DEI in B2B selling: a systematic review and research agenda
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has emerged as a central component of a thriving workplace culture, enhancing employee well-being, creativity and innovation, decision-making, and overall performance. Despite its growing importance, the human aspect in a business-to-business (B2B) sales context, specifically the DEI component, is still insufficiently explored. To address this gap, this paper emphasizes the critical role of DEI in B2B sales organizations—not only in promoting a positive workplace culture but also in harnessing the innovative potential of diverse teams. To achieve this, we conduct a systematic literature review that synthesizes existing research on DEI in B2B sales while identifying key research gaps. Drawing on 56 B2B sales articles, we propose a comprehensive framework and a targeted research agenda. Our analysis reveals four key sub-domains: (1) hiring, (2) sales management practices, (3) sales approach and customer interactions, and (4) turnover. Each of these sub-domains highlights critical areas for further investigation. Ultimately, our findings aim to enhance both the academic and practical understanding of DEI’s impact on B2B sales. In doing so, we provide actionable insights to help leaders effectively integrate DEI practices into their organizations, fostering more pleasant and successful work environments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".