Management Wake Forest University
Move toward diversity may increase reliance on stereotypes in gauging colleagues' performance
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The benefits of placing workers in teams reflecting a diverse range of backgrounds can be jeopardized if the effects of stereotyping are not understood, according to a professor at Wake Forest University.
Kelly Mollica, assistant professor of management at Wake Forest's Babcock Graduate School of Management, conducted the research. She said simply putting people in diverse teams isn't enough to achieve the goals that businesses seek.
"The most important implication of these results is that stereotyping in a team setting can lead to team members being assigned roles that are consistent with stereotypes rather than with actual skills or competencies," Mollica said. "These role assignments limit skill development and learning in both educational and corporate settings."
Mollica studied first-year MBA students who had been intentionally placed in diverse teams. The students were asked to rate their teammates on various skills. Just six weeks after the teams were formed, students tended to evaluate their fellow team members' skills and abilities based on stereotypical assumptions, according to the study.
Among the evaluations:
-- Men were rated higher than women in the so-called "hard" skills, such as quantitative, computer and analytical skills;
-- Women were rated higher than men in the so-called "soft" skills, such as interpersonal and group skills;
-- Whites were rated higher than racial minorities on leadership skills;
-- Asians were graded higher than other groups in the "hard" skills; and
-- Blacks and Hispanics were generally rated lowest on most skills. Mollica said the research indicates that the MBA students relied heavily on race and gender stereotypes in evaluating their teammates' compentency. The findings could have implications for the corporate world, where workers are increasingly being asked to function in diverse teams. "Team members need to be aware of the effects of stereotyping," Mollica said, "or the positive benefits of diversity may be lost." Mollica said MBA students were chosen because business schools, in an effort to better prepare their students for employment, assign students to work in teams that have been formed to reflect a mix of different races, nationalities, genders, functional backgrounds, work experiences and undergraduate degrees. She said the assumption behind the practice is that such a requirement will help students learn how to communicate more effectively in a diverse work setting and appreciate the value of diversity. Her research questions effectiveness of the technique.
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