Minisymposium Presentation

Diversity plays a crucial role in team and organizational success, with positive and challenging implications. Social information processing theory highlights the benefits of diverse perspectives, whereas social identity theory points to potential issues like reduced cohesion and increased conflict. In research software engineering, which includes consulting, education, and community building, the collaboration between experts and scientists emphasizes the complexity of managing diversity. This field encounters various technical knowledge, project scopes, and organizational contexts. Building on last year's discussion, this presentation introduces five consultancy roles—technical domain, tool, scientific domain, organization, and organizational context—to address these challenges. Additionally, we explore community representation and interaction within the German developer community, presenting findings on perceived membership and involvement. This year's talk reviews previous research, details efforts in assembling a diverse participant panel for software engineering studies, and previews future research to uncover the multifaceted effects of diversity in this field. This approach summarizes past and current efforts and anticipates further studies that will delve into the opportunities and challenges diversity presents in research software engineering.