Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study 
of Business  
Elizabeth K. Briody, Gary Alan Fine, Katarina Graffman, 
Stephanie A. Krawinkler, Maryann McCabe, Patricia 
Sunderland and Rita Denny  

 

 

 

 

 

For this issue of the Journal of Business Anthropology, I approached a 

number of people who have conducted research in, with, on, or for 

business organizations of one sort or another and asked them to reflect 

upon their ethnographic experiences. What follows is a series of essays by 

scholars and practitioners ‒ many of them extremely experienced, but 

one at the beginning of her career ‒ who between them have provided us 

with a collation of exemplary practices and insights. It isn’t just restaurant 

kitchens and home cooking that provide ‘food for thought’, but cruise 

ships, art museums, General Motors, and an Austrian electrical company. 

Bon appetit!  

BM 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Page 1 of 35 
 
JBA 2(2): 133-167 
Fall 2013 
 
© The Author(s) 2013 
ISSN 2245-4217 

www.cbs.dk/jba 

 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 134 

Collaboration and Anthropology in Corporate Work 

Elizabeth K. Briody, Cultural Keys, LLC 

 

As an anthropologist working at General Motors (GM) R&D (1985-2009), 

I was used to questions from employees, friends, academics, and the 

media about my role and methods.  Yet, when Brian Moeran asked me to 

write about ethnographic methods in the study of business, I felt 

challenged.  My basic toolkit was common to most cultural 

anthropologists – content analysis of ethnographic field data – although 

my role as an applied researcher was also to develop recommendations, 

and sometimes interventions, to improve organizational effectiveness.  

Upon reflection, I decided that those interested in business anthropology 

might find the evolution of how I worked (my approach), and how I 

analyzed my project data (thematically), relevant to their own research. 

In this opinion piece, I discuss a convergence over time between my 

research approach and the analysis of my research data at GM.  This 

convergence represents an important transition from independence to 

collaboration as I changed from being an academically-trained 

anthropologist to an applied anthropologist in a business setting.  It also 

reflects the construction of a body of cultural knowledge about the 

corporation in the form of cultural themes.  Simultaneously, I show that 

this same transition to a collaborative partnership paradigm was 

occurring within GM.  I end by arguing that collaboration is generally a 

more productive work practice than independent efforts by individuals, 

that collaboration has a greater potential to improve organizational 

effectiveness, and that anthropologists are well suited to leading and 

facilitating collaborative projects.   

 

The transition from sole researcher to team researcher 

Anthropologists often work alone in the field and alone during analysis 

and writing, though they may consult with others (their study 

participants, colleagues, and/or professors, for example).  I, too, was a 

lone field researcher when I began working at GM.  It was up to me to 

develop a proposal, review it with my supervisor as well as with the 

management of the particular unit that might approve the work, establish 

rapport with study participants, gather and make sense of study-

participant data, write up my findings and recommendations, and hand-

off the final report.  My communication with the management of the 

sponsoring unit was limited and occurred mostly when the project was 

ending.  While it was the case that I was the only anthropologist at GM 

R&D, GM colleagues from other disciplines also worked independently.  

Thus, the pattern of working largely alone at GM R&D was common at 

that time. 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 135 

However, I soon began a multi-year collaboration with an academic 

anthropologist and her students at a nearby university.  Our relationship 

with our GM management sponsors became regular and direct; there was 

keen interest in what we were learning and recommending.  I built on this 

approach in subsequent projects and began developing deeper 

relationships with sponsoring-unit leaders.  For example, I became more 

visible as I set out to explore the operations of two different product 

programs and served as both researcher and consultant to them.  I 

offered workshops to help them explore interventions to deal with their 

cross-cultural problems.  My new role was a reflection, in part, of the 

changing view of research at GM.  Researchers were charged to become 

increasingly applied in their focus, to identify committed sponsors for 

each new research project, and to work with those sponsors closely to 

address key issues.  At this time, I also expanded my relationships with 

anthropologists at other universities and in my professional associations.   

In the early 2000s, my work pattern changed again.  I supervised a 

graduate student intern who ultimately became a GM contract employee.  

Together we began building a team of researchers by leveraging our 

contacts.  Our team had regular interactions – both informal updates and 

formal presentations – with our management sponsors.  GM’s external 

partners also sought us out.     

Aside from the obvious benefits of having a wider variety of experts 

on our team, and more of them, this kind of teamwork also reinforced the 

value of developing strong relationships with the leadership of the 

sponsoring units.  When those linkages were robust, it was possible to 

work directly with them to frame and conduct the research.  These 

projects were more relevant and our recommendations were frequently 

implemented.  In one of our last projects, the sponsoring leaders engaged 

in what anthropologists call community-based participatory research.  

Their questions and insights led to collaboration on ten tools or 

interventions.  In contrast to my earlier hand-off approach, working 

directly with the sponsoring leadership allowed our research team to 

become an effective part of a far bigger team effort within the 

corporation.    

 

Compiling a thematic understanding of GM culture  

In the mid-1980s, much of the popular business press focused on 

corporate culture, describing it in ways that made little sense to me (for 

instance, strong or weak cultures).  In one of my first projects, I identified 

a pattern of blame and blame avoidance.  I was able to operationalize the 

theme of blaming and found that it helped me make sense of seemingly-

disparate perspectives and behaviors.  Blaming was expressed in 

statements made by manufacturing workers who were frustrated by poor 

product quality.  Employees blamed those upstream from them in the 

assembly process and those on the previous shift, not their own shift.  The 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 136 

content of the blaming statements reflected GM’s rocky transition from 

production quotas at any cost, to improvements in quality while 

maintaining efficiency.  This thematic approach both resonated within GM 

and was easy to explain.  It became an important analytical component in 

future projects.  

Historically, GM’s culture has been characterized by autonomy 

(defined as acting and developing independently of the whole) and its 

allied theme of individualism.  Autonomy was evident in GM’s distinctive, 

differentiated, and decentralized operations.  Indeed, GM was formed in 

1908 from the consolidation of several different car companies that were 

linked together through committees and financial controls.  Each GM unit 

or division had its own assumptions, expectations, and values.  Work 

practices and processes were ‘home grown’ by these individual units, 

rather than centrally developed and disseminated.  Terms and phrases 

such as ‘silos,’ ‘functional chimneys,’ ‘turf,’ ‘not invented here,’ and ‘my 

way or the highway!’ reflect the themes of independence, self-reliance, 

and ethnocentrism and continue to be part of the firm’s vernacular today. 

In all of the projects I worked on while at GM, autonomy always had 

an effect on the ways in which employees understood their roles, how 

work was conducted, and the overall course of organizational events.  

However, other cultural themes emerged from my project data as well.   

 

Data 
Collection 
Year(s) 

Project Cultural Themes Focus 

1986 Truck Assembly 
Plant 

Blaming Quality 

1986-88 Expatriates Parochialism Adaptation and 
Repatriation 

1988-89 Reorganization Autonomy Organizational 
Status 

1990-91 Downsizing Career 
Advancement 

Job Mobility 

1993-94 Vehicle 
Development 
Process 

Ambiguity Commonality and 
Differences 

1996-98 Global Product 
Program 

Differentiation Cross-Unit 
Integration 

1998-2000 Strategic Alliances Authority Decision Making 
2001-03 R&D Partnerships Reciprocity Effectiveness 
2002-07 Researcher 

Workspace 
Productivity Workspace 

Requirements 
2002-07 New Vehicle 

Assembly Plant 
Collaboration Ideal Plant Culture 

2007-08 Integrated Health Health Care 
Fragmentation 

Customer Views 

Table:  Key Cultural Themes and Focus of Selected GM Projects by Data Collection 

Year(s) 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 137 

Morris E. Opler has argued that a longitudinal examination of cultural 

themes often reveals changes in culture.  Until I completed an analysis of 

my research projects by theme and year, I was unaware of the 

transformation playing out in my own data.  Cultural conflict and 

ethnocentric behavior emerged during the first fifteen years of my GM 

career.  For example, cultural conflict appeared in the parochialism of 

GM’s domestic units in accepting, and later promoting, returning GM 

expatriates.  In another project, a global vehicle program had insufficient 

authority to be successful.  Ethnocentric behavior combined with little 

cohesion among the participating GM units resulted in decision-making 

ambiguity, program delays, cost overruns, and ultimately failure.  

In the most recent projects, conflict and ethnocentrism lessened 

and were overshadowed by an increasingly-cooperative spirit.  We found 

a desire for building and maintaining strong, healthy working 

relationships both within GM and beyond.  Themes of reciprocity and 

collaboration featured prominently.  For example, when GM R&D 

provided funding to professors at several universities, it never 

anticipated that reciprocity would play a key role in maintaining those 

long-term relationships so that the projects would be successful.  

Similarly, in the ideal plant culture project, we discovered a consensus 

view of a desired future culture among hourly, salaried, and executive 

employees.  They repeatedly expressed a unified vision and a cooperative 

orientation to manufacturing work.   

 

Validating a cultural shift in GM’s cultural evolution 

W. Lloyd Warner emphasized cultural explanation within a broader 

societal context.  In particular, he examined the relationship between 

external forces and community and organizational activity.  In that same 

spirit, I asked myself:  to what extent has GM’s autonomous culture been 

tempered over its 105-year history?  With my own career as a case in 

point, I saw that my work evolved from the sole researcher model to one 

that was inclusive of other researchers and employees at all levels – 

including senior leaders.  In addition, I discovered that there had been a 

transformation in the cultural themes from my research projects toward 

an emphasis on partnership, cooperation, and unity. 

