Business anthropology is defined as anthropological practice that applies the theories and methods of the discipline to the problem-solving activity in private sector organizations, especially industrial firms. Also, business anthropology seeks to explain the how and why of corporate decision-making, along with the sociological and cultural influences acting upon the company. Most importantly, it seeks to highlight the ways these factors influence employees and their behavior. However, anthropology brings several strengths to business. One is the participant-observer approach to research. This emphasizes looking at what people do in addition to asking them what they do. Survey research can be affected by perceived power relationships with the corporate hierarchy so that people's responses are affected by what they think is the goal of research. The participant-observer approach involves working with people over a longer period of time. This insider or outsider viewpoint often helps anthropologists to understand things from a perspective that is different from the one that labor, management, or survey researcher have. The outcome of an anthropological investigation of a corporation often focuses on cultural factors that interfere with job satisfaction. .
The article "Corporate Anthropologists" talked about how anthropologists play an important role in the corporate environment. Anthropologists have been working with businesses since the 1930's however in the 1980's this field experienced significant growth. This was due to the globalization of business activity and the increased awareness of the importance of culture for business. Cultural anthropology is the study of existing people and corporations find this information useful in trying to understand human behavior within their own organization. Business anthropologists have been studying the corporate world for years, on such varied topics as how to encourage more creativity or how best to integrate multicultural learning techniques into an organization's training program.
By examining the history of an organization, anthropologists can work to predict the company's future. ... Political science studies in an organization also play a very important role in that it gives us a way to study leadership roles and determine corporate policies. ...
Both the village and household can be considered corporate in that both control rights to territorial resources, acts as a unit when performing certain economic and ceremonial activities. ... Despite this corporate organization, membership in villages and households is constantly changing, and there is much movement of people between group to group. ... This is what the Kalapalo call otomo concept which is similar to the anthropologist's concept of kindred. ...
This is the classical view on mate selection, which is fueled by gender biases, but with changing times come changing needs such as technological and industrial advances, life style changes, newly developing family structure and changes in commercial and corporate realms. ... Anthropologist Anne Mayden Nicotera introduces the action principal: "Social behavior is structured and organized. ...
While Xerox ultimately did commercialize laser printing-bringing several billion dollars into the corporate coffers-it chose not to push most of PARC's personal computing prototypes into commercial development. ... So Thoman and Xerox Chairman Paul Allaire, who is Thoman's predecessor and now his successor as CEO, struggled to ensure that the high wattage in the corporate labs brightened Xerox's bottom line. ...
These problems were eventually solved such requirements as minimum wages, welfare, prescribed work conditions, organized workers, and regulation of corporate power. ... Some anthropologists even praise primitive culture for successfully enduring over the years, in their slow conservative patterns of change. ...
The modern discover that there are many different religions (worldviews) in the world (Anthropologist's participant observation teaches us this somber reality) (Wagner 1981: 4) and that their own religion (worldview) is not always correct (The Galileo's telescope is an epoch making incident). ...
Merton's influence has also been felt by historians of science, economists, political theorists, anthropologists, humanities, law, and the world of science (Cole, 2004, p.37). ... Corporate crimes, falsifying IRS forms, or drug dealers would be examples of innovators. ...
