Is there *suddenly* a lack of demand for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) and sustainability?

We’ve all heard this myth echoed by lots of loud people and many media headlines lately. But, as critical thinkers and scholars, let's review some evidence:

1. Meta's Zuckerberg loudly claims to be dismantling DE&I programs and embracing "masculine energy" now (whatever that means 🤷‍♀️), while telling investors they still value (and seek) diversity! https://lnkd.in/eZGk5p8q Moreover, Meta still somehow managed to meet (and exceed!) its DE&I goals anways... 😲

2. Companies like Costco (which remained committed to DE&I) are faring better #financially in terms of customer traffic and market share compared to companies like Target (which rolled back their DE&I commitments) https://lnkd.in/e9K6_RwP. So, while we still need larger scale analyses (which takes time), initial evidence shows the financial advantage of #DEI. 💰

3. ResearchGate, a social networking site for 160 million+ research papers and 25 million+ scholars, informed me that my research (largely focused on #DEI and #sustainability) is the most read of the School of Management SoM-HSG or perhaps the whole HSG (it's unclear how they define "department") every week this year (so far...) 🏆 Hence, people still seem to be very interested in reading the research, too! 🤓

In short, no, it doesn't seem like the demand has suddenly decreased for sustainability or DE&I. What would be the alternative for the latter, anyways, Conformity, Inequity, & Exclusion? 😅 (as cleverly put by Mayor Pete)

As Joan C. Williams wrote, some may call their initiatives something else now to avoid putting a "target on [their] back" https://lnkd.in/egzpg8Rm or avoid backlash from the term (driven by a lot of this hype) https://lnkd.in/en9DPKnK or to navigate new legal implications (in the U.S.)

But as I tell my students at University of St.Gallen, let's keep our critical thinking hats on to cut through the hype here (and beyond!) 💪