Diversity Initiative Effectiveness: A Typological Theory of Unintended Consequences

The purpose of diversity initiatives is to help groups that face disadvantage in society achieve better outcomes in organizations, but they do not necessarily work as intended. To advance understanding of the effects of diversity initiatives, I develop a typological theory of their unintended consequences. I propose that diversity initiatives produce four unintended consequence types: backfire (negative diversity goal progress), negative spillover (undesirable effects on outcomes other than diversity goal progress), positive spillover (desirable effects on outcomes other than diversity goal progress), and false progress (improved diversity metrics without true diversity goal progress). I then adopt a signaling perspective to identify mechanisms underlying the four types and the diversity practices most likely to produce them. The resulting typological theory not only provides an organizing framework for prior work on the unintended consequences of diversity initiatives but also specifies new unintended consequence types, identifies signals that serve as their root causes, and suggests that the unintended consequences of diversity initiatives are interrelated and multidetermined. Collectively, these contributions advance a broader conceptualization of diversity initiative effectiveness, in which a wider range of mechanisms and outcomes, as well as the relationships among them, must be considered. More comprehensive theory regarding their unintended consequences provides a foundation for increasing diversity initiative effectiveness.