Business Anthropology by T N Jordan

Business Anthropology
Ann T. Jordan, Professor Emerita, University of North Texas
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.4
Published online: 30 October 2019
Summary
Business anthropology is a fast-evolving field. Social sciences such as sociology,
psychology, and anthropology each have a unique set of constructs and theories for
studying human behavior and each brings special insights to understanding business.
Anthropologists are skilled in observing and learning from the rich interaction of social
beings in their environment. With methods based in techniques for first-hand observation
and interviewing of participants, and with theoretical knowledge gleaned from studying
human societies across the world, anthropologists are the social scientists uniquely
situated by training to analyze the social milieu and group-patterned interaction in any
human setting.
Simply, business anthropology is the use of anthropological constructs, theory, and

methods to study its three subfields: organizations, marketing and consumer behavior,
and design. Organizational anthropology is the study of complex organizations from an
anthropological perspective to solve organizational problems or better understand the
nature and functioning of the organizational form within and across organizations. In
marketing and consumer behavior anthropology’s methods allow one to get close to
consumers and understand their needs, while anthropology’s theoretical perspectives
allow one to understand how human consumption plays out on the world stage. In the
design field anthropologists use their methods to observe and learn from the detailed
interaction of social beings in the designed environments in which we all live. They use
their theoretical perspectives to develop a holistic analysis of the rich data to develop
new products and evaluate and improve existing ones whether they be refrigerators or
office buildings.
The field of business anthropology is difficult to define because the moniker “business
anthropology” is a misnomer. This field, as most anthropologists practice it, is not limited
to work in for-profit businesses. Business anthropologists work with for-profit
organizations, but also non-profit ones, government organizations and with supranational
regulatory bodies. In addition to working for a business, an organizational anthropologist
might be working in a non-profit hospital to improve patient safety, a design
anthropologist might be working for an NGO to develop a less fuel-intensive cooking
system for refugee camps and an anthropologist in marketing might be working in a
government agency to develop ways to advertise new vaccines.
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date: 25 August 2021
Keywords: anthropology, business anthropology, organizational anthropology, design
anthropology, anthropology and consumer behavior, anthropology of marketing, enterprise
anthropology, ethics in anthropology, value of anthropology to business
Subjects: Applied Anthropology, International and Indigenous Anthropology, Sociocultural

Anthropology
Introduction to Business Anthropology
The field of business anthropology is fast-evolving and difficult to define. The moniker
“business anthropology” was first applied in the 1980s to refer to anthropologists based in
both academia and in business who studied business. Simply, business anthropology is the use
of anthropological constructs, theory, and methods to study its three subfields: organizations,
marketing and consumer behavior, and design. Just as there are many definitions of
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“anthropology,” there are many definitions of the anthropology of business. One reason for
this is that the field has developed in fits and starts. New areas of concern have been added,
old interests have grown to include new subject matter, and all has become blurred,
overlapping, and dynamic.
One source of confusion regarding this field is the use of the term, “business.” While the field
dates to the 1920s and 1930s, the term “business anthropology” did not appear in general
usage to denote this domain of anthropology until the 1990s. An earlier popular moniker was
“industrial anthropology” which reflected the importance of industry during the years of its
popularity, the 1920s through the 1950s. Other names include enterprise anthropology (a
commonly used term in Asia), anthropology of work (an anthropological field that predates
business anthropology but has sometimes been included under the business anthropology
umbrella due to its overlapping subject matter), economic anthropology (another older field
with overlapping subject matter), and applied/ practicing anthropology (two fields with their
own definitional differences and confusions, and of which business anthropology is considered
to be a part).
Adding to the confusion, the name, business anthropology, does not accurately reflect all the
work subsumed under it. While it initially dealt with for-profit business, it quickly became
clear that anthropologists were studying and working in other organizational forms as well.
This field, as most anthropologists practice it, is not limited to work in for-profit businesses.
Business anthropologists work with for-profit organizations, but also nonprofit ones, as well as
with government organizations at the local, state, and federal level and with supranational
regulatory bodies. Another distinction is the difference between the anthropology of business
defined as academic research on business and the anthropology for business defined as
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practitioners working in business.
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History of Business Anthropology
Between 1924 and 1933, Chicago was the location of possibly the most famous human
relations study in a business setting in all North American organizational research. Through a
collaboration that ultimately involved the Western Electric company, the National Academy of
Sciences, and Harvard School of Business Administration, a research project was conducted
from 1927 to 1932 at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works, a manufacturing plant in Chicago.
The researchers were conducting the first qualitative study of informal social organization in
the work setting. Research there led to the identification of the Hawthorne effect and
eventually to the creation of human relations as a field of study. It is the human relations
school that gave us the concept of informal organization (Gamst, 1977).
During the 1940s, the specialty of industrial anthropology spread to universities around North
America. Theoretically, the work made use of the functionalist paradigm; methodologically, it
combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Case studies were the predominant
data-gathering approach. Whyte (1961) wrote a seminal book, Men at Work, that included
studies of the restaurant, hotel, steel, automobile, glass, and petroleum industries. Gardner
(1949) published a textbook on human relations that was significant in the field. Other
publications included studies on technology change on an assembly line at IBM’s Endicott
plant (Richardson & Walker, 1948) , leadership and change in Eastern Corporation’s
Lakeshore Mill (Sayles, 1952) , and informal relations on an automotive assembly line (Walker
& Guest, 1952). In Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, anthropologists from the Manchester
School were studying work on the shop floor with a focus on conflict and the problems of
analyzing context. For example they studied the Citroën works from three perspectives:
managers, the assembly shop and the machine shop (Emmett & Morgan, 1982).
From the 1960s through the 1980s, interest in business anthropology decreased in both the
US and Europe due to concerns about the ethical nature of the work. By the 1980s however,
large numbers of anthropologists were again working in applied fields in a wide variety of
contexts. Business leaders and the popular press took a sudden interest in subjects in which
anthropologists had expertise. The term culture became popular in business literature in the
1980s. On the surface it appeared that this clamor among business analysts regarding culture
in organizations was largely a result of the American response to Japanese business success.
Anthropologists were now working in the fields of international business consulting (Terpstra
& David, 1985) and intercultural training (Ojile, 1986), conducting research on American and
Japanese organizational and cultural interactions (Hamada, 1991) and employed by
corporations to conduct in-house research (Briody, 1988). The surge of interest in
organizations by anthropologists in the 1980s was tied to the surge of interest in anthropology
by organizational behaviorists. The possibility for cross-fertilization was great (Walck &
Jordan, 1993). In the Netherlands, Tennekes (1995), Koot (1989) and others were establishing
the field of business anthropology in organization studies while in the UK, Bate was defining
the difference between the anthropological perspective on organizations and that of other
organization specialists (Bate, 1997), and in France, Francois Chanlet was publishing on the
multiple layers of culture in organizations (Chanlat, 1994).
In 1987, the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), funded from a variety of sources
including the Xerox Foundation, was founded. While the work at IRL was purposefully
interdisciplinary and drew from fields such as economics, statistics, psychology, and computer
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science, it was heavily influenced by anthropology from the beginning. The theoretical
paradigm on which IRL work was based was the notion that learning does not occur in a
passive situation where an instructor places knowledge in the head of a student but in a
larger, interactive environment. The research at IRL has impacted anthropology and our
understanding of how humans learn. The research included the work practices of claims
processors at an insurance company, of workers in the communications and control center of
an airline’s ground operations, and of technicians who repair copy machines. The analysis
provided insights into ways to improve work performance by increasing learning of key
information. The work attracted attention in the fields of marketing, consumer behavior, and
product design and was instrumental in anthropologists becoming involved in those fields. In
the 1990s, anthropologists moved into the field of design. The anthropologists at Xerox were
influential in the adoption of ethnographic techniques in this field. Doblin Group, E-Lab,
Sapient and other design firms employed anthropologists (Jordan, 2013).
World-Wide Growth of Business Anthropology

