Telling and selling the value of diversity and inclusion—External consultants' discursive strategies and practices

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Gill Kirton,Anne‐Marie Greene
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12253

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Telling and selling the value of diversity and

inclusion—External consultants' discursive

strategies and practices

Gill Kirton

1

| Anne-Marie Greene

2

1

Centre for Research in Equality and

Diversity, School of Business and

Management, Queen Mary University of

London

2

School of Business, University of Leicester

Correspondence

Gill Kirton, Centre for Research in Equality

and Diversity, School of Business and

Management, Queen Mary University of

London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK.

Email: g.kirton@qmul.ac.uk

Funding information

British Academy

Abstract

On the basis of a qualitative study of a subgroup of diver-

sity professionals, external diversity and inclusion (D&I) con-

sultants, we explore D&I consultants' discursive strategies

and practices situated within organisational structures, rela-

tions, and interactions of power and knowledge. Theoreti-

cally, the research reveals how D&I consultants' own

discursive strategies interact with existing organisational

and societal discourses of diversity, incrementally shaping

their continual evolution. A classification is developed,

which sets out four approaches taken by consultants with

regard to their discursive strategies in relation to clients.

The findings suggest that HR practitioners need to work in

tandem with external consultants to develop strategies to

improve the status and legitimacy of diversity work if the

field is to progress the organisational D&I agenda.

KEYWORDS

discourse, discursive strategies, diversity and inclusion

consultants, diversity management, diversity professionals

1|INTRODUCTION

External diversity and inclusion (D&I) consultants potentially act as diversity policy and practice fashion setters

across sectors, industries, and organisations (Oswick & Noon, 2014). They are, therefore, responsible for the continu-

ing spread of diversity rhetoric and mimetic policies (Prasad, Prasad, & Mir, 2011). However, we know little about

how external consultants persuade organisations to buy their diversity services because they are typically only a tiny

proportion of research participants in a small number of studies (Greene & Kirton,2009; Mease, 2015). This omission

Received: 30 July 2018 Revised: 28 June 2019 Accepted: 30 June 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12253

676 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;29:676–691.

is surprising given the diversity policy paradigm grew out of consulting in the United States (Cox & Blake, 1991), and

there are indications that their numbers are increasing. Existing research on the broader category of diversity profes-

sionals indicates that change agency is constrained by a culture of organisational undervaluing of diversity work (e.g.,

Greene & Kirton, 2009; Tatli & Ozbilgin, 2009). However, existing literature does not explore how this culture affects

external D&I consultants specifically and what strategies they deploy to navigate and counter it during consulting

interactions before they even enter organisations. This article contributes to knowledge of diversity professionals'

work, drawing on a qualitative study of U.K.-based external D&I consultants' discursive strategies and practices. The

article's overarching research question is, how do external D&I consultants “tell and sell”the value of their work to

clients? Two subquestions informed by extant literature and our empirical research are then addressed: (a) What

organisational barriers do D&I consultants perceive as impacting upon their work, and (b) what discursive ideas and

strategies inform how they seek to work with, and self-position vis-à-vis, clients in order to overcome barriers and

undertake their work?

Next, we turn to existing diversity literature to outline briefly the evolution of diversity theory and practice and

to position diversity professionals and their work as operating in an undervalued consulting subfield. We then

describe the research fieldwork, data analysis, and the U.K. diversity management context. In Section 5, we demon-

strate that external D&I consultants are an influential subgroup of diversity professionals, encountering multiple con-

straints in exercising agency, producing challenges, dilemmas, and tensions. Most notably, D&I consultants display

strong personal commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion that is sometimes at odds with organisational ratio-

nales for diversity work centred on the business case, but they continually attempt to enact such via their own

praxis. A descriptive classification is developed, which sets out four approaches taken by consultants with regard to

their discursive strategies in relation to clients. Finally, the conclusion draws out the conceptual and practical implica-

tions of the findings.

2|DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT AND DIVERSITY PROFESSIONALS—

LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE

2.1 |Evolution of a concept

The historical dimension of discourses aids understanding of contemporary practices (Marsh, 2009). The diversity

concept/discourse was a practitioner-led response to the 1980s backlash in the United States against the social jus-

tice aims of affirmative action (see Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000; Noon, 2007), which organisations widely considered

either of little help or counterproductive (Kelly & Dobbin, 1998). Diversity shifted the focus from the moral concern

for combating discrimination and disadvantage experienced by socially marginalised groups (largely women and black

and minority ethnic [BME] people) to an expanded notion of workforce diversity encompassing myriad individual dif-

ferences and diversity policies for the sake of business imperatives and goals (e.g., improving competitiveness, profit-

ability, and productivity).

Scholars have critically interrogated the discourse of diversity and exposed its many flaws and limitations. In par-

ticular, the business case has attracted much opprobrium for unproven and hollow claims, failure to render diversity

management a high organisational priority, and inability to deliver the promised transformation of organisational cul-

ture (Bendick & Egan, 2010; Foster & Harris, 2005; Greene & Kirton, 2009; Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000). Part of the prob-

lem is an organisational policy–practice gap (Kirton, Robertson, & Avdelidou-Fischer, 2016) caused in part by

diversity work's location in HR, meaning that initiatives suffer from lack of managerial legitimacy whereas middle/line

manager resistance fosters a culture of undervaluing diversity (Foster & Harris, 2005; Sinclair, 2006; Tatli, 2011). Yet

organisations continue to work on diversity partly due to need to comply with antidiscrimination legislation and

partly due to isomorphic pressure to be seen to be doing something in an era when corporate social responsibility

and business ethics are compelling parallel discourses (Greene & Kirton, 2009; Litvin, 2002). The recent linguistic

shift of tacking on “inclusion”responds to one aspect of the critique of the business case. Conceptually, “inclusion”

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