Title: Highly task-related diversity vs. less task-related diversity among university staff

Authors: Jakob Lauring; Jan Selmer

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus V, Denmark ' Department of Business Administration, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus V, Denmark

Abstract: As only very few large-scale studies have investigated multi-cultural university staff and as none of these studies have dealt with diversity and group processes, this survey was directed toward staffs in 16 science departments from three large universities in Denmark. Results based on the response from 489 university staff members showed that age diversity and cultural diversity, representing highly task-related diversity, were positively associated with most of the variables depicting group cohesiveness. On the other hand, gender diversity, illustrating less task-related diversity, seemed to have a mostly negative influence on the variables portraying group cohesiveness. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.

Keywords: university staff; demographic heterogeneity; task-related diversity; academic organisations; group cohesiveness; multi-cultural organisations; multi-cultural staff; group processes; science departments; Denmark; age diversity; cultural diversity; gender diversity; education management; higher education; universities; innovation; innovative learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2013.050820

International Journal of Management in Education, 2013 Vol.7 No.1/2, pp.163 - 179

Published online: 13 Sep 2014 *

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