ABSTRACT
It is only by making room for post-positivist traditions that we can look meaningfully at issues of equity in PR. Building on our macro view in the previous chapter about the overwhelmingly organisation-centric character of PR, we zoom into a micro examination of equity, in particular relation to diversity, in action in PR. We carry out this examination through a detailed critique of the field’s deployment of the concept of requisite variety. While PR theorists have sought to use requisite variety to introduce multiculturalism to a field slow to engage with cultural diversity, we argue that the deployment of the concept does not go far enough to engage with contemporary issues revolving around diversity. On the surface, the concept of requisite variety seems equitable enough: “Diversity or requisite variety is the characteristic that helps organizations identify all . . . groups and foster relationships with each” (Hon and Brunner, 2000, p. 313). What remains understated in this conceptualisation is the centrality of organisational control. This is evident from Hon and Brunner’s (2000) conviction that “the organization is most effective when it is diverse enough to deal with and capitalize on the diversity in its external environment” (p. 313). In such a formulation, “the diversity of ideas and viewpoints within a manager’s self-regulating system should equal diversity of the environment” (Culbertson et al., 1993, p. 23). As this quotation indicates, the emphasis clearly rests on the manager’s “self-regulating system” and requisite variety is, therefore, reduced to a mechanism of control.
