Context shapes success
Local realities, industry dynamics, and corporate cultural heritage determine what works in change or DE&I — and what fails. This trilogy shows how to make your strategy truly effective.
After decades of research, activism, networking and mainstreaming in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, everyone has their personal convictions about what drives progress in the field. Widespread beliefs, however, vary immensely from reality, as we see from deeper analyses or from the current backlash. What echo chambers celebrated over ten years did not yield resilience.
In particular, many supposed best practices have failed to deliver. While some argue this reflects lacking leadership, others point to missing resources or the evil enemies. All of these may be true, but they are symptoms. A root cause lies deeper: In most organisations, DE&I strategies still underappreciate the significance of context – starting from understanding that DE&I in business is fundamentally different from DE&I in society, politics or academia. This article consolidates three critical context layers — local or regional, industry and corporate cultural heritage — into a cohesive perspective that can overcome current resistance and bring back real progress.
Local Realities: Law, Language and Lived Experience
The most visible and acknowledged context factor is the local or regional setting in which a company operates. From the languages spoken, to relevant laws, social norms and local infrastructures, the surrounding environment determines what diversity means, how inclusion can be built and which biases are salient. Whether you are recruiting, training, communicating, manufacturing or selling: Every single business activity touches on legal and societal ground rules — and often also on culturally rooted sensitivities. DE&I is grounded and founded on many of these cornerstones – naturally.
The obvious first element that is not enough: One-size-fits-all fails
In countries like France, ethnic data is legally restricted. In Germany, gender equality is a core concern. In the Nordics, societies are more based on solidary (hence, e.g., LGBTQI is more advanced), while in many CEE countries, disability remains a central issue. Without understanding such dynamics, DE&I work risks irrelevance — or worse, rejection. The obvious relevance can be misguiding, though.
Designing global coherence with local authenticity
Focusing on local specifics only can be extremely dangerous – not only due to conflicts and a waste of resources based on fragmentation. Many professionals, especially those working in global companies or across regions, know the trap of over-adaptation and activities can even cannibalise or undermine each other. Too often, local initiatives flourish in silos while failing to align with global strategies or values. When localisation leads to micro-solutions, to inconsistent messaging or disconnected frameworks, DE&I can easily lose coherence and (organisational) legitimacy or relevance.
From local fit to cultural coherence
A smarter approach is to integrate the regional landscape into a broader framework — one that balances local relevance with global consistency. That’s not a contradiction. It requires strategic clarity and cultural intelligence. DE&I professionals must identify where adaptations are meaningful, effective or necessary and where standardisation adds value beyond resource efficiency — and they must explain these choices to local and global stakeholders alike. Recognising both local, regional and global context means understanding dependencies and embracing diversity within diversity itself.
Further Reading
https://en.diversitymine.eu/the-diversity-dilemma-global-coherence-versus-local-relevance/
https://en.diversitymine.eu/different-and-similar-the-implementation-of-di-across-europe/
Sectoral Logic: Industry Norms, Networks and Narratives
Beyond geographic context, there is another powerful cultural layer: the industry or sector in which your company operates. While everyone talks about how things are ‘particular’ in their business environment, industry is often neglected as an explicit context factor when designing cultural change or DE&I programmes. Your sector influences what talent is bred and valued, how careers develop, and how leadership is perceived. It shapes content focus, gender (im)balance, work styles and many, many unwritten expectations.
Industry-specific logics shape more than we think
Whether in manufacturing, tech, finance, healthcare or consumer business — each sector carries its own set of dynamics and cultural codes. A tech company with a flat structure and fast iteration cycles cannot use the same playbook as a bank with decades of hierarchy and formalised processes. Pharmaceutical firms that rely on research excellence require different cultural strategies than logistics providers optimising for efficiency and operational excellence.
Additionally, sectoral ecosystems — including associations, peer networks, research institutions, and NGOs — typically co-create industry-norms, and with it the DE&I discourse. They set agendas, publish benchmarks, and define what success looks like. Organisations that position themselves visibly in these sectoral platforms often gain reputational capital and stronger internal traction, including for DE&I. The lower common denominator, however, is also limiting momentum to the level of consent.
Use industry dynamics as catalysts for progress
Still, many companies ignore these levers apart from friendly networking. Instead of tapping into the unique opportunities (and pressures) their industry provides, they focus on DE&I specific platforms where supposedly universal, scalable solutions are promised — and flashy success story illustrate that. Today, this is certainly an important element in your DE&I work, yet it often lacks the traction required when you face resistance.
