Introduction
As women and minorities are continuing to become a larger proportion of the workforce in comparison to white males, corporations are beginning to experience significant changes in pools of potential candidates as high-ranking officer positions (Holton,1995; Burke, 1997; Conyon and Mallin, 1997;Burke and Nelson, 2002). The diversification of these resource pools may impact the composition of boards of directors and subsequently corporate governance (Shraderet al. 1997). While diversity within boards of directors may be a highly visible effort to demonstrate an absence of discrimination,it is unclear if diversity within boards of directors has an impact on organisational performance. The diversity literature suggests diversity adversely impacts group dynamics,but improves group decision-making.However, this research has not been conducted
with boards of directors nor has it investigated the impact of board of director diversity on organisational performance. Our
research is designed to investigate the impact of diversity within boards of directors on firm performance.To examine the relationship between board of director diversity and firm performance, we first discuss the concept of diversity and then
relate diversity to group and organisation performance. Ultimately, we examine specific relationships between board diversity and firm performance.