Rethinking EDI Practice and Policy through Evolutionary Psychology

ongoing

REDI (Rethinking EDI Practice and Policy through Evolutionary Psychology) aims at revising how International Business (IB) views Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). EDI has come to be viewed as an essential tool in effective management, and Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are uniquely placed to rise to the challenge of reducing inequality. Yet to date, interest in EDI within IB has been largely instrumental and mainly limited to pursuing performance gains or reducing losses at a firm level. Essentially, the approach taken to EDI within IB literature employs intricate but ultimately shallow categories of diversity. As a poorly fabricated concept susceptible to almost infinite variations in interpretation, it is hardly remarkable that the literature reports conflicted empirical relationships between diversity and firm outcomes. Consequently, EDI research in IB to date is not able to explain, for example, why resistance occurs within MNEs, nor the potential for management agency. This is a significant omission as top management exerts a pivotal influence on firms’ actions and outcomes especially regarding discretionary social initiatives. Therefore, REDI asks: 1) “How can MNEs create more equal and inclusive EDI practices?” Resolving this question increases conceptual clarity between “equality”, “diversity” and “inclusion”, directs attention towards managerial action, and decreases the need for finding ever more intricate categories of diversity. And 2) “How can policy level changes support more equal and inclusive EDI practices within and beyond the MNE?” Resolving this question increas directs attention to creating a climate where EDI policies can become successful beyond ticking the box. In answering these questions, REDI will draw on evolutionary psychology and the origins of human relations as revealed by archaeological evidence, claiming that the notion of EDI could only emerge because of the existence of artificial boundaries imposed upon human relations.