Adapting to sector norms without losing scale
To establish credibility, DE&I needs to speak the language of the sector. That means building business cases based on business-specific KPIs, linking diversity to sector-specific priorities and needs, or aligning DE&I narratives with stakeholder expectations. In strategy design and implementation, it means creating tools that build on established mechanism from the sector, e.g., in experiential learning, cultural development or leadership engagement. It also means identifying allies in your ecosystem and building coalitions that make progress visible — and sustainable — beyond the company’s own walls.
Further Reading
https://en.diversitymine.eu/the-case-for-industry-specific-dei/
Corporate Cultural Heritage: Invisible, Implicit Operating System
The third and most underestimated context factor is your internal organisational culture. It includes founding narratives, implicit norms, leadership routines and vast emotional heritage —the substrate on which all OD or DE&I work unfolds. It determines what works, what sticks and what gets silently rejected. It explains why some campaigns (and so-called best practices) fail, why good intentions are misunderstood, or why inclusive behaviours may feel inauthentic.
The invisible rules of heritage, identity and belonging
Unlike laws or sector standards, internal culture is not codified. It is experienced – and sometimes denied at the same time. And because of that, it is often either overlooked or romanticised. Leaders may believe their proclaimed values are ‘lived’ or assume that defined behavioural standards equal reality. Yet, while research shows that culture determines a large part of business performance, attention to culture and future-focused cultural development is limited – as seen from simplistic interventions like campaigns or trainings. Cultural excellence requires deep understanding and consistent connecting-the-dots across all entities and levels.
Especially in polarised times or volatile environments, corporate cultures become defence mechanisms. They protect against uncertainty and help people feel (deceptively) safe — and they also resist change, including the change required to succeed in the future. To thrive, DE&I must start where people actually are, not where the vision statement says they should be.
Cultural tailoring turns friction into traction
This means assessing cultural readiness honestly. What level of awareness exists? How open is leadership – or the culture as such – to dialogue? Are people allowed to express discomfort or disagreement? Without these conditions, DE&I becomes performative. With them, it becomes transformative.
Customising DE&I to your cultural context does not mean giving up on ambition. It means positioning the topic intelligently, sequencing interventions wisely, choosing messages that resonate, involving people who carry credibility, and building on the values that are truly anchored. This work is subtle – and certainly different from common DE&I activism –, but it unlocks the only change that really lasts: one that is embedded in the organisational journey from the past into the future.
Further Reading
https://en.diversitymine.eu/when-activism-spurs-positive-impact-and-when-it-doesnt/
https://en.diversitymine.eu/10-impactful-ways-to-unlearn-di/
https://en.michael-stuber.biz/
Conclusion: Customised Cultural Connection is the Way Forward
DE&I is not a discipline of universal tools and eternal truths. It is a discipline of intriguing perspectives and meaningful interpretation. That’s why context matters more than anything else — and why it must be recognised not as a mere backdrop but as a driving force. Local realities, industry logics and organisational heritage form a triad of conditions that every DE&I effort must consider, reflect and engage with.
No single context defines success — integration does
The challenge is not to choose one over the other or spread them out over years — but to integrate them intelligently. This integration does not require endless analysis or delay. It requires clarity, dialogue, experience and often, courage. Integration also means timing matters: You can’t do everything at once, and certainly not in the same way across all units or countries. A good integration allows for sequencing, adaptation, and learning in an agile way — while maintaining a shared strategic narrative. It is the only way to turn DE&I from a compliance exercise or a polarising activist campaign into a true lever for performance, belonging and long-term future-readiness.
From context awareness to practical traction
This trilogy has highlighted how local and regional specificities, sectoral norms, and deeply embedded corporate cultures jointly shape the framework for what’s feasible and what’s not. But understanding context is only the beginning. Acting on it requires translation into meaningful steps. The most immediate starting point can be to check where your culture, DE&I or leadership work is not considering your context effectively. We have developed a simple yet powerful model that helps you detect if some links are missing in your approach — and where the biggest opportunity for leverage lies.
- The Engagement Gap: Are your initiatives truly reaching the people who need to be part of the change — not just the usual champions? Is there broad, genuine involvement or just symbolic participation?
- The Impact Gap: Are your efforts translating into measurable change — in behaviour, systems, or culture? Or do they merely produce awareness, isolated activity – and an increase in diversity that would also happen with them?
- The Leadership Gap: Are your leaders shaping, steering, and owning DE&I and cultural transformation — or are they delegating it? Are these leaders mainly personally or emotionally attached to DE&I or also with a business grounding?
By analysing these gaps, organisations can calibrate their journey and identify the most impactful levers — depending on context, context, and context! From this, we can see clearly: Context is not a limitation — it is your roadmap. Only if DE&I, leadership and culture strategies are contextually integrated will they succeed — economically, socially, and organisationally. Anything else may work for some or some time — but not for all and not in a sustained way. As we currently see from the past ten years.
Further reading
https://www.european-diversity.com/welcome/