Since 2000, the fields in business anthropology have further crystallized and grown. In 2005
anthropologists Arnould and Thompson (2005) published a seminal article in the Journal of
Consumer Research in which they reviewed 20 years of consumer research, identified a
research tradition that they called Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), and explained how this
research studied the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle. Arnould and Sherry were
then instrumental in developing the CCT Conference, first held at University of Notre Dame in
2006. In design anthropology, a similarly significant conference to the CCT Conference is the
annual Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) begun in 2005. This conference
was again started by a group of anthropologists to include Anderson at Intel, Lovejoy at
Microsoft, Blomberg at IBM, and Wasson at University of North Texas, and promoted the use
of ethnography in business.
In Europe the increased interest in the field is demonstrated by added training programs, for
example at University College, London; the Sorbonne; the University of Copenhagen; the
University of Southern Denmark, and Maynooth University, Ireland. Ethnography is being
introduced in business in the Czech Republic (Ailová, Cír, & Gillárová, 2014) and in Hungary
workshops are being conducted on business anthropology through the Central European
University (Central European University, 2018). The estimates of Podjed, Gorup, and Mlakar
(2016) suggest that of the applied anthropologists in Europe, over half are working in
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business anthropology. The European Association of Applied Anthropologists’ Applied
Anthropology Network annually organizes the “Why the World Needs Anthropologists” event
which is spearheaded by business anthropologist Podjed (see Podjed et al., 2016). In the
United Kingdom, the Design Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology
and the Arts encouraged research focused on product and service design. In 2005,
anthropologist Hilary Cottam was awarded UK Designer of the Year for design work in public
service reform (Roberts, 2014). In France, there has been “a full- fledged development of
professional anthropology” primarily in consumption and innovation, intercultural applications
for organizations, and immigration (Desjeux, 2014).
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The growth of business anthropology in Asia over the past 15 years is significant for the field.
The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences includes the
Commission on Enterprise Anthropology begun by Hamada Connolly and Zhang Jijiao.
Business anthropology conferences are being held across Asia. Yasunobu Ito describes the
importance of Fujitsu’s collaboration with Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and Hakuhodo
advertising company’s collaboration with IDEO, both occurring in the mid-2000s, as an
impetus for the popularity of ethnography in Japan (Ito, Japan Institute of Science and
Technology, unpublished manuscript “How Ethnography Infiltrated the Japanese Business
Scene: A Case Study.” The first International Forum on Business Anthropology was held at the
Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, in 2010, and the International Union of Anthropological and
Ethnological Sciences has held numerous conferences that include enterprise anthropology,
for example in China in 2009 and Japan in 2018. Additionally, Tian has organized conferences
in China, beginning with the First International Conference of Business Anthropology held at
Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong in 2012 (Chen & Zhou, 2013; Tien, 2013) and has
promoted the teaching of business anthropology across Chinese universities. In India
anthropologists are pushing to increase the training in business anthropology in departments
across the country. As one of the world’s largest consumer bases, India attracts multinational
corporations and global business. Khan (2017) notes that business anthropologists can be
helpful to consumers and businesses alike in maneuvering in this environment, a view
propounded by M. R. Singh in his 2016 manuscript, “Business Anthropology: New Direction of
in Research in India.”
A further sign of the maturity of the field and its international nature is the birth of two
journals of business anthropology. The International Journal of Business Anthropology
sponsored by the University of Sun Yat-Sen, China and VU University, Amsterdam, is the
result of the work of Tian; it published its initial issue in 2010. The Journal of Business
Anthropology, an open access journal initially hosted by the Copenhagen Business School,
published its first issue in 2011 and is the result of the efforts of Moeran and Garsten.
The Power of the Culture Construct
The construct “culture” is a building block of theory and method in anthropology and
important to the work that business anthropologists conduct. Anthropological definitions are
legion but, “culture” can simply be defined as an integrated system of shared ideas (thoughts,
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ideals, attitudes), behaviors, and material artifacts that characterize a group. Culture is
shared, learned, symbolic and adaptive. Hamada Connolly suggests culture “is an amalgam of
historically derived meanings that include values, conventions, artifacts, norms, discursive
practices, power-relations, and institutional habitus, which together constitute daily social
realities for individual people” (Hamada Connolly, 2015, p. 125).
Understanding cultural groupings is a unique contribution business anthropology makes to

