How Anthropology Affects Business

When you think of an anthropologist, you are likely to imagine a fellow in an Indiana Jones getup lost in the Amazonian jungle. However, you are equally likely to find an anthropologist wearing an Armani suit while he tries to break the codes, taboos and traditions of the corporate jungle. The rules of anthropology are valid for every culture, even within the Wall Street tribe.

 

The Human Dimension of Business

• The word "anthropology" comes from Greek roots that translate as "the study of humans". While accountants, financers and marketers will sometimes forget that they are dealing with persons and not numbers, anthropologists will, by definition, remember that organizations and structures are ultimately made by and for human beings.

  Anthropology deals with the shared sets of beliefs and values of a common group of people. While this is usually taken to mean language, taboos and religious beliefs, anthropology can also focus on more businesslike questions like the types of food one eats and the clothes that one wears.

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   Looking In

   • Anthropologists can use the tools of organizational ethnography in order to understand the dynamics of an organization from the inside: For example, they can document formal and informal structures, locate the sources of internal conflict, or assess the effects of new policies and processes.

     "Businesses deal with cultures everyday", reads the program for the module on business anthropology of the University of North Texas. "They just refer to them differently -- customers, producers, manufacturers, markets, marketing, sales, design, customer service, upper management, lower management, blue collar, unions, and so on."

   Reaching Out

   • The tools of anthropology can be used to study cultures that are external to the organization, but that affect or are affected by its decisions.

     For example, anthropologists can assist in several aspects of the marketing research. They are trained to understand the factors that govern the behavior of customers and their responses to advertising, purchasing trends and dynamics of product usage.

   Globalization and Business Anthropology

   • In the global age most business affairs involve more than one nation, more than one government and more than one culture, making the human side of business multidimensional and complex.

     "More than one language, religion, ethnicity and culture are involved in today's affairs. Therefore businesses, governments, inter-governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations must combine interdisciplinary thinking with the intercultural approach in order to create a common comprehensive operational ground", explained professors Pant and Alberti from the University of Castellanza in Italy, in their paper "Anthropology and Business: Reflections on the business applications of cultural anthropology".

   Who is Using It?

   • According to the book "Business anthropology", the concept of using anthropology in business got traction in the eighties, and in the following decade it was adopted by pioneering international bodies like several agencies of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Big business followed suit, like Procter and Gamble, Royal Dutch/shell, Westinghouse, Campbell Soup, Union Carbide, Philips, Apple Computers, General Motors, Xerox, Sprint, US West, and NYNEX, among many others.

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