But the region's investment portfolio, led by sovereign-wealth funds whose current assets are estimated at $1 trillion, has grown far more diversified.
Far better is portfolio management, which goes far beyond diversifying by introducing risk controls.
And the economy has diversified far beyond fish to such areas as banking and telecoms.
Google has diversified far beyond its search engine roots, taking on Apple's iPhone with its Android mobile platform and Microsoft with its Chrome browser and operating system.
Byard Lancaster, an alto saxophonist who took part in the great wave of free jazz inspired by John Coltrane and then diversified far into other music and cultures — living in Nigeria, France and Chicago, playing blues, reggae and Afrobeat — but kept returning to Philadelphia, his hometown, died on Aug. 23 at a hospice in Wyndmoor, Pa.
Critics say the the blunders prove that Coke has diversified too far, too fast and is now pushing for growth on so many fronts it is forgetting what made it number one in the first place.
Zhang concedes, however, that the chaebol may have diversified too far.
Most notably, Mobil had chosen to diversify far afield from oil, buying the Montgomery Ward department store chain and the Container Corporation of America, a paperboard and packaging products company.
New York state's insurance superintendent, Eric Dinallo, who helped broker the bailout, accused firms of poor management in diversifying far too broadly.
That movie has three directors, six cross-pollinating stories and a multitasking approach to casting that enables D'Arcy, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant and Halle Berry to diversify far beyond their own ages, ethnicities and, in some cases, genders.