However, I then questioned my initial query.  Could it be that this 

former corporate giant was actually moving away from its infamous, 

directive, top-down management style to work practices that valued joint 

efforts, improved coordination and collaboration, knowledge sharing, and 

cohesive working relationships?  I decided to try to validate the shift 

toward collaboration and collaborative research in my own projects by 

canvassing GM’s history.  For over a century, GM has engaged in various 

types of ventures to improve its competitiveness.  These ventures have 

been global in orientation; all continue to be active today.  What I found in 

response to my question pleased and surprised me.        



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 138 

 

Export 

Export was GM’s earliest venture strategy.  The GM Export Co. was 

created in 1911 to sell product outside the U.S.  Vehicles were ‘completely 

knocked down’ and then shipped to wholesale distributors in places such 

as Europe and the Middle East.   

 

Overseas assembly 

A second strategy involved overseas assembly.  GM began opening plants 

in various countries beginning in 1923.  Within five years, plants were 

opened in 12 other countries; still more plants were added during the 

1930s and 1940s.  These assembly plants produced product for markets 

with the capacity for at least 10,000 vehicle sales while the GM Export Co. 

ended up serving smaller markets. 

 

Acquisition 

Acquisition of manufacturing operations represented a third strategy.  GM 

purchased operations such as Vauxhall Motors Ltd. in the UK and Adam 

Opel A.G. located in Germany during the 1920s.  This strategy was a way 

for GM to cope with emerging issues overseas (e.g., higher tariffs, 

preference for European styling).        

Little was collaborative about how these three early strategies 

worked.  For example, the GM Export Co. often disregarded customer 

requests for service and did not stock spare parts routinely.  The overseas 

assembly strategy was established primarily to compete with Ford Motor 

Co., not to design products with particular customers in mind.  Finally, the 

acquisition strategy was consistent with GM’s autonomous tradition of 

independently-minded unit management.  

GM’s overseas operations continued to expand through the mid-

1960s.  Soon after, automotive manufacturers in Europe and Japan began 

challenging GM’s dominance.  GM faced increasing government 

regulation, particularly with respect to vehicle safety, and found its 

relationship with the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) acrimonious 

and costly.  Outside the U.S., many governments required automotive 

manufacturers to hire more local employees and abide by local content 

laws in which a higher proportion of the raw materials had to be local. 

 

Joint venture 

The 1970s represented a turning point in the way GM functioned.  GM 

entered the arena of the joint venture in which a separate organizational 

and legal entity is created from the resources of at least two companies.  



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 139 

This new unit operates independently of the parent firms and relies on 

the principles of partnering – including a desire to achieve common goals, 

a willingness to negotiate and reach consensus, and an ability to work 

together.  New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) was one of 

GM’s most notable joint ventures because it involved a key competitor – 

Toyota Motor Corporation.  The NUMMI plant was managed by the 

Japanese with a UAW workforce and some participation by GM salaried 

employees and executives.  Although this joint venture was terminated as 

part of GM’s bankruptcy, it was an important and highly-visible precursor 

to many other future partnering arrangements.   

 

Global product program 

GM gained experience in internal partnering with the establishment of 

global product programs in the mid-1990s.  I had the opportunity to study 

the Delta Small Car Program as it was getting underway in 1996.  This 

program consisted of employees from three globally-distributed GM units 

who were assigned to work together and produce vehicles that would be 

sold in different markets.  Unfortunately, the matrix structure designed to 

organize the participants was not successful due to insufficient authority 

of the program manager and strong employee allegiance to their home 

units.  However, other global programs learned from this experience – 

specifically in terms of how employees were organized and the work 

carried out – so that global programs have operated increasingly 

effectively over time.   

 

Strategic alliance 

GM participated in a series of strategic alliances, often with companies in 

which it had equity.  I had an opportunity to study GM’s strategic alliance 

with Isuzu Motors Ltd. beginning in 1998.  Its purpose was to share costs, 

gain economies of scale, and produce a truck that could be sold globally.  

GM’s partnership with Isuzu lasted about 35 years – a tribute, at least in 

part, to the strong relationship formed between the most senior leaders 

of both firms. 

 

Collaborative research laboratories 

One other strategy was developed during my GM tenure.  GM R&D created 

Collaborative Research Labs (CRLs) with twelve universities located 

around the world.  These relationships were different from GM’s joint 

ventures, global product programs, and strategic alliances because GM, 

not its university partners, provided the funding.  The purpose of these 

CRLs was to bring researchers from GM R&D and the particular 

universities together to work on applied problems of interest to both 

parties.  Each side placed a high value on the relationships created among 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 140 

small groups of researchers, as well as on their research outcomes.  For 

example, GM benefitted from the universities’ cutting-edge knowledge 

and techniques, while professors and their students had opportunities to 

work on important automotive issues.   

 

Explaining GM’s cultural evolution toward partnering 

These historical data on GM’s venture strategies corroborate the 

collaborative patterns associated with my own research career.  They 

show that GM evolved from a corporate entity with unilateral 

management control to a firm that experimented with, and then adopted, 

a partnership orientation in its most recent ventures.  Many factors 

contributed to this cultural shift.  First, GM faced rising competition 

globally, particularly from Japanese automakers.  Second, customers 

expected higher quality, better reliability, and improved durability from 

GM products.  Third, GM’s own financial resources were shrinking and, at 

the same time, the corporation faced new government regulations both at 

home and abroad.  All these conditions created a willingness at GM to 

improve its options by working in innovative partnering arrangements.  

Finally, GM’s products and processes are now largely global.  

Consequently, collaboration within the firm and with long-term partners 

is much easier than in the past. 

All of GM’s various partnerships since the 1970s have had their own 

unique character.  Collaborations that are vitally important today involve 

China.  GM was eager to enter the Chinese market given its vast potential.  

It pulled together a team of senior GM leaders of Chinese origin to explore 

ways of penetrating it.  The Chinese government requires a joint venture 

arrangement for any firm wishing to do business in China.  Therefore, the 

structural aspect of any relationship GM would have there was pre-

determined.   

Fortunately, this team recognized the importance of relationships 

in Chinese culture.  It used its own contacts in China, and due diligence, to 

identify a joint venture partner.  Discussions began with Shanghai 

Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) Group, resulting in the creation 

of SGM (SAIC – GM) in 1997.  A decision was made that the joint venture 

would produce Buicks because of the positive image that the Chinese held 

of this brand.  The time that the GM team spent in cultivating 

relationships with SAIC and other key Chinese stakeholders paid off 

quickly.  The first Buick rolled off the line in China in 1998.  By 2012, GM 

had sold 2.8 million vehicles in China, making it GM’s largest market.  

GM’s recorded revenue in China that year was $33.4 billion. 

 

 

 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 141 

Conclusion 

Several lessons for anthropologists can be drawn from this longitudinal 

examination of research approaches, research project themes, and 

corporate venture strategies.  First, it is possible to document cultural 

change by analyzing anthropological research within organizational 

settings – both how it is done and what it has found – as is typical in 

studies of ethnic groups and communities generally.  Moreover, other 

sources of data can be used to validate the results from such analyses.  

Second, knowledge of core cultural themes can be useful in 

describing and explaining the worldview and behavior observed within 

an organizational culture.  A more detailed understanding of the key 

cultural obstacles and enablers of organizational-culture change can be 

revealed through an analysis of these themes.  Indeed, themes can be 

critical heuristic devices in encouraging organizational transformation 

and learning.   

Third, collaboration requires an ability to work with people who 

have different viewpoints, competencies, and roles.  Anthropologists are 

equipped to understand, assess, and translate across organizational, 

occupational, and national-culture boundaries, as well as the designer-

user and producer-customer interfaces.  Applied anthropology programs 

that emphasize collaborative approaches in their training, especially as 

part of project work, are likely to be valued by clients and positioned for 

success.  Indeed, collaboration with colleagues, study participants, and 

sponsors is a necessary characteristic of anthropological work in the 

corporate sector today. 

 

 

* * * 

 

 

If You Can’t Stand the Heat: The Business of Observing 

Restaurant Kitchens 
Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University 

 

It takes a feat of memory to recall that it was over thirty years ago that I 

began my ethnographic research on restaurants and their cultures. At the 

time I had conducted research on Little League baseball teams and 

fantasy role-play gamers, but I hoped to expand from the world of 

voluntary and casual leisure to the examination of institutions that were 

concerned with the production of aesthetic and sensory objects.  

Ultimately I observed in the kitchens of four restaurants in the 

Minneapolis-St. Paul area: a gourmet restaurant, a restaurant that catered 

to business clients, a downtown hotel, and a neighborhood steakhouse. In 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 142 

examining restaurants I recognized that I was concerned with locations 

that were simultaneously small groups with their own local cultures, and 

also economic organizations in which profit was required for survival. 

These were sites in which individuals had different amounts and forms of 

power, and in which there existed several competing models that 

characterized the work (Fine 1996, 2009).  

