Title: Incoherent culture

Authors: Brendan McSweeney

Addresses: School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK

Abstract: Culture is implicitly defined in most national cultural and multi-cultural studies as coherent. Each culture is supposed to be a holistic contradiction-free pattern, creating and sustaining uniform and enduring practices. This paper, whilst acknowledging the causal (but not deterministic) influence of culture, argues that all cultures are incoherent – they contain contradictions and other forms of heterogeneity. Thus we should be hesitant about relying on uniform cultural depictions of any group – national, ethnic, gender, community, organisational or whatever else – and be open to identifying and acknowledging diversity of cultures and practices within such populations.

Keywords: cultural diversity; incoherent culture; multiculturalism; national culture; national diversity; sub-national; values; cross-cultural research.

DOI: 10.1504/EJCCM.2009.026730

European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, 2009 Vol.1 No.1, pp.22 - 27

Published online: 24 Jun 2009 *

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