the fields of organization studies, design, and marketing and consumer behavior. For example,
organizational behavior specialists’ training is typically based in psychology and sociology.
While many of these organizational specialists use the term culture in their analysis of
organizations (since the publication of Deal and Kennedy’s book, Corporate Culture in 1982),
the term has common usage in organization studies), they define the term in a way that gives
it less explanatory power. Culture, from the organization studies perspective, represents one
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of the characteristics of an organization at the organizational or macro level analysis. Culture
is seen as something an organization has that can be manipulated by the singular efforts of
leaders. It is additive, one more characteristic of an organization.
Anthropologists, on the other hand, see the organization as a culture and all the components
of the organization’s structure, reward system, rules of behavior, and goals, are parts of the
culture. An organization is also a web of interacting cultures (see Figure 1) which can be
internally nested, cross-cutting and overlapping, and the organization is a subculture within
larger cultural units. In addition, individuals are members of ethnic, regional, gender, and
professional cultures outside of the organization. Cultures are shared and negotiated, not
dictated by leaders. Every individual worker contributes to multiple cultural groupings in the
organization and, along with the CEO, is a “culture producer.” Power is never absolute, since
subordinates create culture and hold power just as leaders do, although typically not to the
same degree.
Figure 1: Anthropological perspective on culture and organization.
Another use of culture in business anthropology is the study of culture flow. Urban defines
culture as “whatever is transmitted via social processes in which people “(1) acquire
knowledge, skills, practices, habits, values, stories, beliefs and the like from other people: and
(2) transmit what they have learned . . . to others.” (Urban, 2016, p. 323) He describes
commodified culture flows in which commodities carry culture and culture increases the value
of commodities. A diamond, for example, is valued for the cultural belief in its ability to confer
status on its wearer. Non-commodified culture flows also exist. The assembly line process
copied around the world is an example. A non-commodified flow can become commodified if it
can be prevented from “flowing” as is the case with a patent on a new drug which prevents
other drug companies from producing it (Urban, 2016).
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Consequently, as anthropologists define it, culture is the recognition and study of patterned
group behavior and its use provides a unique edge. It is a powerful construct to use in
analyzing human behavior in all three domains of business anthropology: organizational,
marketing and consumer behavior, and design.
Organizational Anthropology
Organizational anthropology is the study of complex organizations from an anthropological

perspective to solve organizational problems or better understand the nature and functioning
of the organizational form within and across organizations. While the missions of complex
organizations may differ, a review of organizational anthropology shows that complex
organizations face similar problems in management, work processes, and mission fulfillment
no matter the organization type. Anthropologists are working in corporations (Ho, 2009), small
and medium scale businesses (Caulkins & Weiner, 1998), government agencies (Neyland,
2013), military organizations (Ben-Ari & El-Ron, 2002), educational institutions, Hamann,
Vandeyar, & Garcia, 2013) labor unions (Durrenberger & Erem, 2013), non-profit
organizations (Fiske, 2008; Shaffer, 2008), indigenous organizations (Novo, 2013), virtual
organizations (Wasson, 2013), and health care organizations (Sobo, Bowman, & Halloran, et
al., 2008). They are working across multiple organizational types and amassing a body of
knowledge about how organizations work. While some anthropologists are conducting these
studies for research purposes, others are working directly for the organization to solve its
problems. In addition, anthropological research demonstrates the global nature of
organizational networks. For example, the work of both Briody (2013) and Ho (2009) work
demonstrate how complex organizations of varied types are connected around the world in
multiple ways. Work in organizational anthropology is not just about understanding issues
internal to an organization but also about understanding the ways in which organizations
partner and interact to impact communities, nation-states, and world economics and politics.
In other words, organizational anthropology is also about global processes.
Theory in Organizational Anthropology Research

