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This paper is currently under 4th round review at JIBS (Journal of International Business Studies).
Co-authors are: Stella Nkomo, Mustafa Ozbilgin, Dave Thomas
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly facing pressure to evaluate their approaches to global equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). To remain relevant, international business (IB) research must incorporate EDI as part of its agenda. We provide the first systematic review of research on EDI in IB. Our purpose is to evaluate the extent to which IB research on EDI leverages MNEs’ unique position to address increasing demands for global equality and social justice. Our review includes a text analysis that tracks and compares EDI research within and outside IB. We find many similarities in terms of the categories of diversity studied and the motivation of organizations to address EDI. However, IB research is slower in addressing the current environmental shift around EDI and has yet to leverage the unique aspects of the MNE to address this topic. We follow this with a narrative review, in which we find that mainstream IB research on EDI excels in modeling complexity and theorizing foundational mechanisms, but avoids moral arguments for EDI, or challenging systemic exclusion and inequality in MNEs based on disparate power or status across social identity groups. Incorporating the purpose of EDI research with IB theories will focus IB research on the MNE’s unique opportunity to influence institutional and systemic changes toward EDI around the world.
Stacey Fitzsimmons (Ph.D. SFU Beedie School of Business, Canada) is an Associate Professor of International Business at University of Victoria's Peter B. Gustavson School of Business (Canada). Her research objective is to support globally mobile employees at work by improving the way international organizations manage them. She does this by examining how multicultural, immigrant and refugee employees contribute to their global teams and organizations, how international organizations manage and leverage their globally mobile employees, and how domestic (non-immigrant) employees react to their immigrant colleagues. Stacey's research has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, Human Resource Management Review, Organization Studies, and Organizational Dynamics. Her awards include AOM’s International Human Resources Scholarly Research award and WAIB’s (Women in the Academy of International Business) Emerging Scholar award. She currently serves as WAIB’s research officer, is spending the 2022-2023 academic year on visiting positions at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Studies (GIBS), South Africa, the University of Auckland, and the University of Sydney Business School. She is currently editing two special issues; one on “global mobility of people” at the Journal of International Business Studies, and one on “equality, diversity and inclusion in international business” at the Journal of World Business.