Of course these were not just any work organizations, but 

specifically organizations that were tight and loud and hot, filled with 

sensory challenges. Every field site has its own peculiarities, details that 

become part of the ethnographic story. I have long treasured a quotation 

from Paul Stoller describing his research among the Songhay in Niger in 

his Taste of Ethnographic Things. Stoller (1989: 4) writes elegantly, ‘Africa 

assailed my senses. I smelled and tasted ethnographic things and was 

both repelled by and attracted to a new spectrum of odors, flavors, sights, 

and sounds.’ In a small way Minnesota restaurants have similar effects, 

creating a buzzing, booming, smelly confusion, but also hopefully for the 

managers an efficient and profitable confusion. 

Observers of any work scene soon realize that workers, no matter if 

they treasure their work, do not show up by their choice alone. There are 

schedules and demands that are placed upon them. Bosses need workers 

at particular times and on a regular timetable. Employees are controlled 

through a hierarchical organization that has the power – a power that I 

have seen used – to terminate the relationship if those with decisional 

power are unsatisfied with the performance or the profit.  

Because these spaces are not public arenas, access is provided 

through the generosity of management, often through some delicate 

negotiation of what can be seen and when. One depends on the kindness 

of management. Gaining the blessing of bosses, I had a burden of trust to 

overcome, as do many other observers of business sites. Workers needed 

to know, in the pungent words of Howard Becker (1967), ‘whose side was 

I on?’ Of course, the true answer was that I was on the side of the 

academy, of social science, of my own bosses, but I had to persuade both 

management and workers that I was on their side as well. The question 

for whom the observer observes is a salient issue, but often it becomes 

muted as it is clear that no bad outcomes result, at least in the short run. 

The clearest expression of this sentiment was found in the hotel 

kitchen that I studied, part of a hotel chain that operated under explicit, 

external corporate control. One day early in my time in the hotel kitchen, 

one of the kitchen workers, noting my notepad, asked me, quite 

reasonably, if I was conducting a time-management study. More often this 

tension between being a friend and being a spy or ‘fink’ emerged in the 

context of joking. Ostensibly this was friendly banter, but there was an 

underlying sense of concern. For instance, at the high-end, creative 

restaurant at which I observed, Davis, a server, jokes to me, asking, ‘Who 

do you really work for? What hotel chain do you really work for?’ Diane, a 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 143 

cook, suggests that I was a reporter for the National Enquirer, hoping to 

dig up dirt on the restaurant industry. On another occasion at the 

continental restaurant, the head chef, Paul, raises the same anxiety in 

suggesting that I am a spy, adding that ‘he’s watching to make sure we 

work.’ Similar remarks were made in my presence during my study of 

three meteorological offices of the National Weather Service, where it was 

suggested that my presence was related to the work of the office of 

Inspector General (Fine 2007).  

This suspicion became salient in those cases in which minor 

deviance occurred in my presence. This was particularly evident with 

lower-status employees, who feared my power over their careers. For 

instance, one pantry worker noticed that I was watching when she ate a 

piece of roast beef that had been trimmed. She giggles and asks nervously, 

‘Are you going to put this in your book?’ Later a dishwasher eats some of 

the beef and jokes, ‘Which part will we steal today?’ The workers hope 

that I will legitimate their deviance, or even participate in it, which, of 

course, I do. These employees wish that I will place myself on their side as 

a true, if limited, member of their group, embracing its underside. At the 

steakhouse cooks received beers from the bar, and I did on occasion as 

well. Once a waitress informed the cooks that I was watching them drink 

and one of the cooks responded, ‘He’s on our side. He’s exposing the 

scandals of cooking.’ I was touched by the remark. 

Of course, the reality was that there were moments in which forces 

of control ensnared me. Twice I was asked not to observe, both times 

during the first days of my research. In one case the restaurant was 

scheduled to be featured on a local television show, and viewers were 

informed that they would receive a reduced price on steak that weekend. 

The manager thought that the restaurant would be too crowded and I 

might be in the way. After I had been present for a few weeks, I observed 

on equally busy nights. At the continental restaurant, I was asked to skip a 

day when a server was being trained by watching the kitchen. Again, later 

in the research, I was present when another server was given the same 

training. At first, organizations, particularly those with power hierarchies, 

may be sceptical of outsiders, but with enough goodwill, outsiders can 

turn into honorary insiders. 

A final point to consider in observing organizations is that those 

who are in control and those who hope to have the organization succeed 

may wish to have the observer’s perspective, often for good causes, even 

if the consequences can upset the order of things. Throughout my 

research I was careful not to provide information to chefs or managers 

about my observations of particular workers and was careful about not 

being too specific about conclusions that might improve the kitchen. I 

would never mention food that fell on the floor was quickly washed, 

reheated, and then served to customers. Still less would I mention the 

food that was thrown around the kitchen or knives tossed in momentary 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 144 

anger. Still, these gatekeepers had my ear when they wished and would 

learn my general reactions. Even though I have no reason to believe that 

my comments had any doleful consequences, it is reasonable that 

workers would worry about what I knew and what I might report. The 

reality that businesses are organized with power imbalances makes them 

tricky sites for those who wish to observe their operation without being 

forced to take sides. 

In a previous discussion (Fine 2003), I have argued that observers 

should strive for what I termed ‘peopled’ ethnography. By this I mean that 

while producing theory and not merely descriptive accounts, 

ethnographers should never lose sight that it is the local, empirical 

particulars of the group being observed that constitute the research. 

Theory alone does not make ethnography persuasive. Even if one 

examines a large organization (and restaurants typically are microscopic 

organizations), one is examining a set of small groups that negotiate 

shared problems and constitute a bounded network of these groups. 

Businesses with their structured hierarchies and their organizational 

charts exemplify how social systems are constituted by networks of tight-

knit social relations. The ethnographer who wanders into this field must 

quickly recognize how that network operates and must recognize, as I did 

in my smaller organizations, that each relationship one makes and each 

group with which one has contact is viewed carefully and cautiously by 

other workers and other groups that see their own position as potentially 

vulnerable.  

I titled this essay by using a phrase that links both to cuisine and to 

politics, and perhaps that is a properly bifurcated metaphor. 

Ethnographers must be brave in their observations. They must recognize 

that while informants are often friendly, it is not only their hearts and 

arms that are open, but their eyes and ears as well. Ethnographers may 

face cold informants or hot environs, and both matter in the kitchen, on 

the shop floor, and within an office.  

 

References 

Howard S. Becker. 1967. ‘Whose Side Are We On?’ Social Problems 14: 

239-47. 

Gary Alan Fine. 1996. ‘Justifying Work: Occupational Rhetorics as 

Resources in Restaurant Kitchens.’ Administrative Science Quarterly 41: 

90-115. 

Gary Alan Fine. 2003. ‘Toward a Peopled Ethnography: Developing 

Theory from Group Life.’ Ethnography 4:4 1-60. 

Gary Alan Fine. 2007. Authors of the Storm: Meteorology and the Culture of 

Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Gary Alan Fine. 2009. Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work. Revised 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 145 

Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Paul Stoller. 1989. The Taste of Ethnographic Things. Philadelphia: 

University of Pennsylvania Press. 

 

 

* * * 

 

 

Doing ‘Business Anthropology’ 

Katarina Graffman, Inculture 

 

When faced with the task of writing a piece about business anthropology 

methods, I immediately recognized the challenge in giving a short but fair 

picture of what it means to be a ‘business anthropologist’. What follows is 

my best response to that challenge.   

Seven years ago I founded my company Inculture, enthusiastic but 

still in doubt about being able to make a living as an anthropologist 

outside academia ‒ especially without compromising anthropological 

theory and method ‒ and so enter into ordinary market research, even if a 

little bit disguised as such! A professor advised me that I had better not 

mention that I was an anthropologist: ‘it will most likely be easier for you 

to thrive in business by labelling your work as expertise in media and 

consumer studies’. When I asked why, I learned that ‘out there’ ‒ meaning 

the world outside academia ‒ the notion of culture was poorly defined 

and thus regarded as fuzzy: ‘they want facts and figures’. 

This advice made me defiant: would the notion of anthropology, my 

choice of priority subject area, really be more repelling than inviting ‘out 

there’?  Consequently, instead of being deterred, I became more 

determined than ever to emphasis the fact that I am a cultural 

anthropologist and that the company Inculture is an anthropological 

consultancy firm, which would always pursue anthropological skills and 

expertise and defend the importance of these, regardless of client or 

project. 

After having read ‘Opinions: What business anthropology is, what it 

might become… and what, perhaps, it should not be’ in the Journal of 

Business Anthropology, my confusion increased rather than the opposite. I 

should perhaps be slightly apologetic about being blunt, but I prefer 

honest criticism. The opinions presented in this issue of the JBA are 

formulated in a very academic way, and ‘business anthropology’ itself is 

defined more as an open question than a proper suggestion. The result is 

confusion. It does not have to be more complicated than: anthropology, 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 146 

both as a theory and as a method, offers a holistic understanding of 

human action in a society increasingly dominated by marketing and 

branding. Or, as Ulf Hannerz (2012:254) writes in one of the opinions: ‘I 

see anthropology as a study of all human life in which business these days 

plays a very central role.’ 

As I see it, the most challenging tasks of business anthropology are 

the following: 

1. Convincing the client about the aim and importance of 

anthropology: what can be achieved? 

2. Customizing the method for the actual project; 

3. Presenting the result in a way which is relevant to business and 

makes sense to the client.  

 

Convincing the client about the aim and importance of anthropology: 

what can be achieved? 

