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research Studies Tackle Diversity IT'S NOT SURPRISING that the diversity of organiza- tions is a popular topic among business scholars. Here is just a sampling of recent studies that explore the issue from a variety of angles: n Did DADT backfire?—In 1993, the U.S. mili- tary instituted its "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy, which allowed gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to enlist and serve, as long as they were not open about their sexual orientation. At the time, officials said the policy's intent was to promote unity and lessen dis- cord within military units. With the September 2011 repeal of DADT, researchers from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, California, ask the question: Does performance suffer when individu- als work with openly gay colleagues? Probably not, the researchers find. In fact, performance may suffer more when workers conceal their sexual orientation. A six-month study was conducted by doctoral candidates Benjamin Everly and Geoffrey Ho, with Margaret Shih, associate professor in human resources and organizational behavior at UCLA Anderson. The researchers paired 50 straight undergraduate men with gay teammates. In some pairings, the gay individual disclosed his sexual orientation; in others, he did not. Then, the researchers asked the 50 participants to com- plete math tests that measured their cognitive skills and a shooting game on the Nintendo Wii that measured their sensory-motor skills. The performance of partici- pants paired with openly gay partners was, on average, 32 percent better on the cognitive task and 20 percent better on the sensory-motor task than that of partici- pants paired with ambiguously gay partners. Previous studies have shown that individuals per- form tasks better when they can predict the behaviors and attitudes of others around them, the researchers explain. Ambiguity can hurt performance because it makes those predictions more difficult. This research suggests that men and women in the military may perform better at their jobs "when they no longer need to wonder about the sexual orientation of their comrades," says Shih. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Does Disclosure of Gay Identity Affect Partner Performance?" was recently published online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 52 January/February 2012 BizEd n Are men and women equally competitive?—A forthcoming paper finds that gender may have less influ- ence over how well—and how hard—individuals compete than was previously thought. The paper was written by Kathleen McGinn, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts; Iris Bohnet, professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School; and Harvard doctoral student Pinar Fletcher. The team asked 236 men and women to complete ver- bal and math tests. Participants were given gender-specific pseudonyms and paired with other participants; they knew only the pseudonym, but not the identities, of their partners. The researchers then ran cooperative and com- petitive scenarios between members of partnerships with all gender combinations: man with/against man, man with/against woman, and woman with/against woman. While men are expected to be more aggressive com- petitors than women, the researchers found that men and women performed equally overall in competitive scenarios—men scored slightly better on math tasks, while women scored slightly better on verbal tasks. These results contradict other studies that find men fare better than women in competitive situations, perhaps due to the types of tasks tested, says Fletcher. The team plans to continue its experiments and expand on its initial findings. In future experiments, the researchers may allow participants to choose the gender of their partner, to see how that impacts the results. A more detailed summary of "The Kathleen McGinn Untold Story of Gender and Incentives" is available at hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6772.html. n Quantifying the benefits of minority instructors— Economists Robert Fairlie of the University of Califor- nia at Santa Cruz, Florian Hoffman of the University IMAGEZOO/GLOW IMAGES