Cultural diversity has been defined as “the representation, in one social system,
of people with distinctly different group affiliations of cultural significance”.
It has been studied in both laboratory and field settings. Laboratory studies,
grounded in the value-in-diversity perspective, have shown that diversity within
work groups increases their effectiveness [Cox et al. 1991]. On the other hand,
field studies, guided by social identity and related self-categorization theories,
have suggested that diversity is associated with negative performance outcomes