One of the most difficult tasks for Inculture has actually been to market 

anthropological knowledge and its benefits. In this sense, I could agree 

with the professor mentioned above, ‘culture’ has become a buzz-word 

which has a variety of connotations and the conception of anthropology 

itself is limited. It thus comes as no surprise that these notions pose a 

problem for most clients, and that the ability to explain why anthropology 

would make a difference from a business point of view has to be 

improved. Anthropologists must develop this competence further, as well 

as how to better communicate their theoretical and methodological 

professionalism and explain its relevance for business development. 

Moreover, ethnographic methods and anthropological analyses must be 

customized to clients’ demands and from the start account for 

commercial relevance. Anthropologists have to extend their area of 

knowledge to include cognitive science and business administration with 

emphasis on product development, marketing strategy, consumer theory 

and communication.  

This is, of course, two-edged: to understand and apply knowledge 

from other disciplines, while also embedding oneself in different business 

environments without losing the anthropological focus. I have for some 

years been heading a course in cultural analysis for students learning 

copywriting and art direction at the most reputable school for 

communication studies in Sweden. Anthropological knowledge is slowly 

making its way into advertising and will in the long term both change the 

way culture is understood in that business and lead to an increased 

demand for anthropologists. When anthropological theory develops to 

include knowledge which is clearly relevant for the client’s business, it 

makes real sense and may result in the company manifestly improving its 

competence to include strategic cultural judgments in their activities (see 

further Graffman & Börjesson 2011).  



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

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Customize the method for the actual project. 

If we succeed in convincing a client to use anthropology to enhance 

knowledge and understanding, and thus enable the formulation of a 

successful business strategy, the next phase is to decide how this should 

actually be done. I have so far been trusted to design projects fairly 

independently, probably due to my recognized experience as an 

anthropologists, but also as a result of the subject area still being a ‘white 

space’ for most clients. All projects are different and each individual 

project demands full attention to the choice of methods: participant 

observation, long interviews, ethnography, mapping, and so on. As a 

business anthropologist you need to be creative when it comes to 

methods and analysis. Every new assignment is a true challenge and 

contributes to the ongoing development of methods. All projects have to 

be anchored in reality rather than in theory, and driven forward by 

intelligently interpreted facts derived from observations and hearings: 

what is said and what is actually done. As anthropologists we do not 

deliver the answers the client presupposes or, even worse, takes for 

granted. Our professionalism is about being able to create an all-

encompassing picture of humans’ ways of acting ‒ a picture which 

distinguishes between short lived trends, or ways of living, and long lived 

human needs, or ways of being.  

The applied method does not always have to include ethnography, 

even if Inculture, more often than not, realizes its importance and makes 

it part of the project plan. However, it is important to emphasize that 

fieldwork and participant observation is not always required. Sometimes 

it is the ‘anthropological eye’ that is needed: to be a cultural advisor and 

also to apply one’s expertise to already existing facts. New knowledge is 

gained by combining existing knowledge.  

 

Present the result in a way which is relevant to business and makes 

sense to the client.  

Most of us are aware that we cannot formulate a consultant 

recommendation as a traditional academic report; no one will understand 

and/or have the time to interpret the text. For those of us brought up in 

an academic tradition, it is very difficult to change the way we present our 

research and findings. This became very clear when I was working with 

an English client and entrusted to understand and define Mauritian 

culture. The client explained clearly that it was not helped by my 

academic theorizations and formulations and that the quality of my work 

was brought down by the fact that I did not trust myself to make clear 

recommendations and come up with concrete suggestions. As an 

academic, of course, you are never supposed to do this but to leave the 

field open for alternative interpretations. The client insisted: ‘We wanted 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

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your competence as an anthropologist and need to know what you think 

as such. You are the expert; we are not’.  

When working in business, you must learn to make the most 

plausible conclusion whilst taking into account the facts that are present. 

Not even doctors are always sure when making diagnoses: they use their 

expertise to make intelligent guesses about the illness you are most likely 

to have and how best it should be treated. Leaving the patient with the 

possibility of having a number of potential illnesses, and consequently the 

choice of a range of different treatments, would quickly undermine the 

doctor’s reputation as a professional.  

Grant McCracken (2009) suggests that every company in the future 

will need a Chief Culture Officer, someone who carries the 

anthropological way of thinking into the heart of the company and makes 

it part of its strategic thinking. Maybe this is not imminent, but hopefully 

anthropological knowledge and theories will in the future be regarded as 

of strategic importance for business rather than merely as another tool 

for market research.  

Anthropology matters as it can make a difference when judging 

how matters matter to human beings. 

 

References 

Graffman, Katarina & Kristina Börjesson 2011. ‘‘We are looking forward 

to some cool quotes!’ Perspectives on applied ethnography’. Ethnologia 

Europaea 41(1): 96-103. 

Hannerz, Ulf 2012. ‘Opinions: What business anthropology is, what it 

might become… and what, perhaps, it should not be’. Journal of Business 

Anthropology 1(2): 254-256. 

McCracken, Grant 2009. Chief Culture Officer. How to Create a Living 

Breathing Corporation. New York: Basic Books. 

 

 

* * * 

 

 

Business Ethnography 

Stephanie A. Krawinkler, University of Vienna 

 

As a young researcher who only recently finished her doctoral 

dissertation, I feel both honoured and hesitant about sharing my 

encounter with business ethnography with colleagues and readers who 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 149 

have had far more experience than I. However, I will go ahead and write 

about my research on trust at a company that I will call Wire Inc. – 

focusing in particular on insights attained through trying to gain access to 

and information about this company, as well as the mix of methods that I 

then used there. In addition, I will give a short outline of some of the 

particularities of engaging in business (as opposed to some other kind of) 

ethnography. 

Born in Austria, I studied International Business Management at the 

University of Applied Sciences in Eisenstadt, and later also received a 

Master in Social and Cultural Anthropology, from the University of 

Vienna. In addition, I was trained in Group Dynamics and Organizational 

Development at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, and have worked 

as a business consultant and an in-house consultant. Since 2006, I have 

been engaged in organizational focused anthropology, a subdivision of 

business anthropology.  

As I see it, an ethnographic approach can in general help the 

anthropologist work out who has what kinds of tacit knowledge in an 

organization ‒ tacit knowledge that, once uncovered, can be of help in the 

process of reengineering, mergers, and conflict solving. It provides a 

snapshot of an organizational culture and allows us to develop measures 

that really fit the company and so, potentially, have a higher rate of being 

successful. In the following case, however, I did not have a change 

mandate of this kind, since I was conducting academic research.  

 

Wire Inc.  

As part of my doctoral research I focused on understanding emic 

perspective(s) in the matter of trust. To accomplish this research, I spent 

five months over a period of one and a half years as a participant observer 

in a medium-sized Austrian company called Wire Inc.1  

Wire Inc. is a family-owned company with a long tradition in 

offering electrician services. In 2011, one in four employees in the 

industrial sector in Austria was working for a medium-sized company like 

Wire Inc. so that it is rather typical of such companies. Located 200 km 

from Vienna, it had many out-of-office processes. My choice of this 

company was partly based on the fact that it was easier to approach an 

owner in my home country, while its regional distance from Vienna meant 

it was easier to shift roles and provide time frames for the research, 

which contributed to efficiency. 

Wire Inc. mainly operates in the business-to-business (B-2-B) 

sector. It went through financially difficult times at the beginning of this 

millennium and has been undergoing a range of restructuring processes 

since. At the time I entered as a researcher, the company employed 139 

                                                        
1 This research was partially funded by the University of Vienna.  



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

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people and was strongly male dominated (only ten women were 

employed at that time). The official structure was a rather flat one and 

work was organized in projects with varied time-frames from a few days 

to several months. Because it has had trust issues in the past, Wire Inc. 

was open to this − at least in Austria − new way of interacting with long-

time social research. 

My ethnographic approach consisted of applying a combination of 

methods, which included participant observation, person-centered 

interviews, group discussions, ego-centered social network analysis, 

informal talks, experiments, analyses of written material produced by the 

field, video and photo documentation, and writing a field diary. 

 

Gaining access to Wire Inc.  

There was no prior relation between the company and myself before the 

research project started. As we know from other accounts, gaining access 

to a company for research is an often difficult process, but it is one of the 

crucial points affecting the success or failure of any organizational-

focused business anthropology. In this particular case, a work colleague 

opened the doors to Wire Inc: she recommended me to them and 

established an initial connection. Since the practice of conducting long-

term business ethnography is almost completely absent in Austria, the 

recommendation was helpful in my getting a foot in at the door. I had two 

phone calls with the owner: in the first I described the research outline 

(including the research design and its possible benefit to the company), 

and in the second, we agreed on a date to meet.  

During the meeting I received a detailed company description and 

tour; the owner, the CEO and I clarified the research design, including opt-

out possibilities for both the company and myself, access arrangement, 

informing the employees, and publishing rights. The meeting closed with 

a shared lunch, which was a further opportunity to familiarize with my 

future informants. We took a few days to think about the proposal and 

finally all involved agreed on the research, which should conduct 

ethnography of, and not for, an organization. This implied that I could – 

from a research point of view – define my own research questions, and 

that I was not going to be financed by the company, which enabled me to 

avoid having to deliver 'wanted' results. 