Since its rebirth in the 1980s and with the inception of journals dedicated to business
anthropology, published work and presentations on organizational anthropology have not only
increased but the topics have broadened. Responding to the interests of clients, much of the
early work focused on internal organizational processes, organizational culture and change,
and cultural diversity. It made use of the basics of anthropological research: ethnographic
methods, the culture construct, holism and integration. Examples of the work on
organizational culture change include Krause-Jensen’s study of the Bang & Olufsen company’s
attempt to change its culture by focusing on values rather than products. He describes the
resulting employee frustration with changes that seemed vague, abstract, and out of touch
with reality (Krause-Jensen, 2010). Other work on culture change is that of Briody, Trotter,
and Meerwarth (2010) who provide a history of culture change in automobile manufacturing
plants, analyze the important issues in culture transformation, and provide lessons for success
in organizational change through their work on the Ideal Plant Culture project at General
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Motors. As organizational anthropology has matured, work on processes, diversity and change
continue to be bedrock in the field, but the 21st century brings additional concerns about
globalization, technology, capitalism, and power.
Anthropologists are conducting more work that focuses on the large and complex internal and
external environment of the organization. Baba, Blomberg, LaBond, and Adams (2013)
propose applying new institutional theory to the study of organizations. They state that,
“(n)ew institutional theory, with its focus on processes of institutionalization, could be an
interdisciplinary approach to address major societal and economic issues.” Institutional
analysis does not require the traditional perspective of a focal subject or a singular point of
view but instead allows for actor–actor and translocal interactions and can reflect divergent
perspectives and possible oppositional forces. They explore three analytical dimensions of an
anthropological approach to new institutionalism: actors, interactions, and multiple
perspectives. Three types of actors are found in institutional theory: Individuals,
organizations, and societies (usually nation-states). Baba et al. suggests that rather than
limiting anthropology to its traditional role in institutional research of exploring rational
choice explanations, its role should expand to analyzing different societal problems from an
institutional perspective. They emphasize that “anthropologists could contribute to
understanding behavior by examining each of the diverse perspectives attendant to a set of
actor-actor and/or translocal interactions and their consequences at various levels of
analysis” (Baba et al., 2013, p. 74).
Others are working with complexity theory. For Darrouzet, Wild, and Wilkinson, “the situation
of complexity needs to be recognized as the empirical and epistemological background of
most ethnographic anthropological work” (2009, p. 63). Just as complexity is a diagnostic
characteristic of weather patterns or sand dunes, where one cannot predict when a sand hill
will start to slide, it is also a diagnostic of sociocultural phenomena. In organizations, for
example, cultural and societal dimensions are distinct from the formal organizational system
with its regulations, policies, and pay grades. They are the informal part of the organization
and complexity theory is useful for analyzing these informal organizational systems. Sobo,
Bowman, and Gifford (2008), in a study of how implementation scientists in the VHA health
care organization approach their work and what issues they encounter, describe the health
care organization as a complex adaptive system and explain the competing agendas of the
implementation scientists and those their research impacts. “Complex adaptive system”
describes a structural type used in complexity theory. Podjed (2011) uses complexity in the
study of a birdwatching association and declares that the complexity paradigm integrates
functionalist, interpretive, radical structuralist, and radical humanist paradigms into a
coherent unit. Anthropologists are trained to place the phenomena they study in larger
context. Complexity theory gives them a tool for explaining the interactions with and
importance of the larger context.
New work also analyses global organizing. Extending the use of complexity theory to look at
organizational action on the global level, Jordan (2011) studied complex adaptive systems
centered on health care and the oil industry where the government of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia was one institutional partner. Complex organizations, including nation-state
governments, transnational businesses, and supranational regulatory bodies, are important,
not just for their economic might and consequent political power, but also for the ways in
which they combine in intraorganizational arrangements. As a result, we experience a web of
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interconnected organizations all acting in their own interest. However, they achieve their self-
interest through partnerships with other organizations and other networks and through
adaptations that appear beneficial to all network partners. Complex adaptive systems are a
significant form of global organizing. Garsten and Jocobsson (2011) suggest that regulation is
moving toward post-political forms of regulation based on consensual relationships. They
explain how, in an interdependent world, the forms of governance are changing. In addition to
political actions of nation states negotiating relationships, transnational organizations use a
model of consensus building to regulate member interactions. The presupposition of
consensus results in the hiding of differences in interest and power resources among the
members so that unequal power relations become almost invisible. They cite the Open Method
of Coordination of the European Union as an example of this new governance process.
Evidence of the same process can also be found in other supra-regulatory organizations such
as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
Human–technology interaction has become standard fare for business anthropologists in all
three domains of the field. Suchman’s 1987 work on human–machine interaction was an
important early step. For example, she demonstrated the need for a simple, obvious copy
button because copiers had become too complex for non-experts to operate. Batteau and
Villegas (2016) tell us that “tools encode multiple cultural values, including magic, identity,
the authority of the state, and class domination.” New forms of organization are enabled by
the rise of the internet (Wasson, 2013) and researchers are using Actor–Network Theory and
Assemblage Theory for their ability to analyze human–machine interaction (McCabe & Briody,
2018).
Work on valuation is developing out of all three subfields of business anthropology and
overlaps with economic anthropology. Batteau and Psenka (2012) suggest that business
anthropology is well suited to further the study of how “economic progress” has brought
normative instability to societies and flexible deprivation to workforces and consumers.
Business anthropology can contribute to studying this by the “development of the concept of
value,” the study of the “growth of tightly coupled networks circulating not only information
and objects across the world, but also value and authority,” and the “analysis of
authority” (2012, pp. 75–76). Moeran and Garsten make a case for the anthropological study
of assemblages of worth in a special issue of the Journal of Business Anthropology. They
reflect on how humans and organizations valuate and evaluate their lives and assert that “the
study of culture—is a study of the values that constitute a particular configuration of culture
and the evaluations that are practiced by, and negotiated among, people” (Moeran & Garsten,
2013, p. 1). Social organization, religious beliefs, artistic forms, trading relations, and so on
are all cultural forms based on values and evaluation. Røyrvik (2013) writes on managing
corporate values in Hydro, a Norwegian multinational, and Ailon (2013) describes the
increasing importance of shareholder value instead of profit as the measure of corporate
success. Garvey (2013) focuses on consumption and material culture in a study describing the
relational values and “having, wearing, and showing” in furniture and clothing, for example
the relationship between Ikea furniture and H&M clothing.
Other work demonstrates the continuing viability of anthropological theoretical stalwarts.

Mary Douglas’s theoretical contribution to the study of organizations, typically called either
cultural theory or group/ grid theory, has proven robust and continues to be used by
organizational anthropologists. Mars (2013) describes how Douglas’s theory has been
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expanded from a static to a dynamic model by arguing that in social units with enough size or
duration, all four solidarities (isolates, hierarchy, individualism, and enclaves) are present in
differing degrees and compete. Mars considers group/ grid theory not only useful for
understanding organizations but practical as well, and describes a wide range of cases in
which it has been applied.
Another frame used by anthropologists is cultural ecology. Organizations adapt to their

environments, which are likely to include multiple influences, from capitalist markets and
government regulation to societal norms. Successful adaptation to these external forces is
necessary for organizational sustainability and growth. Jordan (2013) provides an example of
a merger in which the merged companies could not settle on common practices because each
original company was adapted to success in a different market environment. Adaptation can
be used to study the internal dynamics of an organization as well. Baba (1995) used human
and cultural ecology and conceptualized the internal environment of the corporation as an
ecological system to study work group responses to an organizational change in
communication tools and methods.
A common thread across many organizational anthropology studies is the significance of

relationships, stakeholder perspectives, and trust. In work on exchange systems, the work of
both Karl Polanyi and Marcel Mauss provides insights. Negotiating trust among numerous
stakeholders with different cultural perspectives and interests is a common subject. Friberg
(2017) describes the position of Swedish mediator companies which mediate between
universities and businesses. Using Marilyn Strathern’s theory of “cutting the flow,” he studies
how the flow of knowledge in a laboratory can be stopped, cut, and remade. Wan and Ip
(2014) discuss how the Chinese practice of guanxi (built on family ties, principles of
Confucianism and favoring personal bonds) impacts relationship marketing in China’s foreign
banks.
Other work reflects the new organizational forms that upend our understanding of
organizations in the 21st century. A variety of different organizational types are explored by
anthropologists as they describe in Garsten and Nyqvist’s edited volume (2013) how, as
researchers, they enter complex organizations. In describing modern organizational forms,
network methodology looms large (Ofem, Floyd,& Borgatti, 2013). In understanding global
organizing, it is a key factor. Gluesing (2013) uses it in understanding post-industrial or post-
bureaucratic organizing enabled by information technology. Jordan (2017) uses it to describe
a local political advocacy organization in Texas. Analysis of virtual organizations provides
significant insight into new organizational structures in the 21st century (Wasson, 2013).
More work uses assemblage theory as a guiding theoretical perspective. McCabe and Briody
(2018) edit a volume describing the interaction among consumers, corporations, and nonprofit
organizations in the United States, China, India, Cambodia, and Nigeria. McCabe explains the
use of assemblage theory to theorize culture change emphasizing agency. At its heart,
assemblage theory allows one to analyze how people, objects, practices, discourses, and
institutions align, disperse, and coalesce to form new, often temporary, arrangements. From
this perspective, culture change is the movement in these assemblages. Assemblage theory is
useful in all three subfields of business anthropology. Examples include: Delcore’s (2018)
study of designing new educational offerings by analyzing an assemblage of discourses on
educational equity, technology, and student and faculty ways of dealing with education;
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Onomake and Ejiro (2018) analysis of a brokerage assemblage in a Nigerian–Chinese business
relationship; and Aiken’s assemblage analysis of the shift to human-centered design for
spacecraft at the National Aeronautical and Space Agency (NASA) (Pahl, Ramer, & Aiken,
2018). Aiken documents the shift occurred when NASA focus moved from short-duration
flights such as those on the Space Shuttle to long-duration flights such as travel to the
International Space Station (ISS) and astronaut comfort became more important (see Figure
2).
Figure 2: Anthropologist’s field notes showing assemblage analysis of organizational culture

