Advanced Readings In Business Anthropology

Why become a business anthropologist? You will not see many want ads designed for this career. Too ready an answer obscures important questions. How do you get to be a business anthropologist? Moreover, how would you like such a job if you got it? How would you feel about the impact of your efforts? Is this really a job or more of a career path that leads into various fields of inquiry? If these questions interest you, this book is for you. Its chapters have much to offer about both the challenges and contributions of business anthropology.

Qualitative methods of business research are emerging as vital tools. Business anthropology is at the heart of this movement. Although many recent books provide nuts-and-bolts advice regarding the field, Rethinking Business Anthropology: Cultural Strategies in Marketing and Management discusses the intellectual traditions from which the discipline has emerged and how this heritage opens up new vistas for business research. Gaining these broader perspectives is essential as business anthropologists transcend being mere research technicians and seek to influence organizational policies and strategies. Opening chapters deal with the current status of the field and its relationship to ecological and cultural sustainability. This is followed by discussions of the intellectual foundations of anthropology and their continued importance to business anthropology. An array of chapters provides illustrative applications of business anthropology in order to demonstrate the field's unique and powerful potentials within both scholarly and practitioner research. The book concludes with a discussion of the role of business anthropologists in dealing with indigenous people, rural populations, and cultural enclaves. Increasingly, businesses seek to connect with such communities even though mainstream leaders and negotiators often lack the skills necessary to effectively do so. Business anthropologists, with their dual background in business and cultural diversity are poised to excel in this capacity. An appendix by Robert Tian, editor of the International Journal of Business Anthropology, provides a useful overview of the field as it now exists. As business anthropology comes of age, this timely monograph provides the perspectives needed for the growth and further development of the field and those who work within it. Excellent for the professional bookshelf and as a textbook.

This journal has been discontinued. Any issues are available to purchase separately.

In recent years announcements of the birth of business anthropology have ricocheted around the globe. The first major reference work on this field, the Handbook of Anthropology in Business is a creative production of more than 60 international scholar-practitioners working in universities and corporate settings from high tech to health care. Offering broad coverage of theory and practice around the world, chapters demonstrate the vibrant tensions and innovation that emerge in intersections between anthropology and business and between corporate worlds and the lives of individual scholar-practitioners. Breaking from standard attempts to define scholarly fields as products of fixed consensus, the authors reveal an evolving mosaic of engagement and innovation, offering a paradigm for understanding anthropology in business for years to come.

Examining theory and practice, Advertising and Anthropology is a lively and important contribution to the study of organizational culture, consumption practices, marketing to consumers and the production of creativity in corporate settings. The chapters reflect the authors' extensive lived experienced as professionals in the advertising business and marketing research industry. Essays analyze internal agency and client meetings, competitive pressures and professional relationships and include multiple case studies. The authors describe the structure, function and process of advertising agency work, the mediation and formation of creativity, the centrality of human interactions in agency work, the production of consumer insights and industry ethics. Throughout the book, the authors offer concrete advice for practitioners.Advertising and Anthropology is written by anthropologists for anthropologists as well as students and scholars interested in advertising and related industries such as marketing, marketing research and design.

An essential career-planning resource, A Handbook of Practicing Anthropology presents a comprehensive account of contemporary anthropological practice written primarily by anthropological practitioners Engagingly written and instructive accounts of practice by anthropological professionals working in corporations, governmental, entrepreneurial, and educational settings Provides essential guidance on applying anthropological principles on the job: what works well and what must be learned Emphasizes the value of collaboration, teamwork, and continuous learning as key elements to success in non-academic careers Highlights the range of successful career options for practitioners , describes significant sectors of professional activity, and discusses key issues, concerns, and controversies in the field Chapters examine key practice sectors such as freelancing, managing a consulting firm, working for government, non-profits, and corporations, and the domains of health, industry, education, international development, and the military