CEOs Touting Diversity May See Big Benefits Even Without Action

Corporate leaders who talk the most about diversity may benefit from greater investment in their companies by socially conscious funds, even if hiring and promotion efforts are lackluster. The biggest braggarts may benefit the most from what researchers call “diversity-washing.”

Those are the conclusions of a study of almost all US public companies from 2008 to 2021 by researchers at Stanford University and three other universities. “It’s hard to have a real debate about this unless companies disclose what they really look like,” says David Larcker, the director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford and one of ...