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Despite increased emphasis on diversity marketing, much remains unknown about how brands should approach diversity. This paper aims to understand what constitutes a brand’s approach to diversity (BATD), establish a categorisation of such approaches, outline the effects on audience connectedness and establish a future research agenda.

This conceptual paper draws on critical theory and practical exemplars to present a conceptualisation of BATD.

Using two determinants, depth of diversity integration and order of entry, it is possible to categorise BATD into four types: transformative, adaptive, passive and performative. Early adoption and greater depth of diversity approaches (i.e. multidimensional to an intersectional representation of identities) provide optimal opportunities for evoking connectedness.

The conceptual typological framework for BATD helps delineate how varying levels of diversity depth and order of entry influence audience connectedness. A detailed agenda for further research can guide ongoing diversity research.

Creating a typology reduces complexity and helps marketers recognise the differing components, manifestations and effects of their diversity approach. To increase connectedness and reduce audience scepticism, marketers must seek deeper-level diversity integrations and adopt approaches earlier.

This study offers a novel conceptualisation of BATD by defining it, distinguishing it from related research themes and moving beyond single diversity dimensions and marketing mix elements. Further, audience connectedness is positioned as a critical consequence as it can instigate desirable brand outcomes, benefit those identities represented and promote a more inclusive society.

Marketing practice varies among firms. However, the prescriptive literature emphasises a universal view of practice, a “one‐size‐fits‐all” view. This paper addresses the issue of explaining diversity in competitive space and over time. Diversity in competitive space reflects the existence of different routes to high performance. Diversity over time reflects some combination of change in the individual firm and change in a population of firms. In the former case, diversity is shaped by organisational change; in the latter by the disbandment and founding of firms in the population. Miles and Snow’s typology is taken as a main point of departure in the search for explanation, and ecological and evolutionary concepts are also drawn upon. The paper starts by examining the discussion of diversity in the literature of strategic management and organisation theory, and then finds evidence of an emerging interest in diversity in the domain of marketing. Based on a number of cross‐sectional and longitudinal case studies, it proceeds to explore diversity in company marketing practice. How such variety evolves at industry level is then addressed. Finally, a view of industries as business systems with complex adaptive mechanisms, enabling both evolutionary and revolutionary changes in marketing practice, is offered.

This study aims to mark the 50th anniversary of social marketing as an innovative social change discipline; this viewpoint reviews “epistemological diversity” within social marketing and calls for its incorporation in the expansion of the discipline.

Cognisant of the visible (e.g., gender, age, race) and invisible (e.g., epistemology, experience, socioeconomic status) dimensions of diversity, this viewpoint focuses on one invisible dimension of diversity – epistemology. Using secondary data, an epistemological review of social marketing is undertaken by selecting five aspects that serve as potential indicators: professional associations, global conferences, education and training, research and publication and practice. Several recommendations are made to expand epistemological diversity in social marketing.

The epistemological review of diversity within social marketing reveals disparities between the Global North and South. These disparities are due to varying opportunities for participation in associations, conferences, education and training, and research and publication. In addition, there exist “hidden” social change practitioners who implement programmes in the Global South that are consistent with social marketing practice, but continue to be unchronicled and unheralded.

For many years, social marketing scholars and practitioners have been working to expand the boundaries of the discipline, with a focus on theory and application. Although the authors acknowledge that diversity and equity are inherently central to this discipline, epistemological diversity, specifically as linked to the geographies of the Global South, has been largely overlooked. Our viewpoint nudges the social marketing community into including epistemological diversity in the ongoing discourse around broadening and deepening the discipline of social marketing.

This paper examines the effect of market knowledge on market success of product innovativeness and the moderating role of absorptive capacity. We separated market knowledge into market diversity and market significance components and examined their effects on radical product innovation performance.

This paper adopted the secondary database study. Excluding cases with missing values of main variables, a total of 1,219 Taiwanese manufacturing firms from the Third Taiwan Technology Innovation Survey (TTIS3) database were used to test the hypotheses. A moderated hierarchical regression approach was utilized to analyze the data.

The results revealed that the relationship between market diversity and radical product innovation performance is a predominantly positive concave downward curve. In contrast, the relationship between market significance and radical product innovation performance is a predominantly negative concave downward curve. Furthermore, the results also indicated that absorptive capacity has different moderating effects on the relationships between market diversity/significance and radical product innovation performance. Absorptive capacity enhances the negative effect of market significance but suppresses the positive effect of market diversity on radical product innovation performance.

This paper is the first research which contributes to examining the relationship between market knowledge and radical product innovation sale performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association of international orientation and market orientation and their joint effects on export market success. Additionally, it aims to examine how firms’ foreign market portfolio diversity moderates this association.

On the basis of a review of the literature on market orientation and international orientation in relation to manufacturers’ performance on export markets, the paper proposes a set of hypotheses. The hypotheses are empirically tested using 249 questionnaire responses from CEOs supplemented with census data.

The results indicate that international orientation is positively related to export market success and that this relationship is independent of market portfolio diversity. The paper provides insights to the limitations of the dominant position that holds market orientation as an undisputed valuable strategic capability since market orientation has different non‐linear associations with export market success depending on market portfolio diversity. Finally, the results indicate that the joint effects of international orientation and market orientation on export market success only are present for firms with a focused market portfolio.

The authors argue that the performance implications of different strategic orientations on export market success are context‐dependent and that firms’ market portfolio diversity assists in providing this nuanced insight. The study's empirical cross‐sectional setting limits inference about causality among the constructs.

