Anthropologist Elizabeth Briody earned her PhD studying communities of Mexican-American farm workers and Catholic nuns. For the past 11 years, though, she’s been studying a different community — the men and women of General Motors. As GM’s “industrial anthropologist,” Briody explores the intricacies of life at the company. It’s not all that different from her previous work. “Anthropologists help elicit the cultural patterns of an organization,” she says. “What rules do people have about appropriate and inappropriate behavior? How do they learn those rules and pass them on to others?”
Briody is a pioneer in a growing and influential field — corporate anthropology. What began as an experiment in a handful of companies such as GM has become an explosion. In recent years, some of the biggest names in business have recruited highly trained anthropologists to understand their workers and customers better, and to help design products that better reflect emerging cultural trends. These companies are convinced that the tools of ethnographic research — minute observation, subtle interviewing, systematic documentation — can answer questions about organizations and markets that traditional research tools can’t.
Sue Squires did her fieldwork analyzing fishing communities in Newfoundland. Today she is a PhD anthropologist at Andersen Worldwide’s Center for Professional Education in St. Charles, Illinois. Squires uses ethnographic techniques and in-depth observation to evaluate training programs. She instructs accountants from Arthur Andersen in different ways of doing business around the world — from making effective presentations in Singapore to interacting with clients in India.
“In some ways this is new territory for anthropologists,” Squires says. “But ethnography is still my basic technique. Studying the corporate world is a lot like studying a community in Newfoundland. The concepts are transferable.”
