The findings of the study are described in the chronological order that matches the researchers' step-by-step analysis of the research data. There are five basic sections in this segment of the report: (1) profiles of the corporations, (2) profile of the participants, (3) analysis of annual reports, (4) interview results, and (5) summary. Additional information on the data collection and analysis procedures is also presented to the reader to clarify the process that led to the findings.
Basic background information on the corporations was assembled two months prior to the interview process and continued until the final data analysis for the study. Individual files on the study's eight corporations included corporate annual reports, community relations reports and related documents, newspaper articles, newsletter articles, journal/magazine articles, notes on corporate profiles from general business directories, and a variety of other documents (see Appendix A). From these materials, the researchers assembled a basic profile of the corporations that were sources for the data in this study.
The next section states in some detail the general characteristics of the corporate participants in the interview process. Tables are provided to concisely report a demographic profile of the participants. The third section focuses on the key corporate document, the annual report. The most current annual reports (1996) were collected from all of the corporations in the study. The annual reports were selected for this analysis because they provide a broad contextual picture of the organization.
The fourth section of the report of the findings focuses on the data collected and analyzed from the interviews and related documents. The interview findings are organized and presented in eight segments that represent the research questions that guided this study. The segments are (1) context of diversity initiatives, (2) initiatives for managing diversity in corporations, (3) diversity initiatives planning, (4) implementation of diversity initiatives, (5) evaluation of diversity initiatives, (6) factors assisting in the success of diversity initiatives, (7) barriers to diversity initiatives, and (8) future of diversity initiatives in multinational corporations.