While all exporting manufacturing firms may benefit from an international orientation, business practitioners are advised to pay particular attention to the diversity of their foreign market portfolio prior to allocating resources to market‐oriented activities.

In this empirical contribution, the authors show how international orientation explains performance differentials among manufacturing exporters as well as how market orientation positively moderates this relationship. Furthermore, the paper shows the context dependency of the value of firms’ market orientation on the basis of export market portfolio diversity.

This study aims to gauge the interactive effect of export intensity and diversity on export performance among exporters in an emerging economy and explore the moderating effect of export intermediaries on the internationalization–export performance relationship.

A survey was undertaken among a convenience sample of small and medium exporters located in Guangdong and Fujian Provinces in South China.

The results show that intensity and diversity interact negatively with export performance, whereas the use of export agents registered a positive effect. Exporters pursuing a strategy of high export intensity will achieve better performance provided that these exports are concentrated in a few countries. Using export agents can help in enhancing the intensity–performance relationship but not that for diversity–performance.

Chinese exporters are advised not to blindly pursue international expansion without regard to their own resources and capabilities. They should try to strike a balance between intensity and diversity and employ external agents when needed.

This research seeks to address the void in the literature on how export intensity and diversity should be balanced to create a positive effect on the performance of exporting ventures in an emerging economy, which is under-addressed in the literature. It is also found that employment of export intermediaries is not always good for export performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between bank diversity and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) firm innovation in China to evaluate the impact of recent bank deregulation.

Using a large data set that includes 8,143 firm-year observations of 1,122 listed SME firms in China and baseline and robustness regression analyses, the authors identify how bank diversity affects firm innovation and via what economic mechanisms. Potential endogeneity problems are considered and addressed in the design and analysis to minimize research bias.

The authors find robust evidence that bank diversity improves firm innovation. Specifically, the findings suggest that the positive effects of bank diversity on firm innovation are only significant for the firms which are more external finance dependent, have fewer growth opportunities and/or located in the provinces having low financial market development.

This study provides novel evidence and insights into the relationship between banking market structure and the determinants of firm innovation in the Chinese context, as a result of China’s banking deregulation.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the diversity of markets for the provision of activation services.

The article is based on the outcomes of a project involving nine European countries. The project investigated changing forms of governance of income protection schemes and activation services for unemployed people. Diversity is investigated by focusing on five dimensions of diversity derived from the quasi‐market concept as developed by Le Grand: the purchasers, the providers, the customers, the purchaser‐provider split and the purchaser‐customer split.

The paper finds considerable diversity in the design of markets for the provision of activation. Diversity is visible in all dimensions involved in the analysis. One interesting finding is that a full split between purchasers and providers hardly exists, although some countries have introduced a stricter split than others. Another finding concerns the voice and choice of service consumers, which seems hardly affected by the introduction of market mechanisms in the provision of activation. Finally, marketisation does not seem to be an irreversible project, as de‐marketisation processes were identified as well.

Most current research into activation markets and their effects pays little attention to the issue of diversity in the design and functioning of markets. This article argues in favour of more systematic research of market diversity and of the variety of effects of various market models. Rather than comparing marketised with public service provision, a stronger focus on various market models may strengthen our insight into how service provision models affect the effectiveness of activation services.

Corporate diversity encompasses the different talents, knowledge, cultures, experiences and values of its employees. This diversity is reflected in multiple characteristics, such as race, age, gender, social class, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture and disability. The objective of this study is to identify if diversity is a value driver.

We take the diversity score from the Diversity Leaders Index 2023 published by Financial Times (FT) and Statista; this will be our independent variable in linear regression models whose objective variables are relevant fundamental indicators of the Euro Stoxx 50 companies. It is, therefore, a cross-sectional sample with financial data taken as of the current date. We have 37 Euro Stoxx 50 components included in the diversity ranking.

The results indicate that diversity is not a value driver for trading volume, for its revenue, or for systematic risk measured by the beta parameter. However, it is observed, in a confidence interval of 90%, that the most diverse companies are larger (according to their market capitalization). In addition, the most diverse companies are more profitable [return on assets (ROA)] and valued by the market [price to earnings ratio (PER)] in a confidence interval of 95%.

These results indicate that companies should promote corporate diversity as a management strategy, as it is observed that more diverse companies are more profitable and valued by the market. This study provides a quantitative vision in the context of homogeneous companies such as the Euro Stoxx 50 Index on the aspects in which diversity is a value driver.

Identification of dominant approaches and applied practices in the field of diversity and diversity management (DM) in Polish companies in the context of trends on labor market. Although there is not much diversity in Poland now, it is expected that there will be more age related and ethnic diversity in future.

Semi-structured interviews with HR specialist in 50 innovative companies (medium and large companies) were conducted. A synthesis of the current achievements of Polish research in this area was also carried out.

The concept of DM is not popular yet in Polish organizations. There are mostly observed declarative activities concentrating on image-related benefits and focusing on the equal employment opportunity. Findings are consistent with the results of other authors.

The study was limited by research methodology which presented one-sided, HR managers, view of the problem. Further studies examining other perspectives are required.

Observed trends on labor market require changes in attitudes toward diversity on organizations. A major challenge is to overcome the traditional approach. Potential benefits and threats ought to be documented, legal regulations adjusted to changes on labor market developed. The regulations ought to take the growing number of immigrants and problems associated with retirement age being lowered into consideration. Further studies are required.

The assessment of the state of DM implementation in Polish organizations in the context of labor market changes and associated challenges constitutes an original character of the present study.