Digital corporate governance at diversity, equity, and inclusion in operations and supply chain management: A mixed-method approach

Although diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are valuable elements in the composition of sustainable operations and deserve attention from organisations, it remains under-researched compared to other topics in Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM). We identified a gap in the OSCM literature in analysing DEI in an integrated way with digital transformation (DT) culture and corporate governance (CG) practices, which we refer to in this study as Digital Corporate Governance (DCG). We used a mixed-method approach and the transformational leadership theory as a theoretical lens. In the quantitative analysis, survey research with 402 companies from an emerging economy hypothesised DCG as an enabler of DEI and financial and workers' performance. In the qualitative analysis, 19 semi-structured interviews with large, multinational, and national companies were performed, and corroborations and contradictions with the proposed hypotheses were found. In the quantitative analysis, DCG leverages DEI, positively affecting financial and workers' performance. In the qualitative analysis, the results corroborate the link between DCG on DEI and workers' performance. However, some contradictions were found regarding the positive influence of DT culture on DEI and, consequently, on financial performance. We contribute to OSCM by discussing the concept of Digital Corporate Governance that can be applied to companies' integration with DEI.