Using Consensus Analysis to Measure Cultural Diversity in Organizations and Social Movements

Abstract

Consensus analysis, a technique developed in cognitive anthropology for analyzing structured interview data, produces three useful results: (1) a measure of the degree of agreement among informants about a domain of knowledge, belief, or practice; (2) the "culturally correct" information about that domain according to the pooled answers of the informants; and (3) a score for each informant representing that person's knowledge of the domain. Consensus analysis is not just for high-agreement domains, however. This article explores a typology for conceptualizing diversity in low-consensus domains, including (1) weak agreement, (2) turbulent, (3) subcultural, and (4) contested domains, using case study examples from an English social movement, a Scottish high-technology firm, and a Scottish business support and training organization. The typology helps measure and interpret diversity and change within organizations and social movements.Consensus analysis (CA) was originally developed as a technique for discovering which respondents are most knowledgeable and reliable in a particular cultural context. It is based on the assumption that individuals vary in their mastery of particular domains of knowledge Romney, Batchelder, and Weller 1987;Boster, Johnson, and Weller 1987;Weller and Romney 1988). 1 Not everyone knows the same Our thanks to two anonymous reviewers who gave us much useful guidance; we alone are responsible for any remaining errors. We are grateful for the hospitality of the Anthropology Department, University of Durham (England), which hosted us at different times. Hyatt also thanks members of the Department of Social and Economic Studies at the University of Bradford (England) for their support for this and later research projects. Caulkins acknowledges his intellectual debt to the late Michael Scott and thanks the University of Stirling (Scotland) and the

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