shift at NASA. Image courtesy of Jo Aiken.
Future of Organizational Anthropology

Darrah and Dornadic advocate “working on work organizations” by which they mean
“(e)verything from information systems to built environments, from accounting practices to
incentive systems can be the object of design, with professions and occupations testing the
limits of linking intention to implementation” (2013, p. 257). This means increasing the
importance of “in situ” studies, learning to conduct ethnography on the “material,”
identifying, developing and articulating ideas for new work processes and new organizational
arrangements, and being conversant in multiple forms of data-collection and representation
including video, screen-capture software, and workshop tools (2013).
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The organizational form is everywhere in today’s world. Anthropologists bring an important
skill set to its study. Our focus on social processes, power, context, technology interaction,
integration, and global organizing and governance allow us to provide important information
about how the modern world works and make a valuable contribution to the discipline of
anthropology as well as to business anthropology.
Anthropology of Marketing and Consumer Behavior
In marketing and consumer behavior anthropology’s methods enable one to get close to
consumers and understand their needs while anthropology’s theoretical perspectives enable
one to understand how human consumption plays out on the world stage. For the
anthropologist, marketing and consumption are important forces in human behavior, and
understanding these forces is essential to understanding political economy and world systems.
Anthropologists view consumer behavior in a cultural, historical, and global context. As Denny
of Practica Group explains, “My work is in decoding the meaning of brands, bringing the
consumers of products and services to life as cultural beings, understanding the role of
products, brands or services in the context of everyday life, where meaning is produced and
consumed. It is at heart a cultural analysis” (Denny, 2002, p. 148)
Anthropologists working in the field of consumer behavior not only provide insights that are
useful to their clients but make a substantial contribution to anthropological theory. Miller
(1998) suggested that in our theoretical understanding of the processes at work in society,
anthropologists had been slow to recognize the key role of consumption. Appadurai (1986)
called for a renewed focus on the circulation of commodities in social life. He suggested that
while the traditional focus in anthropology has been on the type of exchange, focusing on the
object of the exchange allows for a new understanding of human behavior. Anthropologists
working in consumer behavior and marketing have helped to rekindle the discipline’s focus on
the importance of material culture (see Figure 3). As Grant McCracken (1988) proposes,
consumption, from the viewpoint of an anthropologist, is the process at work when consumer
goods are created, bought, and used, and understanding consumption is important to
understanding culture.
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Figure 3: Example of marketing for cross-cultural appeal. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth
Briody.
Important to this field of anthropological study is consumer culture theory (CCT). While this
field involves several disciplines, anthropology has been at the forefront since the beginning.
In 2005, Arnould and Thompson outlined four thematic domains of research: consumer
identity projects, marketplace cultures, the sociohistoric patterning of consumption, and
mass-mediated marketplace ideologies and consumers’ interpretive strategies. In an overview
of the CCT work, Joy and Li (2012), suggest that the domains of research have grown and
fractured since the inception of CCT. For example, they credit business anthropologists
Moeran (2006) and Sunderland and Denny (2007) with extending CCT research into
organizations by studying how employees, managers, consumers and others in corporations
collaboratively create market cultures.
Studies in consumer behavior cover a variety of topics. Examples of the breadth of the work
include: negotiated identity: Chin’s (1999) study of alterations that African-American ten-year
olds make to Barbie dolls; resistance through consumption: Kates and Belk (2001) on
consumption at a Gay Pride Day in Toronto; experiential consumption: Creighton (1997) on
Japanese tourism selling the “village experience” to urban Japanese; localization in
globalization: Miller’s (1998) study of coke and rum recognized as a national drink in
Trinidad; and branding: Garth and Powell (2017) on the rebranding of a convenience store as
a market for healthy foods, and Tse (2016) on the tension between creativity and money in
composing text and pictures for a Hong Kong fashion magazine.
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Anthropological work in marketing and consumer behavior is rich and deep. The field is a
growth area for anthropologists wishing to practice outside academia. Work by Malefyt and
Morais (2012) and Sunderland and Denny (2007), anthropologists who have worked in the
field for decades, provide in-depth guidance into the anthropological approach. Steve Barnett,
an anthropologist who has been conducting consumer research as a consultant since 1978,
demonstrates through a series of case studies the unique value of anthropological qualitative
pattern-recognition techniques. They satisfy his guiding principle: “what kinds of research will
get us as close as possible to the client’s concerns in ways that do not duplicate the kinds of
research the client’s competitors are doing” (Barnett, 2016, p. 62).
Design Anthropology
Work for anthropologists in the design field continue to increase. Ethnographic techniques
have become popular in the design field because they fill a void. At one time, designers
depended primarily on human factors research, which developed out of cognitive psychology
and marketing. Human factors research considers human cognitive abilities and the attributes
that make a product easy for humans to use; for example, if the hardware on a door is flat
with a bar across the middle, it becomes obvious to the user that to open the door she must
push, not pull Wasson, 2000). Human factors research is useful but not sufficient for
understanding the best way to design some products. Rob Van Veggel, in an unpublished
manuscript “Where Two Sides of Ethnography Collide,” persuasively argues that it is too
abstract and removed from everyday reality since it is often conducted in controlled,
laboratory environments. In addition, this type of research focuses on what goes on in
individuals’ heads and does not consider group interaction and social and cultural contexts.
Thus, there is no opportunity to observe and learn from the rich interaction of social beings in
and with their environment. Anthropologists are the social scientists uniquely situated by
training to analyze that rich social milieu and that group-patterned interaction.
Ethnographic techniques are not the only valuable tools anthropologists offer, however. After
all, anyone can videotape consumers in the act of using a product (although not just anyone
can analyze that videotape). Anthropologists offer a theoretical grounding and an
understanding of the interrelationships of the variables that are essential to providing
valuable and useful analysis of the data. As Wasson puts it, “a videotape alone cannot answer
questions about how, for instance, particular user–product interactions are situated in
consumers’ family dynamics, work pressures, and cultural beliefs” (Wasson, 2002).
Design anthropologists work on new product development, redesign of existing products and
existing product evaluation, sometimes taking a cue from do-it-yourself products (see Figure
4). An example of product redesign is Von Baeyer’s (2017) study of Syrian refugees in Jordan.
The aim was to aid a client in designing educational programs. An ethnographic study of
refugee families in their homes and communities helped the client think “outside the camp”
and move beyond the refugee camp model of assistance. Von Baeyer’s reporting on social
networks and cell phone usage among refugees led the client to consider mobile technologies
and social networks in developing educational solutions. An example of both product
evaluation and redesign, Peinado and colleagues worked with three banks and two insurance
companies to develop a new methodology for designing bank and insurance products for
customers in France. They began with an evaluation of the existing bank products and
Page 14 of 28
interviewed individuals about banking. The knowledge gained resulted in the designing of an
interactive based interface that allowed “clients to personalize their bank and insurance
information, assess their overall financial situation, simulate future actions, and dialogue
directly with their banks and insurances”(Peinado, Jarvin, & Damoisel, p. 271).
Figure 4: Design anthropology includes the study of repurposed objects. Photo courtesy of
Elizabeth Briody.
Just as in the fields of marketing and consumer behavior, anthropologists’ ability to get close
to the consumer, to let the consumer formulate the questions, and to see the rich, contextual
issues surrounding product use, are contributions to design research. Miller (2018), Gunn and
Donovan (2012) and Gunn, Otto and Smith (2013) provide useful discussions of how design
and anthropology intertwine. While ethnography as a method has become decoupled from
anthropology in the design field by those who have no anthropological training and in has, in
some instances, become co-opted under the umbrella of User Experience (UX) research, the
anthropological approach to ethnography and theory and the anthropological understanding
of context and holism have much to offer product design and research (Amirebraahimi, 2016).
A synergy results from the evolving relationship between anthropology and design. Design
anthropologists no longer limit their research to work on products, they design processes,
work spaces, and solve other design issues.
Ethics
There is substantial literature in the field of business anthropology on ethics. Examples

