What does research show about merit and bias in representation?

When external pressure shifted, corporate behaviour changed rapidly. This suggests the central issue was never the absence of DEI programs themselves, but rather that many so-called merit-based systems were not genuinely meritocratic to begin with.

In practice, organisational decision-making often privileges familiarity over performance. People tend to hire, promote, and reward individuals they know, like, or feel comfortable with. As a result, I think many organisations operate systems that appear merit-based in principle but function through informal preference structures in reality, and frequently this is without conscious intent.