Abstract
The corporate world is not traditionally seen as an arena of anthropological study. Increasingly this world is realising that anthropological analysis can play a significant role in helping firms understand and improve their organisational systems. Equally, from the perspective of those who practise the discipline of anthropology, if it is to remain relevant and pertinent, it is important that it makes pragmatic contributions to areas of everyday life that impact on the lives of many. To do this, it cannot remain moribund and static in traditional approaches and perspectives and so needs to change and adapt in order to reflect contemporary challenges and opportunities.
This is an interesting and timely volume that explores the implications for the ethnographic method of the digital revolution, particularly in relation to the study of the corporate world. As outlined in the book, the increasing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has had fundamental ramifications for the way the corporate world does business. Gone are the days when deals were struck in smoke-filled city board rooms. In today’s hyper-connected world business deals are struck via keyboard, screen and mobile device, which pose new challenges to the ethnographic observer and recorder. Interactions in such modern environments do not render themselves to the traditional approach to participant observation.
The organisation of the book is useful as it takes the form of presenting both sides of an argument around a particular theme through a series of ‘dyads’, where each author takes a different perspective on various aspects of organisational ethnography. This approach enables a comprehensive exploration of the subtleties that technological changes can have on the way humans interact. This dyad type of exploration would be particularly useful to jobbing corporate ethnographers as the day to day reality of conducting this sort of work is never straightforward or characterised by absolute certainty but requires that factors are weighed up and considered, so no prescriptive recipe approach to how to ‘do’ ethnography is going to be comprehensively useful in this sort of study. Additionally, the authors utilise concrete case study examples to illustrate their points. This approach will help readers locate the theoretical concepts explored in the day to day reality of the corporate world.
The authors who contribute to this volume represent a wealth of experience from many different backgrounds such as corporate research labs and independent consultancies and therefore are steeped in the reality of conducting ethnographic study with and upon large corporate systems.
Anthropology and the ethnographic method can offer a powerful approach for corporate entities to understand and improve their organisational systems and therefore their performance. This volume makes a useful contribution in the literature not only to those who conduct corporate ethnography but also for those who are interested in the implications of changing technologies both on anthropology in the wider world and also on the ethnographic method.