include Beeman (2017); Cefkin (2017); Gallenga, Sampson, and Soldani (2016); Kitner (2014);
Malefyt and Morais (2017); and Urban (2017). Malefyt and Morais state that in comparison to
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those for academic and non-practicing anthropologists, ethics for business anthropologists
include a host of distinct and complex issues, many of these due to the capitalist environment.
They explain that “business anthropologists work in an interactive field of consumer–producer
co-creation in continual change that presents a substantial ethical challenge. Not only are
issues of causality, power, and agency less clearly assigned, but also anthropologists in
business are, themselves, agents of change.” (Malefyt & Morais, 2017, p. 9)
In the 1980s the anthropology community was deeply involved in a debate over ethics. Many
anthropologists felt there was a dangerous possibility that the rights of the individuals who
were the subjects of their studies were in jeopardy when anthropologists were being hired by
clients to use their expertise to find out information on the subjects of study for use by these
clients. Suppose corporate executives hired an anthropologist to learn how to control
employees. Could the information gleaned from this research be damaging to the employees
being studied? Or, suppose corporate executives hire an anthropologist to devise a marketing
plan for a new product. Will this research assist the corporation in convincing people to buy a
product that they don’t need, or is harmful, thereby increasing corporate profit at the expense
of the consumer? What if this research is to be kept secret (a common requirement when one
is hired to do research by a corporation)? Is it ethical for the anthropologist to engage in
secret research? These are questions anthropologists consider highly important to the ethics
of the profession. The anthropological community strongly defends the rights of research
subjects and the responsibility of the researcher to prevent her subjects from being harmed
by the research.
Today professional anthropologists operate under several codes of ethics. Those most
important in North America are the codes of the American Anthropological Association (AAA,
2012), the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA, n.d.), and the National Association for the
Practice of Anthropology (NAPA, 2018). Taken together, these codes establish a valuable set of
criteria for the consultant to follow. They cannot possibly, however, address all potential
ethical conflicts an anthropologist may experience. Many business anthropologists find the
AAA code inadequate in creating guidelines for their work. Briody and Pester (2017) wonder
why the AAA code of “do no harm” cannot be supplemented with one of “do some good?”
Doing some good is an ethical guide that most applied anthropologists consider to be at the
core of their work.
Value of Anthropology to Business and Other Organizations
Anthropologists have a skill set and knowledge base that are valuable to business (Desjeux,
2017; Morais & Briody, 2018; Sieck & McNamara, 2016; Tett, 2014). Some of those skills are:
1. Culture Construct: Discussed in Section 2, this is a cornerstone of the anthropological

perspective.
2. Holism: A holistic perspective, the ability to see the integrated picture, to pull back
from the specific problem, event, or situation under study and put it in a larger context,
is one of anthropology’s most important contributions to business. Just as we
understand that culture is an integrated system, we understand how issues are
frequently integrated with other issues so that to understand museum attendance, for
example, one must look at use of space, types of visitors, and placement of objects, not
just museum attendance. Sieck and McNamara (2016) discuss how the anthropologist
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reframes and expands the conversation. For example, police violence could be reframed
by viewing officer training as ritual or a police department as kin networks. Tett refers
to this as “joining up the dots between different parts of peoples’ lives” (2015, p. 133).
3 Emic View: Anthropologists are trained to be able to understand the “emic”

