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The purpose of this paper is to explore the triggers to the development of sexual orientation diversity policy and practice in the UK private sector, based on the perspectives of those “championing” sexual orientation diversity work.

The paper is based on 22 in‐depth key informant interviews which can be broken down as follows: diversity specialists (5), management (6, of whom 3 were sexual orientation senior management “champions” in their organisations), trade union (3) and LGBT network group representatives (8), as well as access to company and trade union web sites and publications. Interviews sought to trace the history of sexual orientation equality and diversity work, development of structures, policies and practices as well as triggers and barriers to progress and areas of innovation.

Recent literature on equality and diversity in the British national context has sought to explore the implications of a social justice versus a business case driven equality and diversity agenda. This paper considers that this dichotomous analysis can be unhelpful. Within the private sector case studies, the difference between the two approaches was not clear‐cut. The corporate social responsibility agenda seemed to offer a broader vision for sexual orientation diversity work in a global context. It promised a more activist awareness of international human rights standards, stakeholder involvement plus links between employee and customer rights and concerns.

The paper addresses a gap in knowledge regarding sexual orientation diversity management in the UK private sector. It also considers the links between corporate social responsibility and sexual orientation diversity management.

This study investigated consumer responses to LGBTQ+ specific diversity CSR, taking into account different levels of CSR engagement and perceived CSR fit. Perceived motives were considered as a mediator in the process.

An online experiment was conducted using real consumer samples (n = 376).

As companies actively demonstrate corporate values to promote LGBTQ+ human rights, consumers recognized that LGBTQ+ diversity CSR was being pursued out of altruistic motives for social good stemming from business ethics and morals. In addition, it was found that the more active the LGBTQ+ diversity CSR practice, the higher the evaluation of the company among consumers. Regarding CSR fit, perceived fit in LGBTQ+ diversity had a significant effect on both the consumer perception of CSR motive and the company evaluation. In addition to these direct impacts of CSR level and CSR fit, these two factors indirectly influenced corporate evaluation through perceived motivation and consequently affected purchase intention.

Despite drastic changes in the legal and social environment related to LGBTQ+ diversity, there are few studies on how consumers will react when companies actively or passively participate in or hesitate and oppose CSR on LGBTQ+ diversity. By presenting empirical evidence of consumer response to LGBTQ+ CSR, this study provided business managers and public relations professionals with the insights they need to make informed decisions about the extent to which they engage in LGBTQ+ diversity CSR.

Companies should develop a domestic organisational culture to effectively address the prevailing domestic workplace and marketplace diversity. If this effort is successfully implemented, companies can then use diversity as a competitive advantage to pursue global business opportunities. This paper examines the link between domestic corporate diversity and global business opportunities, and whether this link might result in diversity being used as a tool for globalisation. It is the intent that the approach to diversity being advocated in this paper may be adopted by corporations whose cultural structures differ from that of the US culture.

Examines the role of key players such as front‐line and middle managers as well as executives in implementing and sustaining corporate gender diversity initiatives. Findings show that mentors and role models can have a great effect, especially in assisting women employees gain and complete high profile projects important for their advancement. Develops key leadership roles and discusses them through a number of case examples.

Do women contribute to performance of companies on which they serve as board of directors? Many prior studies examine this issue, but no consensus is reached on the benefits of women taking on leadership positions. The present study considers this thorny issue from a slightly different perspective. Does the association between gender diversity and business performance vary across sectors and economic cycles?

The sample for this study was derived from the firms included in the S&P Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) 300 Index, and the study period of 2004–2016 allowed authors to consider the effects of different sectors as well as different economic cycles on the relationship between gender diversity of boards and business performance. The authors consider the Australian context, which is somewhat unique from the other Western countries, as quotas on boards of directors are not made mandatory and the corporate governance practices are principle-based rather than rule-based.

Employing panel data models, at the aggregate level, the authors find no evidence of board gender diversity impacting business performance. Consideration of sectoral differences and economic cycles in the empirical analyses yielded additional insights. In particular, gender diversity has a beneficial association with performance for businesses in the services and financial sectors after the changes to corporate governance guidelines relating to diversity in 2010. These economic benefits, however, are not evidenced in the resources sector.

These findings offer support for critical mass and resource dependence theories.

The findings of this study have implications for inclusion and diversity policies of businesses and the society. Specifically, the findings offer support for gender diversity of corporate boards of directors.

This study highlights that women bring their unique skills and experiences to create economic value in sectors where they traditionally have more experience and opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the rationale for supplier diversity, constituent elements of each case study programme, actual performance of the initiatives and key challenges involved in implementing supplier diversity programmes.

This paper goes beyond armchair accounts of the “American experience”, and presents evidence from three exemplars of supplier diversity in the USA – Ford Motor Company, JPMorgan Chase, and Unisys. Semi‐structured interviews with supplier diversity teams within these three case study firms were conducted to understand the rationale, drivers and challenges to implementing supplier diversity programmes.

The case studies highlight the importance of the “business case” in explaining corporate receptiveness to supplier diversity. This has particular force in light of the progressive “browning” of the USA. However, the role of the government as catalyst is not to be understated; a number of respondents identified governmental pressure as an important influence on the approach to supplier diversity. Sophisticated monitoring of supply chains and intense out‐reach activities with minority business enterprises were important features of the case study firm and provide a sharp contrast with the position in the UK.

The paper concludes by assessing the key elements of successful supplier diversity initiatives, and reflecting on the lessons that could be learned for the UK.

In this paper, the authors examine how religious and political factors affect a firm's corporate governance diversity policies.

The authors develop five basic empirical models. Model 1 examines how religious beliefs and political affiliation determine whether a firm will establish diversity incentive in its senior executives' performance assessment. Model 2 investigates how the diversity goal, religious beliefs and political affiliation separately affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 3 examines how the diversity goal and environmental factors interact to affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 4 and Model 5 examine whether the diversity incentive in senior executives' compensation plan and the environmental factors (religious belief and political affiliation) help to reduce the compensation differentials between male and female executives.

The authors find that firms located in more liberal counties with more Mainline Protestants and less Republican voters in the United States are more likely to include workforce diversity as a criterion in evaluating their senior executives. The authors also provide evidence that firms with diversity goals have more female directors, more female senior executives and more minority directors. However, they find no evidence that the compensation differentials between male and female executives are smaller in these firms. Finally, they find that external environment affects the effectiveness of the implementation of the diversity goals.

In line withthis branch of research, the authors expand the literate on the link between corporate culture and corporate decision-making by investigating the non-financial performance measures. Besides the corporate decision-making in investment, financial reporting and social responsibilities as documented in prior studies, the authors argue that the religious beliefs and political affiliations could also affect the development and implementation of corporate non-financial performance goals in executive incentive contracts.

The purpose of this study is to broaden an understanding of women's perceptions regarding advancement potential/barriers to success in upper echelon corporate roles in the S&P 500 in connection with understanding 21st-century family dynamics, rather than addressing gender in isolation.

Data collection in this study is based on semi-structured phone interviews with 13 women who have been identified by organizational leadership in an S&P 500 company as having high advancement potential. The results are evaluated using interpretive phenomenological analysis.

Participants' responses support existing research showing that women feel more responsible than their male counterparts for subordinating their career prospects to those of their male partners. Further, participants express that work–life and work–family balance constitute problematic barriers to advancement and often lead them to “choose” to slow-track career advancement and to avoid advancement opportunities. This choice narrative propagates women's perceptions that barriers to advancement are self-imposed. Participants viewed the extreme work model as inevitable in upper-echelon corporate roles, signaling the need for an increased understanding of how a broad definition of familial roles and work culture – rather than gendered issues in isolation – affect advancement opportunities in a 21st-century workforce.

Current organizational diversity initiatives have focused too myopically on gender. For organizations to create a more inclusive model for success at the upper echelons, it is essential to broaden organizational initiatives to address 21st-century employees rather than gendered programs. Organizations can endeavor to implement more effective models that enable two partners in a home with dependent children to advance, and all employees, even top leaders, to balance current definitions of work–life in several ways discussed.

The findings of this study are significant, in that they move toward addressing a gap in knowledge concerning women's perspectives on the changing family paradigm, extreme work culture and an expanded understanding of work–life balance. This reconceptualization can help mitigate gendered research and organizational programs that reinforce entrenched binaries, and instead enable organizations to implement more effective initiatives to improve advancement opportunities.

This analysis draws on interviews with 19 self-identified US diversity consultants and 94 diversity statements posted on corporate websites. The findings challenge existing literature that characterizes the business case for diversity as monolithic and wholly problematic for the way it constructs understandings of human difference. The authors accomplish this using metaphor analysis to demonstrate how business case arguments incorporate three metaphorical systems for thinking and speaking about human differences – as asset, as liability and as possibility. Given this diversity of metaphors, the business case does not construct human difference in a monolithic way, but in a variety of ways that both challenge and sustain problematic treatments of difference. The authors argue scholars and practitioners should attend to these nuanced difference within the discourse of the business case, and more carefully consider how these metaphorical systems both enable and constrain the design and execution of diversity work in organizations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The analysis draws on two data sets: initial interviews with 19 self-identified US diversity consultants analyzed using metaphor analysis. To triangulate findings, the metaphorical framework was applied to 94 diversity statements posted on corporate websites.

Business case arguments operate according to three root metaphors of human difference: human difference as asset, human difference as liability and human difference as possibility. This challenges existing literature that treats the business case as a monolithic discourse.

This analysis offers the three metaphorical system and highlights the “constrained capacity” of each. This framework offers an analytical and practical tool for scholars and practitioners, enabling them to more thoroughly understand and respond to their unique organizational and socio-historical context. It also provides a way to analyze how concepts of difference are mobilized across social and historical contexts.

The findings offer the “constrained capacity” that is, the strategic limitations and possibilities for practitioners who use the business case in their diversity work. This enables more skilled and ethically informed diversity initiatives.

The findings offer insight into the subtle ways that hierarchies of human difference embedded in US history are subtly reinforced and made present through language. This enables social justice workers to better challenge problematic constructions of human difference and create new understandings when needed.

This piece makes two significant original contributions to existing literature. It offers more nuance to both critical and uncritical analyses of the business case by showing the diversity of business case assumptions about human difference as demonstrated in three different metaphorical systems and highlighting the constrained capacity of three different metaphorical systems. It offers unique analysis grounded in contemporary discourses, but correlated to historical systems of thought. This enables empirical identification of how certain types of thinking about human difference move across socio-historical contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of rolling out diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives globally and to provide leaders with guidance for successful global implementation of their D&I initiatives.

Possible methods examined include highly tailored global diversity curricula and numerous interviews with global D&I leaders from around the world. The recommendation and analysis of these methods is based on 25 years of Global Dynamics' experience consulting multinational companies on global diversity matters.

The author's research has found that global implementation of a Western‐centric approach to diversity and inclusion is a guarantee of failure. Leaders must be aware of the potential risk areas involved in implementing global D&I initiatives; appreciation of the ways the dimensions of diversity vary in scope and importance across cultures is key.

This paper is based on more than 25 years of experience working with the world's leading international organizations to enhance their global performance.