When you get a lot of similar people in the same room they are likely to approach a problem in the same way. A diverse group might take longer to communicate because they lack as many shared experiences but for the same reason, they can often reach a better solution.
From a literature review:
"Results suggest that cultural diversity leads to process losses through task conflict and decreased social integration, but to process gains through increased creativity and satisfaction. "[1]
[1] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n4/abs/jib...
Honest question here regarding quoting of statistics.
If statistics showed that homogenous teams led to better solving of problems, does that mean the teams should discourage diversity?
If not, then clearly the reason why diversity is encouraged is not because it brings better results, rather that it is considered as a more 'just' position.
It's like when people say "Studies show that gay parents are better parents than straight parents" as a reason to support gay marriage. The idea is simple, even if it didn't, that wouldn't be a reason against gay marriage.
Now, evaluating these studies, we might then rightfully say, that IQ evaluation is erroneous and discourages minorities, and that social status has a huge impact on the IQ. However, when diversity leads to a lower social status and poverty, doesn't this defeat the purpose of arguing for more diversity? Just to give you an insight into my thought process on this.
Another point is: Did the lack of diversity really hinder the creative minds of the last millenia?
This is exactly the reason why I think this is probably a cause and effect confusion.
Better teams might attract a diverse crowd. Just like a better product can claim a more diverse group of users.
In fact it isn't even just about 'better products', it might just be the most popular product (without any specific reason behind it). For instance, you will find Windows users to be more diverse than Linux users, mostly because former is a lot bigger userbase than latter, and Linux usage requires users to be of a certain technical aptitude (hopefully 2016 will be the year Linux Mint becomes the majority OS) which is mostly shared by the majority demographic (i.e. White males).
The minority also overrepresents other areas. For instance, some brands of hair products are more popular on Asian males, than among non-asian males (possibly because it suits their hair type better). Where as fairness creams are more popular among Indian men and women, not because of some sort of physiological differences but because of cultural preferences.
The fundamental idea is that not all areas of life will reflect the population distribution of the demographics. When I went to a fountain pen show, most people were white. There is no pipeline failure there, there is no widespread discrimination going on against non-whites.
This is simple math. Personally, after reading this bit of your post, I am starting to believe your posts deserve to be downvoted. I do pity you though.
Asians make up 5.5% of the population of the US, this includes all Asians. I don't have figures for their representation in the tech industry at large but some quick googling shows they make up some 39% of Silicon Valley workers.
African Americans make up 13% and Latinos 17%, which means for every one Asian worker in tech, we should expect around two to three African American and Latino workers.
I don't think there should be quotas but the tech industry demographics do not come anywhere close to tracking with our country's demographics.
Every industry ranging from Construction to Accountants has gender/ethnicity disparity.
That's very interesting. Can you point me to somewhere I could find more information regarding this?
The best I could find on Google was this: http://www.academia.edu/1838697/The_Dilemmas_of_Male_Element...
It does mention that, but I couldn't find much about the efforts themselves, just research.