Corporate Anthropology: its applications

Anthropology studies the human being widely through scientific and humanistic methods. So, how does this discipline apply to business organizations? 

Leonardo Marcondes Alves *

Marietta Baba, an anthropologist and professor at Wayne State University, defines Corporate Anthropology in her book Business and Corporate Anthropology (1986) as “the practice of applying anthropological theories and methods in problem-solving activity in the private sector organizations.”

Anthropology applied to business administration now works on two fronts: human resources and organizational studies; marketing and consumption.

History
History of business anthropology developed alongside the discipline’s general history. The pioneer anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski (1884 – 1944) studied the western Pacific Kula trade ring, where he describes an economic non-Western system. The social scientist Thorstein Veblen (1857 – 1929) in hisThe Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) began consumer studies.

Anthropology came to be applied in the colonial administration, but its own ethical reflection led to reject exploration ventures. Corporate anthropology declined from World War II to the late 1970s, but it was again employed to business environment and used by companies like Xerox, IBM and Microsoft.

A classic case of the incipient and corporate anthropology is the Hawthorne study. In 1928 Western Electric Company began an ambitious scientific management project for its 20,000 employees at the Hawthorne plant near Chicago.

The initial methodology was typically Taylorist, with measurements of variables (lighting, breaks, incentive pay) in order to increase productivity. The resulting data were contradictory and without any apparent correlation. They called the industrial psychologist at Harvard, Elton Mayo (1880 – 1949) to analyze the results. Mayo tried to change the methodology, with interviews with physiological measurements, but it still yeld not the expected responses. Mayo approached the anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner (1898 – 1970) in 1931 to help in the search.

Lloyd Warner used the organizational ethnography and systematic observation and perceived among other things, there was a collective culture guiding employee behavior beyond individual interests. Lloyd Warner also noted the researchers’ presence altered the employee performance – the Hawthorne effect – and that informal organizations emerged parallel to management, with its own goals and values. Resulting from the work of Lloyd Warner and Mayo arouse the human relations school in business administration and organizational anthropology.

Human Resources and Organizational Study

Each institution has its corporate culture and no better than a culture professional to study it.

Business anthropology uses tools such as organizational analysis, mapping power relations, studying roles played within groups, communication channels, individual and collective values ​​within an organization.

An example of this application. If a company wants to know if the motivational speaker who hires employees to work or not, an anthropologist would follow the team before, during and after these talks and assess whether it is feasible or desirable to employ them in the future.

Through observation-participant anthropologist makes analysis of administrative processes and practices. Unlike the production engineer’s drawing board, while taking advantage of quantitative data from this methodology, the organizational anthropologist evaluates these factors qualitatively, seeking to maximize their efficiencies.

By being sensitive to human diversity, anthropologist is valuable for team training. It also facilitates changes, both in new procedures and in mergers and corporate re-structuring, especially in global companies, which involves such different cultures.

People management is another application for business anthropology, finding talent, developing potential and managing human diversity. Increasing diversity becomes strategic and sensitive need as people of various personalities, not only with leadership, but also followers are vital. Ensuring that ​​ethnic minorities, gender, and diverse skills are important in a working environment with social responsibility and most importantly, enriches the company.

Corporate athropologist may also manage the divisions of social and environmental responsibility in a business, consolidate relations with populations affected by corporate activities, ensuring sustainable development. The anthropological expertise facilitates the adaptation of norms and legal standards and certification.

Anthropological knowledge also applies to the relationship with customers from other cultures and marketing.

Dealing with different cultures without committing gaffes requires much tact, which anthropologist usually develops and enables executives training in intercultural negotiations.

Marketing and Consumer studies

An anthropologist has the ability to manage the symbolic capital, understand how products and services have connotations and values ​​beyond its tangible benefits in marketing.

All phases of marketing, from design to the location of a target market and advertising, benefits from anthropology.

Anthropology of design applies to products and services and it is now employed by firms in a more natural environment research. There is a dissonance between what people say and how they behave. The consumer may declare their preference for the “X” mark on surveys but buy the “Y” because price or other reason. Ergonomics, or adapting users to product, is another application. Ethnography of design addresses these situations.

Market localization and adaptation are done by anthropologists using demographic analysis techniques and qualitative research, predicting the receptivity of products. Oreo’s cookies is different in China, where it seems like a wafer. Understanding consumer behavior is vital to success of any business.

Brands and trends monitoring can be made through ethnographies. A market ethnographer observes and talks to users in their natural habitats, play video games with consumers, eat at restaurants with friends, talks with teenagers in shopping malls, seeking to discover the usefulness and perception of brands and products.

Working Methods

A corporate anthropologist working with ethnographic techniques such as participant observation, attaining to objectivity in order to synthesize information through intense and prolonged interaction between the researcher and his field. Business ethnographer also uses informal interviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with customers, suppliers and employees.

Enterpreneuship Anthropology has the flexibility to work with the various economic sectors, from education to the agro-business and adapts quickly to new realities, such as the rise of working class in Brazil and the virtual world of social networking.

Cyber-ethnography now allows the mapping of social networks, allowing the content analysis and map behavioral profile and socio-demographics. Anthropologists employ online analytical programs for studying Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, forums and blogs. The technique allows quick results, because most of the raw data already exists.

Strategic planning

As we see, anthropological knowledge open access to strategic information, allowing decisions to be made with confidence. The anthropologist is skilled to identify cultural patterns, interpret nuanced metaphors, and set cognitive frameworks in a crosscultural context.

Adapt corporate strategies from one country to another is quite a challenge. What works in a country usually does not apply in another. Here anthropology enters, localizating management models, dealing with cross-cultural sensivities and designing strategies to cope with local issues.

from: http://leonardomalves.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/corporate-anthropology-its-applications/