Anthropology,organizations and interventions: New territory or quicksand?

Abstract

Anthropology and management studies have an uneasy relationship with each other. The first accuses the other of a one-sided functionalist approach and of lacking a proper empirical basis in their analyses. Management studies do not value anthropologically based organization studies, because the latter refuse to translate their analyses in terms of intervention policies. This paper presents the arguments of both sides and subsequently describes an anthropological model of organization studies in which culture, identity and power are the key concepts. Finally, it discusses the (dis)advantages of linking the knowledge derived from this model to the field of organization and management studies. Both at the level of the academic and of the practitioner, progress can only be expected when the twain will finally meet.