The Social Anthropology of Management
| Author | Stephen Linstead |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00042 |
Introduction: the other side of the fence
Perhaps the most popular anthropologist in the
world today is Wilson, Tim ‘the Tool Man’ Taylor
(Tim Allen)’s worldly-wise neighbour whose face
is always half hidden by the garden fence on the
comedy series, Home Improvement. Wilson is
always available with some anecdote or example
drawn from his vast experience of the world’s
tribes and cultures to give Tim some advice. Tim
always mangles the advice, getting it hopelessly
wrong, but somehow in the process is able to reflect
on the difficulties of managing human relation-
ships, masculinity and femininity in the family in a
way that achieves some kind of insight. Wilson’s
exotica are usually used to point up something
that Tim already knows, but is blinded to by his
very presence in his own situation.
Managers today already have far more pertin-
ent knowledge and insight into the nature of their
work than their current situations and educational
backgrounds usually allow them to recognize.
Social anthropology can help them to realize this
knowledge and release previously hidden insights.
But social anthropology does not have to bring
esoteric knowledge to bear on the manager’s situa-
tion, viewing departments as tribes, accountants
as high priests or the consultant as shaman. There
is a tradition of social anthropological analysis,
developed in organizations and urban commun-
ities, which is already available for appropriation.
Rather than taking the strange and applying it to
the familiar, it treats the familiar as though it were
strange. After exploring some of the main features
of a social anthropological approach, this paper
will look at an example of how it can be applied
British Journal of Management, Vol. 8, 85–98 (1997)
The Social Anthropology of Management
Stephen Linstead
Department of Management, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
This paper argues that social anthropology as a field science has great potential for
informing multi-disciplinary research in management both conceptually and methodo-
logically. Social anthropology takes as its objectives both accurate description of con-
text and accurate understanding of how those contexts are interpreted and experienced
by participants. It adopts a methodology of ethnographic immersion. This enables the
capture of elusive, ambiguous and tacit aspects of research settings, and also allows
grounded theory to be generated from ‘thick’ or ‘rich’ data. Social anthropology, having
taken into account recent developments in postmodern and critical thought, can con-
tribute to the study, practice, and teaching of management in three categories. Focusing
on culture, new theoretical lines of enquiry can be developed that reassess the signifi-
cance of shared meaning and conflicting interests in specific settings; the concept of the
symbolic in management can be critically elaborated; and modes of representation of
management can be opened up to self-reflexivity. Focusing on critique, ethnography can
be used to defamiliarize taken-for-granted circumstances and reveal suppressed and
alternative possibilities; new or unheard voices and forms of information can be resus-
citated and used to sensitize managerial processes; and cognitive, affective, epistemologi-
cal, ideological and ethical considerations can be linked in the same framework.
Focusing on change, anthropological ideas and concepts can shape and reflect change
processes and resolve unproductive dilemmas; and managerial learning can be
enhanced by promoting the ethnographic consciousness as a way of investigating and
understanding, an attitude of openness. Finally the paper gives an example of the
application of the approach in a management development programme, where
teaching and research progressed in harness.
© 1997 British Academy of Management
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