When stakeholders claim differently for diversity management: Adopting lesbian, gay and bisexual‐inclusive practices in Italy

In the United States, the adoption of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB)‐inclusive practices by companies is triggered primarily by pressures from activists who base their claims on a business case rationale for diversity; this has been studied mainly from a social movement perspective. In Europe, by contrast, diverse actors—not necessarily constituting a unified social movement—make a variety of arguments for more inclusion, based on a spectrum of rationales. To account for this variety, this article adopts a stakeholder approach, identifying two processes through which 14 ‘pioneering’ Italian business organizations have adopted such practices: a business‐driven process and an equality‐driven process. This article demonstrates how these processes are mutually exclusive, and how they differ in terms of rationales, actors involved and outcomes achieved.