Broadening the Scope of Operations and Supply Chain Management Scholarship on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Justice, Paradox, and Dialectical Lenses

Abstract

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has been gaining attention in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) research but is often narrowly framed and dominated by instrumental logic. We offer three lenses that potentially broaden the scope of this scholarship: justice, paradox, and dialectical. The justice logic frames DEI as primarily a moral concern of inequality in firms and supply chains. It goes against an instrumental, performance-driven approach to establishing DEI in OSCM. To understand the persistence of tensions in DEI implementation, we present a paradox lens and link it to OSCM through four major types of organizational paradoxes: performing, organizing, learning, and belonging. We employ a dialectical perspective to resolve these tensions and combine instrumental and justice logics to explore how the latter can help firms realize DEI's (often unfulfilled) performance potential. OSCM scholars are well placed to use justice, paradox, and dialectical lenses to assess pathways for realizing DEI's transformative potential through modeling, decision support, and empirical research. Such research can help managers pursue objectives that conflict with or go beyond instrumental DEI, thus contributing to substantive DEI implementation.