It is almost a given that a diverse workforceis good for business. A company espousing diversity would seem to be seeking new ideas, new customers, better staff motivation and greater social legitimacy.

Certainly, business leaders readily deploy the language of diversity. "Embracing diversity not only widens and enriches the talent pool available to a business, but it offers the opportunity to expand corporate horizons through the acquisition of new ways of thinking and seeing the world," writes Sir John Bond, chairman of HSBC, the world's third largest bank, in a report arguing that there are clear "bottom- line benefits" to corporate diversity initiatives.