Diversity and innovation

Richard S. Warr and Jing Zhao

Chapter 19 in Advancing Corporate Governance Research, 2026, pp 369-384 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: While there are many motivations for firms to promote diversity in their organizations, for firms creating new products and innovations, diverse teams can be a key driver of value and performance. In this chapter, we review our work in this area and provide an overview of the literature that relates corporate workforce diversity with innovation. We identify key takeaways from the literature that provide actionable insights for firms, practitioners, academics, and policymakers alike. Furthermore, we develop areas for future research and suggest unanswered research questions related to this topic of ever-increasing importance and relevance. In our paper “Do pro-diversity policies improve corporate innovation?” (Mayer, Warr, & Zhao, 2018), we document how firms that adopt pro-diversity policies appear to enjoy higher levels of corporate innovation and innovation with greater impact and originality. Through their positive effect on innovation, pro-diversity policies also appear to enhance firm value. Our paper was the first to document this relationship between innovation and diversity using a large empirical study (prior studies relied on experimental settings). As a result, our paper has been ranked #10 in the Financial Times’ Top 100 Business School Research with Social Impact (Jack, 2020) and featured in multiple media outlets. Our study, in part, reframes the diversity question in corporations by demonstrating the economic and societal impact of pro-diversity policies and how such policies can influence firm value as well as create direct social benefits.

Keywords: Diversity; DEI; Innovation; Patents; Firm value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035324958
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035324965.00033 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22953_23

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().