The significant differences between people are primarily cultural.
This may be true, but I suspect that the reason for the "diversity effect", if any, is simply that it creates diversity of ideas. Whether that arises from cultural differences, biological differences, or some other source is likely immaterial.
There is some evidence that novelty-searching is more productive overall than goal-searching, at least in some contexts (video of a talk on the subject by its principal researcher, Ken Stanley, PhD: https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI). Perhaps diversity contributes simply by increasing novelty within the organization---it's not that people are doing things better, but that they are doing them differently.
This may be true, but I suspect that the reason for the "diversity effect", if any, is simply that it creates diversity of ideas. Whether that arises from cultural differences, biological differences, or some other source is likely immaterial.
There is some evidence that novelty-searching is more productive overall than goal-searching, at least in some contexts (video of a talk on the subject by its principal researcher, Ken Stanley, PhD: https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI). Perhaps diversity contributes simply by increasing novelty within the organization---it's not that people are doing things better, but that they are doing them differently.