Advancing the Potential of Diversity for Innovation

Abstract

This chapter introduces the connections between contemporary conflict talents and optimal facilitation of multicultural groups. It begins with scholarly links between cultural diversity and ingenuity along with resultant challenges. The chapter then shows how conflict skills can create and sustain the cooperative conditions promoted by scholars for nurturing innovation. Research evaluating ideal multicultural process will be shared. The author hopes that understanding these specifics will encourage business to adopt best practices in their pursuit of innovation. Ultimately, business will also recognize and embrace the rich assets of multicultural employees, teams and approaches. Daniel Goleman describes this as schooling in emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995). He believes that competitive advantage requires cooperative training in the social skills described here. Exemplary collaboration is necessary to fully leverage business, particularly intellectual, assets. For readers unfamiliar with contemporary business scholarship, this article exemplifies the growing academic use of qualitative research for in-depth exploration of the real world complexities and nuances faced by business today. One popular example of qualitative methods is the business ABStrAct