It is not Supplier Diversity, it is Inclusive Procurement - a Study of the UK landscape

Purpose
Supplier diversity (SD) research has been evolving rapidly, as companies were viewed to be facing external and internal pressures to implement diversity and inclusion across the supply chain (Sordi et al., 2022). Yet political changes in the United States (US) from January 2025 and the rollback of diversity and inclusion programmes, mean the current state of diversity initiatives within supply chain and sourcing activities, is uncertain.

Previously SD research has been US dominated (Sordi et al., 2022) and fragmented, as diverse groups are often considered individually and not across all diversity characteristics, e.g. research on women and ethnicities dominate (Berenguer et al., 2024). The diverse supplier base is recognised to be businesses which are owned and operated by the following minority groups: disabled, ethnic minority, female, LGBT+, and veteran. This means there is scope to consider SD across all aforementioned groups and in different country-specific contexts, such as the UK.

The application of brokering theory (Burt, 2004) will evaluate the SD ecosystem, and we focus on the UK diverse business context. Brokers are often considered as not-for-profit organisations, and there is increased interest in how they can create, manage, or influence linkage points in supply networks. However, they suffer from a paucity of research as they can be governance actors, connectors, translators, and boundary workers depending on what is being connected (Reinecke et al., 2018). In the SD space these are advocacy groups who represent different diverse businesses but working with the private and public sectors. This leads to our research question: What is the current state of supplier diversity activity in the UK?

Methodology
Narrative interviews were adopted for this project as we were working with advocacy groups and corporates. Interviews averaged 80 minutes. In collecting narratives, initial broad thematic areas are there to facilitate conversations to capture individual experiences (McCormack, 2004), of representing businesses in the SD space and identifying progress and challenges. Data were analysed utilising inductive thematic analysis.

Findings
Although supplier diversity is recognised terminology in OSCM research, likely driven by the early work of Adobor and McMullen (2007), the term inclusive procurement is used by brokers as it is about including everyone. Thus we present a revised definition for inclusive procurement as: ‘purchasing goods and/or services from traditionally excluded or under-represented groups, which includes disabled, ethnic minority, LGBT+, veteran and women suppliers’ where these businesses must be 51% or greater, owned and operated by an individual or individuals from a diverse background’. In challenging Adobor and McMullen (2007), we note that such businesses are not always ‘visible’ such as LGBT+ and/or Veterans who may not be explicit about their status and were not aligned to the original definition.

A critical finding is that corporates with more experience in inclusive procurement, are acting as brokers in their networks and perform similar roles to advocacy groups in bridging and connecting groups. Corporates with well-developed programmes in the UK, can bring together different advocacy groups, host other corporates to educate/mentor them in inclusive procurement and also connect their own network of diverse businesses to advocacy groups. This identification of corporate brokerage highlights that there is a context dependency to inclusive procurement programmes. Initiatives in this space are related to supporting legislation, which limits sphere of influence to country-level engagements. For corporates looking to transfer practices, e.g. MNCs with long-running programmes in the US, then the mantra must be adaption, not adoption, due to the distinct legislative contexts and heterogeneity in what is considered as ethnic minority group(s) across global locations. Our inclusion of LGBT+ businesses also means that for safety and legal concerns, we identify that scaling of global inclusive procurement programmes is inappropriate without contextual adaptions.

Actions in the US have undoubtedly affected activity in the UK, due to MNCs traditionally leading inclusive procurement efforts, first in the US and then moving to implementation elsewhere. Some have rolled back endeavours, fuelled by US political pressures, others have continued, but with removing references to diversity and using inclusive procurement, having less visibility of their work which in turns provides wider challenges to greater embedment of inclusive procurement in the UK.

Relevance
With continued academic interest in diversity and inclusion in OSCM, it is important to understand the scope of work that is undertaken in non-US contexts, especially given the linkage of the subject to legislation and politics. We add further understanding to assessments in embedding socially responsible supply chains and the roles of the actors within community networks.

Contributions
We identify that inclusive procurement is the correct terminology and maintaining SD in research will add to arguments of a disconnect between academics and practitioners (deMan et al., 2022). In responding to calls for a greater focus on brokering (in procurement and supply), we additionally identify the role of corporate brokers in supporting and driving greater inclusive procurement in the UK networks.