 

Connecting with informants…  

Obtaining access to the company on an official level is only a first step 

towards success. Even though seldom discussed in the business 

anthropology literature, it is absolutely necessary to build rapport with 

informants:  managers, employees, workers and apprentices, and 

whoever else is part of your field. In my case this also included temporary 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

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employees, cooperation partners, customers, and suppliers. In the end it 

is their willingness to share their knowledge and insights that allows us to 

gain a holistic multi-perspective view of a company. In my own case, this 

involved views from all levels of the company’s hierarchy, as well as the 

standpoints of its departments, the perspectives of its partners, clients 

and suppliers, and other contextual information. During all of this, I had to 

adapt to different people in different ways to create empathic 

connections: by adopting different forms of communication, modes of 

behavior, and dress codes. Even when doing organization-focused 

research, the ethnographer has to take all these into account since there 

are subgroups in every company.  

Right from the start, I was very transparent about my role and aims. 

I was quickly referred to as ‘our PhD-candidate’ by people in Wire Inc. In 

this respect, we can say that ethnography isn’t just a method, for it is 

shaped by the ethnographer’s own character. My informants perceived 

me as a member of a university who conducted research in a different city 

from the one I lived in; who was willing to spend weeks and months away 

from my family and friends; and last, but not least, who was a woman. 

In order to be able to carry out this kind of research, my roles 

shifted during the course of the project: from social anthropologist setting 

up a project, asking and discussing things; to apprentice, who learned 

how to lay cables and install distribution boxes; to team-member at sport 

events; and facilitator in workshops. These varying roles helped me to 

understand the everyday working lives of the people I was studying, to 

establish relationships of trust with them, and to elicit information from 

them. In this respect, one should never underestimate the value of 

attention: usually people perform their tasks and only receive attention 

and feedback when things go wrong or very well. Hardly ever does 

anyone take an interest in their everyday practices, beliefs and values, in 

the way that I did as an ethnographer. 

These everyday practices on a person's working environment often 

remain hidden and, in general, people are so busy carrying out their tasks 

that they do not have the time to find out about and get to know other 

peoples’ perspectives ‒ something that is true of workers, as well as of 

managers. As long as the anthropologist manages not to be regarded as a 

spy and reliably shows that she isn’t going to rat on someone, this opens 

up an interesting field of information. This is where being an 

anthropologist comes into play. I was a free element in the company, and 

experiencing some of the work tasks and the work environment (cold 

winters, hot summers, heights, and so on) gave me a multi-layer level of 

understanding. Hanging out in public spaces within the organization, 

spending time with people at all levels of the hierarchy and in all 

departments, and collecting information on similar topics from various 

different perspectives, gave me a holistic view of the company.  

This material could be aggregated at a meta-level as it described 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

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small particularities. Part of the result was the explication of implicit 

knowledge ‒ something that can be especially problematic if someone 

leaves the company and the knowledge gets lost.  

 

Methods applied 

So what exactly did I do at Wire Inc.?  

Participant observation was a vital part of my path of 

understanding Wire Inc. There are four quadrants of information in this 

(Jordan & Dalal, 2006: 366): saying, doing, thinking and feeling. The first 

quadrant is accessible through interviews, focus groups and group 

discussions, as well as through informal talks. But the more ‘subtle, tacit, 

implicit, and context dependent’ (ibid.) information of the other three 

quadrants lies beyond spoken information, so that ethnographic 

approaches are a means to elicit these by ‘digging deeper under the 

surface’. In this case my participant observation ranged from periods of 

full observation to full participation. The latter was one of the keys to my 

finally being invited to the company’s informal events that were valuable 

sources for me to comprehend communication and trust structures at 

Wire Inc. All this needed time and a willingness to engage with people, 

hence carefully sharing precious time.  

Especially in the beginning, I shadowed a sample of people through 

a day, or a project team over a couple of days. Generally, we finished with 

a person-centered interview towards the end to clarify observations 

allowing space and time for informants to share their perceptions of what 

was going on. Another means of data collection was through group 

discussions, which provided the space to discuss topics like trust (and 

confront different opinions people had), that are usually implicit in daily 

actions but generally left outside the topics of ordinary business 

meetings, unless there happens to be a particular issue to be resolved.  

After being in the field for a couple of months, I started conducting 

ego-centered network analysis interviews on the theme of trust: 

collecting sensitive data on trust relationships between employees in the 

company. Obtaining this information only succeeded because the people 

concerned thought my way of handling data was trustworthy.    

Informal talks went along with participant observation: whenever I 

wasn’t disturbing the workflow, I used to engage with informants. 

Notably, car rides as well as company events, proved to be valuable 

moments of informal interaction to enhance my understanding of what 

was going on at Wire Inc.  

The company also provided me with broad access to its data and 

documentation, and I was also allowed to take photos and make my own 

video recordings. These audiovisuals were helpful when it came to my 

analysis of fieldwork data (transcribing and reanalyzing earlier events), 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 153 

as well as when making presentations and discussions of results both 

within the company and in academia. Last but not least, I kept a research 

diary.  

All in all, the methods applied focused on seeing:  

‘Seeing, as opposed to looking, embraces the whole body, 

neither vision alone nor disparate senses. The whole body is 

the means to understand and resonate with the world. The 

body becomes the memory and is not so easily separated from 

the mind, as in the Descartian tradition.’  

(Okely, 2001: 104) 

The method-mix that I adopted was chosen to answer the research 

questions of this particular project. However, I suspect that different 

research aims and environments would require a different set of 

methods.  

 

Particularities of business ethnography  

Being asked to write about ethnographic methods, I feel the need to 

emphasize that to me ethnography is more than just a technique. As Van 

Mannen (2006) notes, ethnography is a process as well as a product. 

Hence, it is as much in the process of data collection as it is in the time 

spent analyzing the material (and the two often run in parallel). It is also 

the written product that appears as a monograph ‒ like my own thesis 

(Krawinkler, 2013) ‒ or as articles.  I would like to add that ethnography 

is a process and a product characterized by a particular type of attitude, 

so that, so far as I am concerned, ‘anthropology is a way of thinking’ 

(Eriksen, 2004: 169) and ethnography is shaped by it. 

‘Ethnography often runs counter to common knowledge 

because it requires tapping into what people often take for 

granted about their work, and thus, do not ordinarily discuss.’  

(Jordan & Dalal, 2006: 368) 

The anthropologist, who is trying to figure out how things work, why 

things are done in a specific way, and what is the meaning of certain 

artifacts, can act as a refreshing influence in a business organization and, 

as a result, people employed there often start reflecting on their general 

surroundings and habits. In other words, she stimulates informants’ 

awareness of their own environment. The anthropologist goes after tacit 

knowledge, the ideas submerged in underlying structures that can be 

likened to an iceberg hidden under the surface of the sea.  Ethnographic 

approaches allow us to discover the differences between saying and doing 

that usually hint at interesting discrepancies.    

What, if any, are the particularities of business ethnography? As I 

mentioned earlier, I believe that ethnography is shaped by an 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 154 

anthropological attitude. As Thomas Hylland Eriksen (2001: 4) says:  

‘A few important defining features of anthropology are 

nevertheless common to all practitioners of the subject: it is 

comparative and empirical; its most important method is 

fieldwork; and it has a truly global focus in that it does not 

single out one region, or one kind of society, as being more 

important than others.’  

In many aspects, therefore, business ethnography is comparable to any 

other anthropological subfield research. However, my own experience 

suggests that the following points also need some consideration: access, 

language and cultural codes, time, responsibilities of the anthropologist, 

ethics and data presentation. Of these, responsibility and data 

presentation are, to my mind, particularly important. 

 Responsibility: There are societies with organizational boundaries 

that encourage a generally high rate of inter-dependence among 

their members. As a result, even if you are solely observing, you 

already have an impact on the field. We need to be aware of this 

effect and handle this responsibility with care. Everything we do or 

do not do, say or do not say, is interpreted by our informants, and it 

has the power to change processes. This can be a wanted effect, if 

we have been given a change assignment. But, in contrast to more 

classical fields of anthropology, the power relationship between 

anthropologist and her field of research is different. Some of the 

corporations commissioning anthropologists act globally. 

Anthropologists are indeed ‘studying up’. 

 Data presentation: Lengthy, detailed ethnographies might be an 

interesting read for some people, but they usually do not fit well 

with the fast pace of the business world ‒neither in terms of the 

time it takes to produce them, nor of the time needed to read them. 

On the contrary, the likelihood of reports being looked at, and their 

contents incorporated into ongoing practice, increases if we use a 

language and a way of presentation that is familiar to the people 

addressed. In the research elaborated on above, I provided a 

PowerPoint-presentation and discussion for the owner and the 

CEO, and an exhibition of the same results throughout the company 

for everyone else interested. I also wrote an article for the 

company's magazine and Wire Inc. received a copy of my scientific 

ethnography (in other words, my Ph.D. thesis). The management 

decided to frame the posters from the exhibition and these are still 

on display in the entry hall of the main building of the company. 

 

Although there is a lot more that could be said (in particular about 

commissioned research and consulting, on the one hand, and about the 

uses to which ‘ethnography’ are put by people who aren’t anthropologists, 

on the other), I have tried here to show why business ethnography is a 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 155 

valuable approach to the study of organizations. Making use of the 

example of Wire Inc., I illustrated some of the difficulties involved in 

doing such research – in particular, the issues of access and connecting 

with informants, as well as the mixed methods that I adopted. Hopefully, 

you have got a taste of what business ethnography conducted by a young 

graduate student in an out-of-the-way country can be like. And since I 

appreciate exchange, collaboration, and sharing my experiences, as well 

as opportunities to gain further new experiences, I look forward to 

hearing from you at email@stephaniekrawinkler.com  

 

References 

Eriksen, Thomas H., 2001. Small places, large issues: An introduction to 

social and cultural anthropology. London: Pluto Press.  

