When stakeholders claim differently for diversity management: Adopting lesbian, gay and bisexual-inclusive practices in Italy

Abstract

In the United States, the adoption of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB)-inclusive practices by companies is triggered primarily by pressures from activists who base their claims on a business case rationale for diversity; this has been studied mainly from a social movement perspective. In Europe, by contrast, diverse actors—not necessarily constituting a unified social movement—make a variety of arguments for more inclusion, based on a spectrum of rationales. To account for this variety, this article adopts a stakeholder approach, identifying two processes through which 14 ‘pioneering’ Italian business organizations have adopted such practices: a business-driven process and an equality-driven process. This article demonstrates how these processes are mutually exclusive, and how they differ in terms of rationales, actors involved and outcomes achieved.