Describe how diversity can influence four aspects of group communication and give examples of each

Question

Please provide the best answer for the best statement.

Answer 1

Answer: The four aspects of group communication that diversity influences are innovation, efficacy, group processes, and group enjoyment. With innovation, decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups.Having different perspectives means also having a variety of information sources to apply to a problem or issue. For example, one study of 122 manufacturing firms showed that diverse top management teams (TMT) had a strong impact on new product innovativeness (and ultimately enhanced performance). With efficacy, it seems that building early group cohesion in diverse groups smooths the way to managing differences in later discussions. There are several ways to accomplish this, including focusing the group’s attention on the goal of the group and exploring commonalities among group members. For example, in a college course, diverse group members may discover that they participate in the same extracurricular sport or social activity and use that foundation to construct cohesion. With group processes, effective communication by some may reduce isolation and encourage effort of all group members. For example, one group of researchers randomly assigned students to task groups so that each group had varying degrees of age, gender, and ethnic diversity. Ethnic, gender, and age diversity in this study had little effect on the communication process, but those who preferred more interdependent or collectivistic interaction participated more and cooperated more in the group, thus having a more positive impact on group processes. With group enjoyment, enjoyment may be affected by diversity, but it’s also dependent largely on the communication skills of the group members, which do not always come naturally. For example, a study examined the experience of college students who worked in groups that were composed of either (1) mostly whites or (2) mostly ethnic minorities. The researchers found that minorities and white students all preferred minority-dominated teams to white-dominated teams. The researchers suggest that some level of collectivism may have been working in the minority-oriented groups and that members were more attentive to relational harmony.