Eriksen, Thomas H., 2004. What is anthropology? London: Pluto Press.  

Jordan, Brigitte and Brinda Dalal, 2006. Persuasive Encounters: 

Ethnography in the Corporation. Field Methods 18(4): 359–381. 

Krawinkler, Stephanie A., 2013. Trust is a choice. Prolegomena of 

Anthropology of Trust(s). Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Verlag.  

Okely, Judith, 2001. Visualism and Landscape: Looking and Seeing in 

Normandy. RETN 66(1): 99–120. 

Van Maanen, John, 2006. Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. 

Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.  

 

 

* * * 

 

 

360 on Method 

Maryann McCabe, University of Rochester 

 

Since the time of our founding participant observer Malinowski, there has 

been a radical change in approach to anthropological research, with 

increasing focus on the social production of knowledge. Compared to 

earlier days of participant observation when the anthropologist was 

considered an objective observer or authority, today the ethnographic 

fieldworker is thought of as engaged in a project of co-construction or co-

creation (Oliveira 2012). Two streams of thought have influenced this 

shift in perspective on the anthropological self, the other, and the process 

that transpires between them. One is the postcolonial moment (Clifford 

mailto:email@stephaniekrawinkler.com


Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 156 

1986); the other is the more recent collaborative turn (Thrift 2002). 

While anthropologists across the discipline have been active in building 

both streams of thought, business anthropologists stand in the forefront 

because of the need for collaboration in praxis. This essay explores the 

shift in methodological approach from objectivity to subjectivity and 

epistemological issues of producing knowledge. It argues that, as a result 

of the postcolonial moment and the collaborative turn, anthropologists 

live and work in fluid liminal space where they negotiate different worlds 

of meaning. 

Business anthropologists find themselves continually moving 

across boundaries as they conduct research in and with companies. These 

boundaries include business units within a corporation, functional 

departments at advertising agencies, segments of the consumer 

population, and so forth. Working with engineers, psychologists, and 

designers, for example, involves an ongoing dialogue across boundaries 

that keep the anthropologist in a more constant liminal state than 

previously theorized. From its earliest conception by Arnold van Gennep 

(1960), through key works by Victor Turner (1967, 1969), liminality has 

been conceived as a ‘betwixt and between’ transitory stage through which 

the social person or community passes. Business anthropologists move in 

such liminal space, regularly carrying out projects and communicating 

with people inhabiting different worlds of meaning. In this essay, I rely on 

case situations from my consulting practice to examine liminality from a 

perspective of fluidity and movement in the postcolonial and 

collaborative environment of conducting participant observation. 

 

Participant observation as performance 

In his penultimate book, Geertz (2000) pens a fieldwork biography and 

muses about his experiences as participant observer in Java, Bali and 

Morocco. Writing about his first experience studying Javanese religion, he 

refers to participant observation as ‘learning how to live with the natives’ 

in a bemused way which foregrounds the performative nature of the 

method. As he writes, ‘what had begun as a survey of (this has to be in 

quotes) “the role of ritual and belief in society,” a sort of comparative 

mechanics, changed as the plot thickened and I was caught up in it, into a 

study of a particular instance of meaning-making and the complexities 

that attended it (2000:15). Participant observation is performative 

insofar as the anthropologist is an instrument of experience, perception 

and interpretation. Thus, compared to the conception of the participant 

observer in the earlier Malinowskian time as objective authority, Geertz 

points to reflexivity in gaining partial truths about cultural beliefs and 

practices. 

Similarly, as the notion of participant observer changed, the idea of 

the native’s role in the research process has shifted from passive to active. 

This is expressed, for instance, in the approach to interviewing where the 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 157 

person is no longer considered a vessel of answers, a repository of 

knowledge, but a participant in the interaction (Holstein and Gubrium 

1995). The native becomes a producer of meaning who develops a 

narrative in concert with the ethnographer.  

A marketing research project in the cruise industry highlights this 

interactive relationship between anthropologist and native in the field 

setting. For a cruise company, I conducted participant observation on two 

cruises, each on a different competitor line, in an effort to understand the 

meaning of a cruise for people who enjoy taking cruises. The company 

owned several lines and wanted to develop brand architecture and 

delineate a positioning for each line in its portfolio. A colleague, 

anthropologist John F. Sherry, Jr., took cruises on the company’s own 

lines. As participant observers, we took note of our own reactions to the 

built environment and to observations of and encounters with other 

passengers.  

One of my experiences involved participating in the formation of an 

onboard group of eight people seated at the same dining table, including 

sisters who were amateur singers in their hometowns. They cajoled the 

rest of us into singing songs together when exiting the dining room. As a 

group, we engaged other people in song. The group of eight formed a 

relationship and gathered to share activities on the ship at other times of 

the day. After the cruise ended, the relationship continued for a while 

through email contact. Creating a sense of belonging is a common 

onboard experience, one of the many meanings of taking a cruise. People 

who develop bonds onboard may pursue friendship and even become 

cruise mates in the future. By participating in the group of eight, I co-

constructed the meaning of community and learned about this perhaps 

ephemeral but important kind of social relationship occurring on cruises.  

 

The postcolonial moment and power 

Post-colonial thinking about participant observation and writing cultural 

accounts emphasizes historical context and relations of power between 

the native and the anthropologist. As Clifford (1986:9) says, ‘ethnographic 

work has indeed been enmeshed in a world of enduring and changing 

power inequalities, and it continues to be implicated. It enacts power 

relations’. As a result, recognizing the positionality of researcher and 

other persons in the ethnographic encounter becomes part of the analytic 

grist. This aspect of reflexivity, making clear how the power in the 

relationship affects knowledge gained, is a tool in elucidating the worlds 

of meaning inhabited by the anthropologist and the research participants. 

Reflexive introspection about relations of power continues to be an 

important part of cultural analysis long after the encounter has ended 

(Olsen 2012).     

A study of champagne practices for a U.S. wine importer shows how 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 158 

awareness of power relations enters marketing research analysis. For this 

project, I conducted participant observation in wine stores and at wine 

tasting events, and interviewed champagne aficionados in their homes 

and accompanied them on shopping trips. During the interviews, it 

became apparent that the research participants expected me to be 

knowledgeable about champagne. They assumed I would have answers to 

their questions about the complex industry of champagne. Frustration 

was evident when I did not have answers either because in fact I did not 

know the answer or was feigning ignorance as a tool to explore their 

practices. The expectation that I would be an expert, and therefore in a 

position of power, and the disappointment when I did not give evidence 

of this power, revealed the importance to aficionados of gaining greater 

competence as champagne connoisseurs. By analyzing emotional aspects 

of the interactions, I learned that champagne signifies not only 

celebration but also enjoyment of one’s knowledge of champagne 

production and consumption. 

 

The collaborative turn and social process 

Nigel Thrift (2002) describes the current state of Western capitalism as a 

rule of emergency because of the time horizon on short-term financial 

performance and speed-up in the conduct of business, including the need 

to react quickly to competitors, suppliers and customers. Keys to success 

in this faster-paced environment are creativity, innovation, collaboration 

and knowledge exchange. Business anthropology partakes of this 

environment by collaborating with various partners to affect 

organizational change, product design and marketing strategy. Working 

in and with companies, business anthropologists adapt and develop 

research methods to gain insight as quickly as possible. We usually 

employ multiple methods, famously called a triangulation of methods, to 

reach deep cultural understanding of business issues at hand. 

In a research project on creativity and cooking for a food company 

(McCabe and Malefyt 2013), anthropologist Timothy de Waal Malefyt and 

I were concerned with understanding how US women think about meal 

preparation and construct dinner on a daily basis for their families. We 

conducted in-home interviews, which involved conversations using a 

loosely structured interview guide, tours of the kitchen, and observation 

of mothers cooking a meal for the family. In addition, we went on brief 

food shopping excursions with each respondent. Prior to the in-home 

interviews, we had asked our research participants to keep in-depth 

journals of their daily thoughts and feelings around meal planning over 

the course of a week and to make a collage of their favorite meals. 

Combining these methods provided a fuller picture of dinner issues than 

each single method alone, but the participant observation of cooking a 

meal produced a key insight. The observation uncovered how women 

improvise in the kitchen. 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 159 

When asked about what they cook for dinner, mothers responded 

that they had a repertoire of meals their families enjoyed and occasionally 

tried new dishes. What became apparent as mothers cooked and talked 

with us about their actions was how they altered ingredients, less of this, 

more of that, substituting one thing for another, based on knowing the 

likes and dislikes of each person in the household. These slight changes, 

such as substituting cinnamon for cumin, were creative adaptions to 

recipes that were not articulated during the more formal part of the in-

home interviews. Only during the cooking process did improvisation 

come to light. Of course anthropologists are aware that cultural 

assumptions underlying people’s practices often lie hidden. As McCracken 

(1988:23) writes, ‘most respondents have difficulty giving a full account 

of what they believe and what they do. Long ago, their beliefs became 

assumptions and their actions became habits.  Both are now almost 

completely submerged beneath the surface of consciousness’. In this case, 

what provided insight was the social process of observing and conversing 

with women while they cooked. Letting them articulate how they 

improvise to satisfy the tastes of everyone in the family revealed that 

preparing dinners the whole family will enjoy together was ‒ and is ‒ a 

way of creating family life. We learned that creativity in everyday life 

begins with the familiar and makes small adjustments rather than being a 

novel and complete departure from something existent.  