perspective: the point of view of the participants in our research, not just the view
others hold of them. In organizations, we interview and observe at all levels of an
organization to get many points of view in addition to those of the organization leaders;
in studying consumers, we interact with the consumers, not just product designers, in
our quest to see patterned group behavior. For example, Sobo and collegues studied a
VHA health care organization; their detailed research revealed the competing agendas
of the implementation scientists and those impacted by their research. Their goal was
to understand the view of all stakeholders (Sobo, Bowman & Gifford, 2008).
Squires’ (2002) research on breakfast foods for children took her into homes at
breakfast time to observe morning rituals and talk with parents and kids to learn what
each wanted in a breakfast food. This is the kind of fine-grained analysis that
quantitative data cannot provide. We are trained to analyze not only talk but silence and
not only what people say they do but what they actually do.
4. Ethnocentrism: One barrier to our ability as humans to understand the cultures of

others is our tendency to mistake our own cultural behavior for natural, panhuman
behavior. Corporations that have interests in many countries recognize the importance
of understanding foreign cultures but frequently insist on running their international
branches under the influence of their home cultural bias. Anthropologists have the
skills to understand this all-too-human behavior and explain how it leads to
management mistakes and product failures (for example, Wan and Ip on the Chinese
practice of guanxi). Also, within an organization, the construct of ethnocentrism can be
used to understand how distinct employee groups may have differing “ethnocentric”
views of the organization. For example, Krause-Jensen (120) learned of the divide
between leaders’ and employees’ views of the organization’s culture at Bang & Olufsen.
5. Ethnographic Methods: Our qualitative methods continue to gain popularity in business

and beyond for their ability to provide real insights into consumer and employee actions
and interests. They are the calling cards that get many anthropologists in the door of
business. Examples of this importance are found in Butler (2015); Garsten and Nyqvist
(2013); Hasbrouck (2018); LeCompte and Schensul (2010); and McCabe (2017).
6. Comparative Analysis: An additional important insight is the understanding of how

cultural groupings interface. One of the tasks of the anthropologist is to act as a culture
broker and negotiate among multiple stakeholders, for example, between a Norwegian
CEO and his local manager in Brazil (Giskeødegård, 2016). In an example of
sociocultural brand research, a team studying the American Girl brand strove to view it
from the points of view of numerous stakeholders (girls, adult women, marketers, etc.)
in order to compare and analyze their viewpoints (Diamond et al., 2009).
Anthropologists are ambassadors of cultural difference whether that difference be
between employees in the sales department and those in the marketing department,
between technology specialists who design the company website and the less tech
savvy customers who use it, or between company employees in Germany and those in
Kenya.
7.
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Analysis of Power Structures: anthropologists are trained to see informal and formal
power structures. Tett (2014) states that CEOs avoid the mention of power as almost a
taboo. Processes of social control include clearly stated controls but also controls
transmitted in more subtle, silent ways.
Tett, an anthropologist and Assistant Editor of The Financial Times, states: “the real beauty of
anthropology is that it encourages people to ask the question: why? Why is the world
arranged in this way? Why do we talk about some topics – but not others? Why do groups
coalesce in this manner, attach so much importance to particular objects, or think in a certain
manner?” (Tett, 2014, p. 134).
Future of Business Anthropology
The number of practicing anthropologist working in the fields of business anthropology

continues to grow. There is work for anthropologists wishing to pursue this avenue.
Anthropologists Morais (35 years of experience in advertising and marketing with customers
including Procter and Gamble, WD-40, Coca-Cola, Safeway, and Swissotel) and Briody (24
years at General Motors Research and in consulting work in health care, consumer products,
aerospace, petrochemicals, and aging) proclaim that “business anthropology is booming”.
Anthropologists can be found at Google, Intel, American Eagle, Nissan, ADP, and IBM and at
advertising agencies, design companies and marketing research firms. Corporations for which
they have conducted research include Procter & Gamble, Campbell’s Soup, Revlon, IDEO and
Mars. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts growth in business and consulting for
anthropologists (Morais & Briody, 2018).
Examples of the need for business anthropology are found in the popular press. In an article
for businessinsider.com, Baer (2014) stated that companies were desperate to hire
anthropologists for the new perspective they could bring. While company executives are great
at understanding the numbers, they do not know how to figure out what is important to
people in their daily lives, Baer explained. Forbes published an article by anthropologist and
consultant Andrea Simon in 2016 describing four ways anthropology can help women drive
change in corporations. Lidow (2017) explained that while there is ample panel survey data,
there is an urgent need for ethnographic study of business creation and entrepreneurship and
Moore (2011, 506) suggests international business needs more ethnography to understand
“ambivalent phenomena.” Anna Cucurull (a business anthropologist, managing partner of A
Piece of the Pie in Barcelona, and whose clients include Intel, Mondalez, Volkswagen Group
and Vodafone) says her consultancy is growing due to the uncertainty and complexity in
business. Traditional thinking just does not solve the problems (Bowman 2016).
Whether working for non-profit or for-profit organizations or government agencies,

anthropologists bring every voice to the table by including the low-level employee and the
isolated consumer, promote intercultural knowledge by understanding the value in diverse
groups, and bring underrepresented groups into the discussion. To be a business
anthropologist does not in itself represent a stance for or against business, but it does
represent a willingness to engage in the dialogue about business that illuminates solutions to
new problems and new ways of seeing old realities; this is fast becoming the defining dialogue
of our times. Anthropologists have a responsibility to contribute their knowledge to this
Page 18 of 28
worldwide conversation. We champion consumers, foster human-centered organizations, and
promote cultural diversity. If the goal of anthropology is to study human behavior, we cannot
exclude business.
Further Reading
Arnould, E. J., & Thompson, C. J. (2005). Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty years of
research. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), 868–882.
Butler, M. O. (2015). Evaluation: A cultural systems approach. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast
Press.
Caulkins, D. D., & Jordan, A. T. (Eds.). (2013). A companion to organizational anthropology.

