L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitutional

Re:L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitut... by rayiner on Saturday April 02, 2022 @04:55PM (#30891598)

Since it’s us mathematically minded people here, it’s worth pointing out that these studies don’t establish causation. You’d probably find a strong correlation between financial performance of firms and investment into other social initiatives, such as corporate philanthropy or environmental causes. It’s possible that wealthier and more successful firms are simply better able to afford such investments than less successful firms.

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Re:L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitut... by gurkendoktor on Saturday April 02, 2022 @05:06PM (#30891672)

Exactly: Most studies that I've been referred to are shiny McKinsey pages that boil down to big companies having more diverse boards on average.

Besides what you said, that's not a surprising correlation because it's easy for Multinational MegaCorp Inc. to have a multi-ethnic board after a few international mergers.

And then there are very opinionated shareholders like Vanguard and BlackRock, which receive voting rights for every Euro that I save for old age, who can make this outcome a self-fulfilling prophecy by punishing companies for lack of diversity.

I don't think it's possible to control for all of this.

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Re:L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitut... by oneoff786 on Saturday April 02, 2022 @06:02PM (#30892062)

I’ve done some work adjacent to those shiny mckinsey pages. The mergers wouldn’t explain it. It’s not looking at size, it’s looking at growth and success relative to where they were some period of time ago.

It’s probably a bit tautological. The only effective way to make your company more diverse is to grow and hire diverse candidates. This is not the case for top level leadership though. Boards as well. Growing companies want to invest in their people and that tends to result in some more attention to diversity. Conversely dusty old companies that are having their lunch eaten by tech enabled competitors do tend to be very non diverse because that’s they way it is and it’s not an environment that diverse candidates want to join. Also self fulfilling.

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Re:L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitut... by nullc on Sunday April 03, 2022 @08:57PM (#30902358)

Board diversity can also be an indirect metric indicating a board that stuffed with irrelevant rubber-stampers: if all you need is a rubber stamp wielder you can pick whatever flavor of human will complete your box of crayons, but if you actually need someone's judgement or experience the selection is more limited.

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