Research: Why Companies Should Disclose Their Lack of Progress on DEI

Stakeholders value transparency and accountability — even when you’re falling short.

June 03, 2024

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Many companies have set goals to increase employee diversity, and many companies have fallen short of meeting their goals. Most leaders would likely prefer to keep this lack of progress quiet, but research shows that there may be benefits to being transparent about it. Specifically, this type of disclosure can signal that you take diversity seriously and are genuinely committed to the goals you’ve set for your organization. That said, taking too long to make progress can dampen any goodwill you might receive from disclosure.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the national reckoning around racial injustice in 2020, many companies redoubled their commitment to increase the diversity of their workforce. New practices and policies were introduced to help reach diversity goals set by leadership, and for quite a few, this commitment was broadcast widely: centered in a CEO speech, a press release, a company town hall, on social media, or in internal messages to employees.

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Evan Apfelbaum is a social psychologist and associate professor at BU’s Questrom School of Business. His research leverages behavioral science to reveal the challenges and potential of diversity and social change.

Eileen Suh is a postdoctoral scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Her research focuses on understanding why organizations struggle to achieve diversity and inclusion goals and identifying effective strategies to improve these efforts.