Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 23, 2012

Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting

Rethinking Diversity Metrics and Indices
Alternative Approaches for Social Reporting

This paper focuses on development of a composite diversity index that is appropriate for use in social reporting. Critics of currents methods argue that simple counts of race or other attributes for measuring diversity are not sufficient for measuring the complexities of a diverse workplace. To address this criticism, broader and more appropriate diversity indices based on probability and multiple measures are demonstrated by applying quantitative models developed in biodiversity and political science research. US IPEDS data, available for more than 4,500 higher education institutions, are used to demonstrate the model. The paper sets the stage for diversity reporting by describing selected reporting frameworks and relevant court rulings.