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In an era where diversity is a strategic part of workforce planning, we take it for granted that this practice helps to engage minority workers and broaden corporate culture.

The “accepted wisdom” about diversity programs in multinational companies is that they sensitize workers about how to deal with the challenges of collaborating on global teams.

But what if this precept is wishful thinking? Research by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam suggests that ethnic diversity builds distrust and a lack of civic engagement. “The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined,” he told the Financial Times. “And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”

Although the Harvard study looked at communities - not corporations - a number of HR experts are pondering the implications for diversity programs. It suggests to me that the challenge of integrating diverse groups of workers located in different countries is primarily a trust issue. But it gets worse: “The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation’s social fabric,” writes the Boston Globe.

I was disappointed by the assertions in an article this past week by two HR experts, writing for ERE.net, who state that, “Across workgroups in the United States, as well as in Europe, diversity (in terms of ethnicity, age, and other factors) is generally associated with lower group cohesion, lower satisfaction, and higher turnover.”

Diversity, as practiced by companies such as Pepsi, is generally considered a magnet, especially for talented minority - or immigrant - workers.

Do our differences make us stronger? You can argue that either way. But I believe that learning to embrace our differences makes us stronger. Hopefully, Putnam’s work is not an indicator of what’s happening in multinational companies or in diverse workplaces. More study is needed to see whether Putnam’s research applies strictly to communities rather than to corporate workgroups too.