Chapter 7. DEALING WITH DIVERSITY IN R&D ORGANIZATIONS

As markets and access to technology have spread internationally, R&D organizations have become more culturally diverse. Research teams with one scientist in Asia, another in Europe, and a third one in North America are now much more common than they were a decade ago.

E-mail and other electronic forms of communication allow for extensive and inexpensive international communications. Talent can be found in many places, and the very top people from every continent often like to work together. Joint research projects with scientists who are different in culture, gender, age, sexual orientation, discipline, organizational level, and function are more common.

In addition, many of the world's problems cannot be solved by people from a single discipline. Interdisciplinary work is essential if such problems are to be solved.

Graduate departments in U.S. universities have substantial numbers of students from different geographical and cultural backgrounds. Many of these professionals will collaborate in the future in any number of different places.

The Space Station is such an expensive research project that it requires funding from the United States, Russia, Japan, and the European Union. Scientists from all these regions work on it. Antarctic expeditions often have members from half a dozen countries. Women are increasingly becoming engineers and scientists and work side by side with men in many R&D laboratories. Young scientists often work with older and more experienced mentors. Sexual orientation and physical disability have nothing to do with talent. In fact, if Freud's theory of sublimation is correct, people who repress their homosexual tendencies, to avoid "coming out of the closet," may be especially hardworking and creative.