Dynamic Diversity: Variety and Variation Within Countries

Abstract

National models of social action over-privilege continuity and uniformity. They discount change — which they lack the capacity to explain (other than through exogenous shocks) — and neglect diversity within countries. This paper focuses on the national culture model which it argues requires commitment to illogical arguments and to suppositions which are theoretically and empirically untenable. An evaluation of each, it is argued, points to the existence of, and possibilities for, considerable national diversity and change — not pervasive and enduring national uniformity. Reflecting on the model’s rise and fall in anthropology, the paper also provides an outline explanation of its retention within organization studies and speculates about its future within that discipline.