Oxford, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cefkin, Melissa. (Ed.). (2009). Ethnography and the corporate encounter: Reflections on
research in and of corporations. (Studies in Public and Applied Anthropology, Vol. 5.) New York:
Berghahn Books.
Denny, R., & Sunderland, P. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of anthropology in business. London:
Routledge.
Garsten, C., & Nyqvist, A. (Eds.). (2013). Organizational anthropology: Doing ethnography in and
among complex organizations. London: Pluto Press.
Hasbrouck, Jay. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnographic thinking: From method to mindset. London:
Routledge.
Gunn, W., Otto, T., & Smith, R. C. (Eds.). (2013). Design anthropology: Theory and practice.
London: Bloomsbury.
Ann T. J. (2013). Business Anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Joy, A., & Li, E. P. H. (2012). Studying consumption behaviour through multiple lenses: an
overview of Consumer Culture Theory. Journal of Business Anthropology, 1(1), 141–173.
Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, & Morais, Robert J. (2012). Advertising and anthropology:
Ethnographic practice and cultural perspectives. Oxford, U.K.: Berg.
Malefyt, Timothy de Waal., & Morais, R. J., (Eds.). (2017). Ethics in the anthropology of business.
London: Routledge.
McCabe, M. (Eds.). (2017). Collaborative ethnography in business environments. London:

Routledge.
McCabe, M., & Briody, E. (Eds.). (2018). Cultural change from a business anthropology
perspective. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Miller, C. (2018). Design + anthropology: Converging pathways in anthropology and design.

London: Routledge.
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Moeran, B. (2005). The business of ethnography: Strategic exchanges, people and organizations.
Oxford, U.K.: Berg.
Sherry, J, F. (Ed.). (1995). Contemporary marketing and consumer behavior: An anthropological

sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sunderland, P. L., & Denny, R. M. (2007). Doing anthropology in consumer research. Walnut
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
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Notes
1. Examples of definitions are Baba (2012, p. 25), Denny and Sunderland (2014, p. 16), and Peluso (2017, p. 11).
2. Sedgwick (2017) and Cefkin (2017) discuss the issues involved in distinguishing anthropology of/for business.
3. Podjed et al. define business anthropology differently than I do here and break up the field into several areas. I add
together all his numbers for fields I call business anthropology to arrive at this conclusion. This difference is again an
example of the many and differing definitions of the field.
4. Adapted from Hiebert (1976, p. 25).
Page 28 of 28

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Business Anthropology

Ann T. Jordan, Professor Emerita, University of North Texas

Simply, business anthropology is the use of anthropological constructs, theory, and

Subjects: Applied Anthropology, International and Indigenous Anthropology, Sociocultural

Introduction to Business Anthropology

World-Wide Growth of Business Anthropology

The Power of the Culture Construct

Understanding cultural groupings is a unique contribution business anthropology makes to

Figure 1: Anthropological perspective on culture and organization.

Organizational anthropology is the study of complex organizations from an anthropological

Theory in Organizational Anthropology Research

Other work demonstrates the continuing viability of anthropological theoretical stalwarts.

Another frame used by anthropologists is cultural ecology. Organizations adapt to their

A common thread across many organizational anthropology studies is the significance of

Figure 2: Anthropologist’s field notes showing assemblage analysis of organizational culture

Future of Organizational Anthropology

Anthropology of Marketing and Consumer Behavior

There is substantial literature in the field of business anthropology on ethics. Examples

Value of Anthropology to Business and Other Organizations

1. Culture Construct: Discussed in Section 2, this is a cornerstone of the anthropological

3 Emic View: Anthropologists are trained to be able to understand the “emic”

4. Ethnocentrism: One barrier to our ability as humans to understand the cultures of

5. Ethnographic Methods: Our qualitative methods continue to gain popularity in business

6. Comparative Analysis: An additional important insight is the understanding of how

Future of Business Anthropology

The number of practicing anthropologist working in the fields of business anthropology

Whether working for non-profit or for-profit organizations or government agencies,

Caulkins, D. D., & Jordan, A. T. (Eds.). (2013). A companion to organizational anthropology.

Ann T. J. (2013). Business Anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

McCabe, M. (Eds.). (2017). Collaborative ethnography in business environments. London:

Miller, C. (2018). Design + anthropology: Converging pathways in anthropology and design.

Sherry, J, F. (Ed.). (1995). Contemporary marketing and consumer behavior: An anthropological

Barnett, S. (2016). Hard cases <https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/jba/article/viewFile/5214/5641>.

Beeman, W. O. (2017, November 17). Doing good by doing well in business

Briody, E. K. (2013). Managing conflict in organizational partnerships <https://doi.org/10.1525/

Cefkin, Melissa. (2017). afterword: questions of an anthropology of and anthropology for

Chanlat, J. F. (1994). Towards an anthropology of organisations. In J. Hassard & M. Parker (Eds.),

Darrah C. N., & Dornadic. A. (2013). Working on work organizations <https://

Denny, R. M. (2002). Communicating with clients <https://practicagroup.com/assets/uploads/

Denny, R. & Patricia, S. (Eds.). (2014). “Introduction” In Handbook of Anthropology in Business

Desjeux, D. (2014). Professional anthropology & training in France <https://doi.org/

Desjeux, D. (2017, November 17). The strength of anthropology <https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.

Friberg, T. (2017). The (re)making of flow: Mediator companies and knowledge

Gamst, F. C. (1977). An integrating view of the underlying premises of an industrial ethnology in

Gardner, B. (1949). Human relations in industry. Chicago: R. D. Irwin.

Gluesing, J. (2013). A mixed-methods approach to understanding global networked

Hamada Connolly, T. (2015). On the meaning(s) of culture <https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/jba/

Hasbrouck, J. (Ed.). (2018). Ethnographic thinking: From method to mindset. London:

Hiebert, P. G. (1976). Cultural anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott.

Jordan, A. T. (2017). Networked organizations. Scientific paper, American Anthropological

Jordan, A. T. (2013). Business anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Koot, W. (1989). Organisatieantropologie in Nederland: een belangwekkend nieuw studieveld?

Mars, G. (2013). Measuring organizational dynamics <https://doi.org/

McCabe, M. (Ed.). (2017). Collaborative ethnography in business environments. London:

Miller, C. (2018). Design + anthropology: Converging pathways in anthropology and design.

Moeran, B. (2006). Ethnography at work. Oxford: Berg.

Moore, F. (2011). Ambivalence, anthropology and business: A review of ethnographic research in

NAPA. (2018). Guidelines for ethical practice 2018 <https://www.practicinganthropology.org/

Neyland, D. (2013). An ethnography of numbers <https://doi.org/

Onomake, U. & Ejiro, O. (2018). Relationship building: Nigerian entrepreneurs, business

Van Marrewijk, A. (2010). European developments in business anthropology[]. International