LIMITATIONS OF CULTURAL CONSENSUS THEORY

Although CCT has proven useful in understanding whether respondents in a survey or interview share common beliefs, it is not without its limitations. The most obvious limitation is that the model only determines whether or not an overall consensus exists, but not whether there are multiple subcultures
Who believe different things. If a consensus does not exist, there are several plausible explanations that CCT cannot distinguish between. One possibility is that there is no consensus because each respondent is essentially unique. Another possibility is that there are several subsets of consistent beliefs.


As an illustration (expanded in Demonstration 1), consider using this method to understand the positions of U.S. politicians. Across a political body (such as the U.S. Senate), a consensus would be unlikely. However, lack of consensus does not mean that each Senator’s response patterns are completely unique: we would likely find a handful of coherent beliefs aligned with political party membership and geographic region.


CCT can determine whether members agree, but if they do not agree, it is incapable of providing much insight without placing a priori beliefs about what the groups should be (e.g., political affiliation). But in that case, CCT may not be necessary; we can simply compare the range of responses for each pre-defined sub-group and determine whether they differ.


The best way to reduce our corporate footprint is to not use electricity in the first place. Google will continue to reduce our emissions directly by building and designing some of the world's most efficient data centers as well as using on-site renewable energy to power our facilities. Over the last five years, we have eliminated over half the emissions we would have produced in the absence of these critical measures. Offsets serve to neutralize the rest. In the future, we will continue to drive for improvements in energy efficiency and to find affordable sources of renewable energy.