 

Ethnography co-created with client participation 

For business anthropologists, another aspect of co-creation in fieldwork 

is having clients join encounters with research participants. It has become 

commonplace in marketing research to invite people from the sponsoring 

company and advertising agency to accompany us for in-home interviews 

and group discussions. Clients appreciate this because it gives them an 

opportunity to speak with consumers and see the context of their 

everyday lives. As business anthropologists, we are happy when members 

of the client team come to the field, because interaction with them usually 

gives us a larger grasp of the business issues and often produces 

ethnographic insight. I remember, for example, a breakthrough moment 

conducting research for a pet food brand. One morning I was having 

breakfast with the client and as we discussed the in-home interviews 

under way, a bolt of lightning struck us both. We realized that research 

participants were talking about pets as social connectors in the family and 

that this would provide a new and unique positioning idea for the brand. 

The conversation stimulated analytic thinking about the meaning of pets 

and corporate strategy and communications (McCabe 2014). 

Having clients participate in the ethnographic process, however, 

introduces a layer of complexity for business anthropologists. It puts the 

anthropologist in liminal space and time when he or she is conducting an 

interview, trying to gain the respondent’s perspective and attempting to 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

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complete the interview in an allotted time frame, while at the same time, 

entertaining the client view and allowing the client to ask questions and 

pursue lines of corporate interest. At times respondents recognize the 

expert authority of the client and engage in extended conversation with 

the client about the company’s products and their use of them. This may 

require the anthropologist to manage the interview in order to retain 

rapport with the respondent and facilitate the social production of 

knowledge. In these situations, business anthropologists work in 

tripartite liminality as they move between the spaces of anthropological 

thought, consumer practices and client objectives. 

 

Conclusion 

Anthropological research has taken a 360 degree turn in approach from 

objectivity to subjectivity since the beginning of fieldwork in the 

discipline. Shifting from the participant observer as objective authority, 

ethnography has changed to consider reflexivity and positionality 

between anthropologist and research participant in crafting a 

representation of people. Business anthropology reflects a current view of 

participant observation as co-constructed or co-created experience. This 

raises a postmodern question about the validity of different cultural 

accounts or, as Clifford (1986) phrases it, whether one cultural account is 

as good as another. The issue surfaces for business anthropologists, for 

example, when marketing research results differ from market 

segmentations held by clients, or when collaborators in design and 

organization change studies have different professional backgrounds. In 

these situations, blueprints for corporate action typically emerge as 

negotiated solutions among participants (Malefyt 2003, Denny 2013).   

The 360 degree change in approach to anthropological research 

shows how elastic and powerful a method participant observation 

remains. Elasticity has enhanced the power of the method through 

incorporation of concepts of reflexivity, positionality, representation and 

negotiation. This reconfiguration of participant observation enriches our 

ability to understand cultural practices in the world. As business 

anthropologists embark on projects and go from one project to another, 

they move in liminal space and time, intermittently working with clients, 

research participants, and other colleagues who have different concepts, 

languages, and worldviews. In this fluid space, they listen to multiple 

voices, gain insider views, and communicate across boundaries. Business 

anthropologists live in a perennial space of liminality where meanings are 

grasped and often negotiated.  

 

References 

Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial truths. In Writing culture: The 

poetics and politics of ethnography. James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 161 

eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1-26. 

Denny, Rita. 2013. The cry for practicality. In Advancing ethnography in 

corporate environments: Challenges and opportunities. Brigitte. Jordan, ed. 

Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 136-150. 

Geertz, Clifford. 2000. Available light: Anthropological reflections on 

philosophical topics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Holstein, James A. and Jaber F. Gubrium. 1995. The active interview. 

Thousand Oaks:  Sage. 

Malefyt, Timothy deWaal. 2003. Models, metaphors and client relations: 

The negotiated meanings of advertising. In Advertising Cultures. Timothy 

deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran, eds. Oxford: Berg, 139-164. 

McCabe,Maryann. 2014 (forthcoming). Pets and configuring family, 

kinship and natural cosmology. In Sourcebook in business anthropology, 

Rita M. Denny and Patricia L. Sunderland, eds. Walnut Creek: Left Coast 

Press. 

McCabe, Maryann and Timothy deWaal Malefyt. 2013. Creativity and 

cooking: Motherhood, agency and social change in everyday life. Journal of 

Consumer   Culture. Online First, June 25, 2013. 

doi:10.1177/1469540513493202. 

McCracken, Grant. 1988. The long interview. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 

Oliveira, Pedro. 2012. Ethnography and co-creation in a Portuguese 

consultancy: Wine branding research as an example. Journal of Business 

Anthropology 1(2): 197-217. 

Olsen, Barbara. 2012. Reflexive introspection on sharing gifts and shaping 

stories. Journal of Business Research 65: 467-474. 

Thrift, Nigel. 2002. Performing cultures in the new economy. In Cultural 

economy: Cultural analysis and commercial life. Paul du Gay and Michael 

Pryke, eds. London: Sage, 201-233. 

Turner, Victor W. 1967. The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual. 

Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 

Turner, Victor 1969. The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. 

Chicago: Aldine. 

Van Gennep, Arnold. 1960. The rites of passage. Monika B. Vizedom and 

Gavrielle L. Caffee, trans. Chicago: University of California Press. 

 

 

* * * 

 

 



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For Opinions:  Ethnographic Methods in the Study of 

Business 

Patricia Sunderland and Rita Denny, Practica Group, LLC 

 

When Brian asked us for an opinion piece about ethnographic methods in 

the study of business, he asked for one ‘especially relating to your work 

with consumers’ and added that he thought it would be best ‘if it were 

based on personal experiences and included reflections on what might 

have been improved, how business ethnographers compare with 

‘ordinary’ ethnographers in the field, and so on and so forth.’ 

As anthropologists who work in the consumer research space of 

anthropology in, on, and for businesses it would be easy, indeed it would 

be predictable, to lament the thinness of ethnographic work that takes 

place within corporate consumer research. We could, in fact, speak of the 

utter predictability and commodification of ethnography within this 

realm.  In commercial consumer research ‘an ethnography’ has been 

rendered to a three to four hour at-home encounter with a pre-recruited 

(individual) respondent, an encounter that almost always includes a sit 

down interview component, a home tour including some sort of 

demonstration, a shop-along portion if conceivably relevant, and 

invariably something like collage homework completed before the 

researchers arrive.  Almost all consumer research firms that offer 

ethnographic research – at least in the United States – offer some version 

of this, including ours.  Design firms also routinely offer ethnographic 

research.  

It would also be somewhat easy and predictable to lament the 

relative demise of queries for ethnographic work within corporate 

consumer research circles in the wake of Big Data.  There is no question – 

again, in the United States at least – that Big Data have operated not just 

as a surging wave, but rather as what feels like the destructive recurrent 

tidal power of quantitative frameworks to be constituted as the way of 

knowing, the way of predicting, and thus for corporations, embraced as 

the way to assure future commercial success.   

Many anthropologists who work in consumer research in the 

United States do so as freelancers and/or as part of small boutique firms.  

We all have felt the impact of the incursion of digital and digitally-

collected Big Data, along with the commodification and ubiquity of the 

ethnographic offer outlined above.  Together with the economic 

downturn in 2009, in which corporations made severe cuts and process 

changes in their ways of commissioning consumer research, it has been – 

dare we say it – a tsunami.  Many small firms have gone out of business, 

freelancers have not found enough work to sustain themselves, and many 

anthropologists have joined large firms, the numbers game, or re-joined 

academia.  Without question we have also pondered and been pulled by 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 163 

these possibilities.  And we could have written about this, given Brian’s 

cue that personal experience should be the muse. 

But what we decided to write about here was actually inspired by a 

fieldwork experience that occurred shortly after we received Brian’s 

request.  At that time, we2 were involved in on-site (but not in-home) 

fieldwork for a brand that offered experiential entertainment.  Our client, 

as is often the case, was in the field with us, and he wanted to take part in 

at least the first phase of the research – to see what was going on and, in 

this case, also to broker our entrée.  He was a client with whom our past 

projects had been a success; nonetheless he was nervous, there was a lot 

riding on the outcome of this particular research.  As a result, he seemed 

not able to keep himself from offering tips.  He told us to please attend to 

language, to really listen and pay attention to how people said things.  He 

wanted to be sure that we would attend to the kinds of language people 

actually used in that setting, as well as the language they spontaneously 

used to describe that setting.  As he said, he wanted to be sure we found 

out ‘the lexicon.’ He also told us at the same time to attend to small 

details, to really look at what people were doing, not just to listen to what 

they said.  When we related some of our early analytic thoughts and 

observations on the morning following the first day of research, he 

exhorted us to please ‘ladder up and down,’ to be sure to ‘push up and 

down.’  He wanted us to be sure to note how these observations and 

points and any others we would make were instantiated in the smallest 

ways or actions, as well as ladder up to the larger implications and 

ramifications, specifically the ways this issue tied in with larger 

sociocultural meanings, phenomena, and the implications thereof.  He 

reminded us throughout to be very context-oriented and specific in our 

observations and analysis.  For example, what time of day and where 

exactly in the environment was x, y, or z  happening? What kind of person 

or persons were involved, a younger or older male or female, and were 

they alone, or with others and if so how many????  In addition, he told us 

on a few occasions that if, in the course of the more formal interview 

encounters we had planned, the conversation veered into what seemed 

more promising directions, to just jettison the guide and follow these 

more fruitful avenues that particular participant could help us explore.   

