Diversité et performance en Amérique du Nord

The goal of this paper is to contribute to the study of the diversity criterion in the measurement of corporate social performance (CSP). Our research is aiming to at evaluating the different patterns of commitment in diversity policies of North American companies. More specifically, we seek to highlight distinctive features among companies identified as successful in terms of diversity, in order to stimulate the debate on the relationship between diversity and performance. The lack of consensus in the academic literature on the interactions between diversity policies and corporate performance has led us to adopt an inductive approach, based on a cluster analysis. Relying on a 2,848 listed US companies sample drawn from MSCI-ESG 2011 database, we ran a two-step cluster analysis based on strengths and weaknesses on the topic of diversity. Our analysis led us to identify three clusters of unequal importance ("uncommitted", "committed" and "cautious"). Intercluster comparisons based on social, demographic and financial criteria led us to draw the profile of committed and efficient companies in terms of diversity. We noticed that the most successful companies on the diversity topic (the "diversity champions") show high a level of performance in other areas of social performance (human resources management, external stakeholder's management) and can also be distinguished by their performance in financial and environmental fields.