Management research on diversity, heterogeneity, dissimilarity, and related concepts of within unit differences in organizations has proliferated in the past decade. However, few clear or consistent findings have emerged. We argue that the nature of these difference-based constructs requires closer examination. Using diversity as an overarching term, we contend that it has three distinctive types: separation, variety, or disparity. Failure to recognize the unique meaning, maximum shape, and assumptions underlying each type has held back theory development and contributed to mismatched operationalizations and research design. After presenting our diversity typology, we present guidelines for conceptualization, measurement, and theory testing, highlighting the special case of demographic diversity.

The dramatic increase in distance learning (DL) enrollments in higher education is likely to continue. However, research on DL that includes psychomotor, cognitive, and affective skills is virtually non-existent. Indeed, DL for psychomotor skills has been viewed as impossible. Laboratory coursework, which we define as including learning of psychomotor, cognitive, and affective skills, has become a limiting factor in the growth of DL. What is needed is a synergistic integration of technologies and Human-Computer Interface (HCI) principles from Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), collaborative learning systems, and immersive presence technologies to enable achievement of psychomotor learning objectives. This paper defines the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning requiring Immersive Presence (CSCLIP) research area, provides a theoretical foundation for CSCLIP, and develops an agenda for research in CSCLIP to establish a foundation for the study of this emerging area. It also briefly describes a CSCLIP-based telecommunications lab currently under development. CSCLIP is presented as a major research opportunity for IS researchers interested in empirical research as well as technical development.

Differences in competences are widely believed to be an important source of enduring competitive advantage. However empirical studies investigating the sources of firm differences in terms of both human resource types, levels and degrees of heterogeneity remain sparse to date. Because firm competence rest on human resources and their relation, this study demonstrates with a uniquely comprehensive data set that human resource types, levels, and heterogeneity in engineering consulting firms are empirically separable constructs that have significant and yet different influences on firm performance in terms of productivity and profitability. Our results indicate that educational diversity matters more for explaining performance differences than levels of experience and tenure of human resources.

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With innovation being an important challenge to most organisations in the decades to come, and diversity being a natural consequence of changing demographics in most labour markets (Workforce 2000), the relationship between innovation and diversity seems to be a highly relevant issue for most organisations. However, even though most of us would be able to imagine that a

The impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of local public goods and collective action in Africa remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, this paper explores the relationship between ethnic diversity and local primary school funding in rural western Kenya. The econometric identification strategy relies on the stable, historically determined patterns of ethnic land settlement in western Kenya. The main empirical result is that higher levels of local ethnic diversity is associated with sharply lower primary school funding and worse school facilities in western Kenya. The theory examines school choice and funding decisions when pupil mobility among schools is limited by land market imperfections and ethnic divisions, the relevant case for rural Africa, and predicts that local pupil transfers may lead to upward bias in OLS estimates of the impact of ethnic diversity. This theoretical prediction is confirmed in the data.

Associate Editor Julia E. Babensee oversaw the review of this article. Abstract—While the percentage of women in biomedical engineering is higher than in many other technical fields, it is far from being in proportion to the US population. The decrease in the proportion of women and underrepresented minorities in biomedical engineering from the bachelors to the masters to the doctoral levels is evidence of a still leaky pipeline in our discipline. In addition, the percentage of women faculty members at the assistant, associate and full professor levels remain disappointingly low even after years of improved recruitment of women into biomedical engineering at the undergraduate level. Worse, the percentage of women graduating with undergraduate degrees in biomedical engineering has been decreasing nationwide for the most recent three year span for which national data are available. Increasing diversity in biomedical engineering is predicted to have significant research and educational benefits. The barriers to women’s success in biomedical engineering and strategies for overcoming these obstacles—and fixing the leaks in the pipeline—are reviewed. Keywords—Women, Engineering, Barriers, Bias.

The influence of team trust, potency and leadership on the intent to share knowledge and team creativity