As he exhorted these types of reminders and proclamations, we 

appreciated that, really, he was the perfect client.  Everything he said, 

every tip he gave, were things that we were already reminding ourselves 

to do.  Exactly those kinds of guidelines and hints would be the kinds of 

things we would undoubtedly try to instil in a student of the ethnographic 

method.  Very likely we would even phrase things similarly, perhaps even 

using his particular lexicon.  If here it would perhaps have also been easy 

to be mildly annoyed and get wrapped up in thoughts of ‘of course, I know 

to do that,’ the more interesting issues to ponder were how he knew all 

                                                        
2 The ‘we’ in this sentence includes anthropologist Stas Shectman. 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 164 

these ‘truths’ and ‘hints’ about conducting ethnographic research and 

what it might imply, socio-culturally, that he did. 

Undoubtedly, he knew, in part, about conducting ethnographic 

fieldwork because of projects he had commissioned with us before.  But, 

for us, his comments suggested a greater appreciation of ethnographic 

ways of knowing.  It spoke to us of a larger cultural current that also 

resides and resonates in broadcasts of National Public Radio, the pages of 

The New Yorker, and perhaps even television’s relentless reality shows.  

The tacking back and forth between the micro and macro, the search for 

the meaning of experience, culture and society as something we should 

think about as being part of popular American parlance.  For the purposes 

of this particular opinion piece, the socio-cultural implication of all this is 

that, for anthropological consumer researchers, there is hope. 

In the course of this particular project there were other reminders 

and glimpses of hope.  One of the people recruited to participate in the 

project, one of those people with whom we jettisoned the interview guide, 

referenced in the interview how he really thought the phenomenon we 

were discussing cut to the heart of ‘civilization’ and told us that he had 

gotten these ideas from a book he’d read by an anthropologist.  He 

promised to email the reference after the interview, which he did.  

Throughout the time of the analysis and write-up of this project, we 

worked closely with the client with whom we had been in the field.  He 

exhorted and critiqued on numerous occasions that not enough cultural 

implications were included. He wanted more explicit ties to the cultural 

underpinnings of what we were reporting as findings, and he wanted us 

to call out the ways in which our findings tied to larger socio-cultural 

trends. At the close of this project, during the final presentation to the 

corporation, the CEO spoke of how much he appreciated anthropology as 

a field – as an undergraduate that was where his heart had been.  While 

life had taken him in other directions, he had himself thought of becoming 

an anthropologist. 

So, in essence, what we are writing about is that there is a place – in 

business and in consumer research – for anthropological casts of mind as 

well as methods.  We can look at the ubiquity and commoditization of 

ethnography as an offer of consumer research firms, as well as the 

incorporation of ethnographic approaches within the field of design, not 

as problems and bad signs, but as signs of a flourishing and effervescence. 

And, as anthropologists, it is in our purview to take this further and 

employ ethnographic  methods beyond the expected, the predictable, and 

the commoditized, and one way of doing this is by simply dipping – a little 

creatively – back into the established anthropological well.   

In JBA’s Autumn 2012 set of opinion pieces about business 

anthropology, Moeran (2012: 294) argued in his coda that we must be 

comparative.  In fact, he maintained that this point, his second 

programmatic statement for business anthropology was ‘so obvious it 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 165 

shouldn’t need saying’.  In our own methods we have drawn on 

anthropology’s established value and reliance on the comparative stance 

to devise some of our most fruitful consumer research projects. For 

instance, we relied rather directly on the anthropological tradition of 

using the insight gained from studying other societies as an illuminating 

lens on one’s own, when we suggested to a client that, to explore the 

terrain of personal space and sensations for the purposes of a new 

product for the US market, it would be best to do so by exploring personal 

space and sensation in very different socio-cultural milieus.  Research for 

this project led to fieldwork in Paris and Ho Chi Minh City, along with 

research in Chicago.3  There was no question in our minds ‒ and, after the 

analysis, also our clients’ minds – that the foundation of ideas for 

potential new products for the United States would not have been nearly 

as rich, not nearly as intricate, nor nearly as illuminating, were it not for 

the practical and analytic comparisons that the fieldwork in France and 

Vietnam afforded. 

In a slight twist of the rather literal cross-cultural comparison 

method, we have also conducted projects where the most illuminating 

findings were garnered by exploring a phenomenon beyond the domain 

of the client’s place of interest.  For instance, we were commissioned to 

conduct a study that would inform advertising for the Detroit Institute of 

Arts (DIA) for its 2007 reopening after a major, multi-year renovation.  

The DIA wanted to attract local residents to the museum.  While local 

residents would attend sporting events in venues not far from the art 

museum, visit Detroit science museums with their kids, and visit art 

museums when on vacation in other cities, as a rule they did not visit the 

DIA, even though it includes one of the premier art collections in the 

United States.  So, the advertising agency (Perich Advertising + Design) 

and the DIA knew they had a challenge on their hands, and requested an 

ethnographic study that would inform their own strategic and creative 

thinking.  For this research, rather than visiting any art or other museums 

with them, we4 sought to understand what art and inspiration meant in 

people’s everyday lives.  Tapping into these meanings did in fact lead to 

the ideas that allowed the advertising agency to create ads that got 

residents to visit their local art museum in relative droves. As a result, the 

agency’s ‘Let Yourself Go’ campaign5 itself became something to talk 

about, including the fact that anthropological research had been the 

catalyst for conceiving the campaign (Berman 2008).   Likewise, a project 

for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), that had at its source BBG’s 

question of how to encourage more visits among diverse ethnic groups 

living in Brooklyn, was carried out by going not only to the Botanic 

Garden, but also to the small community plots, backyard gardens, flower 

                                                        
3 For this project, fieldwork included collaboration with anthropologists 
Christophe Robert, Dominique Desjeux, and Anne-Sophie Boisard. 
4 Anthropologist Robert Moise was an integral part of the ‘we’ here. 
5 To see the campaign go to http://perich.com/case-studies/dia/ 



Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), Fall 2013 

 

 166 

boxes, and even beloved ‘street trees’ of residents.6 Understanding those 

gardens was the key to understanding what the BBG was – and what it 

could be – for Brooklyn residents. 

Beyond this dipping back into anthropology’s traditional well, 

anthropologists and others in consumer research have also found success 

in utilizing new technologies and modalities with participants, whether in 

the form of video and audio diaries or online interactions with individuals 

and groups. With the latter, we have found that participants can be 

particularly expressive in choosing or taking and then uploading photos 

that express what they’d like to communicate, as well as then writing 

about the meanings of those photos.  We would also note that fully web-

based ethnography, a reading of existing blogs, postings, and opinions, 

which Scull (2009) has termed webnography, can also be a powerful tool.  

Filtered through an anthropologically-informed mind, this reading in a 

new medium is not unlike anthropologists’ cultural readings of letters and 

documents, a respected means of gaining insight to times and places no 

longer accessible to the face-to-face.  Since so much of our current social 

life does not take place face-to-face, as ethnographers we do need to take 

part; and again here, even in doing so, we are also dipping into the tried 

and true.   

In the end, with these necessarily short snippets we are suggesting 

that anthropologists working in consumer research should have hope.  

We can garner energy from the ethnographic sentiment that lives in the 

atmosphere, even in the midst of pressured tides of quantitative and 

economic realities.  There are many of us out there, as careful readers of 

the footnotes may have surmised; even the circumscribed ‘we’ of this 

small piece includes many anthropologists, and our firm is only one 

among many.  As anthropologists forge into new territories, we also 

believe that by leaning into our own training and methods, the 

anthropological voice will have its place.  Ethnography may have become 

unbound and into, on, and for business, but it’s a good thing.  Moeran 

(2012:294) has provided us with a useful list of prepositions that 

currently can and do link anthropology and business: ‘in, on, for or 

against.’  We have been rather liberal in our borrowing of in, on, and for, 

but ‘against’ should also be included. If we view the ubiquity of an 

ethnographic offer among consumer research firms as part of the 

atmosphere, we can also push against the commodification.  As 

anthropologists we have the ability to do so.  We know that the 

ethnographic method has always encompassed a myriad of approaches, 

constantly changed as it has faced and lived amidst new social as well as 

new technological realities, and most importantly, constantly been 

reanimated and newly enchanted with, by, and through – and yes, also 

                                                        
6 The Brooklyn Botanic Garden research was carried out by Practica 
anthropologists Michael Donovan and Charley Scull, a fuller description of this 
research can be found in Donovan (2013). 



                                                 Opinions: Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Business 

 167 

against – theory.  So we have not only hope, but also heart.    

 

References 

Berman, Laura. 2008.  Clever ads transform DIA into getaway.  Detroit 

Free Press.  February 12.   

Donovan, Michael. 2013.  When ethnography really works.  QRCA Views 

12(1): 28-34. 

Moeran, Brian. 2012.  Coda to Opinions: What business anthropology is, 

what it might become … and what, perhaps, it should not be.  Journal of 

Business Anthropology 1(2): 290-297. 

Scull, Charley. 2009.   Market research, webnography, and chronic 

disease.  Paper presented at the 108th American Anthropological 

Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA.