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This paper aims to critically examine how dual-listed multinational enterprises (MNEs) that are embedded across multiple national contexts interact with other actors to shape the diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) narrative, outcomes and the associated dynamics of social change in the mining industry.

The authors use data from the publicly available sustainability reports of two global mining conglomerates with dual-listing structure, Rio Tinto and Anglo American, alongside prevalent DEI regulations in the UK, Australia and South Africa to understand how DEI discourse and practice and the corresponding role of key actors have evolved since 2015. The authors combine a case study approach with topic modelling and qualitative content analysis to critically analyse the linkage between actors’ stated posture and actions in their DEI field and their impact upon various exchange relationships within the mining industry exchange field over the period 2015–2021.

The analysis revealed three broad phases of evolution in the DEI involvement of the MNEs emphasizing on diversity, equality and inclusion, respectively. Both firms progressed at a different pace across the three phases highlighting the need for a systemic perspective when addressing DEI concerns.

This paper is one of the earliest to adopt an issue and exchange field perspective towards examining the complexity of DEI. Taking a critical performative stance, the authors argue that for improving convergence between MNEs’ DEI rhetoric and reality and to advance DEI in new ways organizations and policymakers must devise structural interventions in the DEI field that substantively impact MNEs’ industry exchange field relationships.