ILR Impact Brief – Diversity and Inclusion: Is There Really a Difference?

By almost any measure, workforce heterogeneity is increasing. With more women, ethnic and racial. minorities, and people with different lifestyles and learning styles holding down jobs, employers are searching for strategies that effectively and efficiently put these varied skills and perspectives to maximal use. Traditional approaches to diversity management include targeted recruitment, career development, mentoring, and education and training. Some organizations, however, take a broader view and seek to eliminate barriers to full utilization of varied worker competencies. This latter approach stresses inclusion, rather than diversity, and typically involves initiatives that focus on employee participation, enhanced communication, and stronger community relations. Despite the apparent distinction between diversity and inclusion strategies, employers may use the words interchangeably

Examining the Link Between Diversity and Firm Performance: The Effects of Diversity Reputation and Leader Racial Diversity

Given the scarcity of empirical research on the impact of diversity on organizational performance, we used longitudinal data for 100 firms to test hypotheses related to the effects of diversity reputation and leader racial diversity on firm financial outcomes. The results showed a positive relationship between diversity reputation and book-to-market equity, and a curvilinear U-shaped relationship between leader diversity and revenues, net income and book-to-market equity. Our analyses suggest that economic benefits generated from diversity reputation may primarily derive from capital rather than product markets. Further, firm performance declines with increases in the representation of racial minorities in leadership up to a point, beyond which further increases in diversity are associated with increases in performance

The Effects of Recruitment Message Specificity on Applicant Attraction to Organizations

We used the elaboration likelihood model from marketing research to explain and examine how recruitment message specificity influences job seeker attraction to organizations. Using an experimental design and data from 171 college-level job seekers, the results showed that detailed recruitment messages led to enhanced perceptions of organization attributes and person-organization fit. Perceptions of fit were found to mediate the relationship between message specificity and intention to apply to the organization. In addition, perceptions of organization attributes and person-organization fit were found to influence intentions to apply under circumstances of explicit recruitment information while attractiveness and fit perceptions were shown to influence application intentions under conditions of implicit recruitment information. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

The Attack and Defense of Weakest-Link Networks

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker's objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender's objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest success functions (CSFs): the auction CSF and the lottery CSF. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, under the auction CSF, attackers utilize a stochastic “guerilla warfare” strategy — in which a single random target is attacked — more than 80% of the time. Under the lottery CSF, attackers utilize the stochastic guerilla warfare strategy almost 45% of the time, contrary to the theoretical prediction of an equal allocation of forces across the targets.Colonel Blotto, conflict resolution, weakest-link, best-shot, multi-dimensional resource allocation, experiments.

The Attack and Defense of Weakest-Link Networks

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker’s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender’s objective is diametrically opposed .We apply two benchmark contest success functions (CSFs): the auction CSF and the lottery CSF. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, under the auction CSF, attackers utilize a stochastic “guerilla warfare” strategy - in which a single random target is attacked - more than 80% of the time. Under the lottery CSF, attackers utilize the stochastic guerilla warfare strategy almost 45% of the time, contrary to the theoretical prediction of an equal allocation of forces across the targets.Colonel Blotto, conflict resolution, weakest-link, best-shot, multi-dimensional resource allocation, experiments

The Language of Bias: A Linguistic Approach to Understanding Intergroup Relations

[Excerpt] This chapter explores the role of language in the relationship between diversity and team performance. Specifically, we consider how a linguistic approach to social categorization may be used to study the social psychological mechanisms that underlie diversity effects. Using the results of a study examining the effects of gender, ethnicity and tenure on language abstraction, we consider the potential implications for team processes and effectiveness. In addition, we propose a revised team input-process-output model that highlights the potential effects of language on team processes. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research linking diversity, linguistic categorization and team effectiveness

The Attack and Defense of Weakest-Link Networks

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker’s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender’s objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest success functions (CSFs): the auction CSF and the lottery CSF. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, under the auction CSF, attackers utilize a stochastic “guerilla warfare” strategy — in which a single random target is attacked — more than 80% of the time. Under the lottery CSF, attackers utilize the stochastic guerilla warfare strategy almost 45% of the time, contrary to the theoretical prediction of an equal allocation of forces across the targets.Colonel Blotto, conflict resolution, weakest-link, best-shot, multi-dimensional resource allocation, experiments

Parent Preferred Teacher Qualities: The Call for Highly Qualified Teachers

This study sought to answer the question, “What teacher characteristics do parents value most?” as an initial response to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.The purpose of this study was to determine what teacher characteristics parents perceive as making teachers highly qualified to be used to improve parent-teacher relations and teacher effectiveness. To answer this question, a survey was used to collect data from the parents of K-5 students. 176 surveys were returned out of the 800 administered and were used to help the researcher conclude that there is not a teacher characteristic that stands alone to make a teacher highly qualified in terms of parent based preference. Of the eight characteristics examined, all but one received a majority ranking of 5 for “very important,” signifying that it is a combination of teacher characteristics that parents value. The remaining characteristic (The teacher supports and encourages me to utilize school community council.) only received a ranking of 5 for 67 of the 176 participants. This information lead the researcher to believe that less than half of parents either a) believe a teacher needs to inform parents of school organizations or b) see participation in such organizations as valuable to themselves

Improving Nursing Faculty Comprehension of Evaluation Methods

In nursing education, faculty do not have best practice guidelines or consistent methods for assessing learning outcomes. Specific variances include; test construction, delivery, and evaluation methods. DNP project, titled Improving Nursing Faculty Comprehension of Evaluation Methods, addressed the lack of consistent faculty evaluation methods, and based on research increased integration of evidenced based concepts into practice. The following PICO was used for the project statement: “In nursing faculty at a Midwestern associate degree program, what is the effect of an educational in-service regarding evaluation methods, compared to no intervention on outcomes of comprehension and confidence in the use of best practice guidelines for evaluation methods based on self-report?” In the literature review, the following nine themes emerged: faculty impact on student success, assessment strategies, test construction, administering exams, use of evidence, clinical evaluation, math evaluation, English as a second language student, and reflection to build critical thinking. Faculty at a Midwestern associate degree program attended an educational offering regarding the researched themes that serve as the independent variable. A quasi experimental pre/post-test design, was implemented to evaluate confidence, comprehension, and perceived ability to overcome barriers with evaluation methods. Cronbach’s Alpha determined internal consistency, therefore reliability with the survey tool. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to determine decreased confidence, increased comprehension and perceived ability to overcome barriers with evaluation methods. Finally, Spearman’s Rho concluded correlation between the independent variable, comprehension, and overcoming barriers for evaluation methods. Future studies should consider a larger sample size to validate findings. Key words: DNP Capstone project, learning assessment, and test construction

The Unified Behavior Framework for the Simulation of Autonomous Agents

Since the 1980s, researchers have designed a variety of robot control architectures intending to imbue robots with some degree of autonomy. A recently developed architecture, the UBF, implements a variation of the three-layer architecture with a reactive controller to rapidly make behavior decisions. Additionally, the UBF utilizes software design patterns that promote the reuse of code and free designers to dynamically switch between behavior paradigms. This paper explores the application of the UBF to the simulation domain. By employing software engineering principles to implement the UBF architecture within an open-source simulation framework, we have extended the versatility of both. The consolidation of these frameworks assists the designer in efficiently constructing simulations of one or more autonomous agents that exhibit similar behaviors. A typical air-to-air engagement scenario between six UBF agents controlling both friendly and enemy aircraft demonstrates the utility of the UBF architecture as a flexible mechanism for reusing behavior code and rapidly creating autonomous agents in simulation