“A timely compendium of illuminating breadth. Both reclaims and updates existing theories for understanding organizations and their effects and exposes and explores emergent currents. Demonstrates the benefits of viewing organizations anthropologically.”
- Melissa Cefkin, IBM Research - Almaden
“Douglas Caulkins and Ann Jordan’s Companion represents an important framing of knowledge about organizations that combines insights from anthropology and organizational studies. Scholars in both disciplines should take note: Organizational anthropology has come of age!”
- Simon Down, Anglia Ruskin University
From the Inside Flap
A Companion to Organizational Anthropology is a broad overview of the field that has evolved over the last few decades from the study of work and economic organizations to a broader research agenda of analyzing complex organizations that include government agencies, transnational corporations, supernational regulatory bodies and non-profit organizations.
The Companion outlines the historical development of the field, and surveys the rich variety of ethnographic methods and how they are used in the study of organizations. The authors illuminate such vital topics as organizational dynamics, entrepreneurship, partnerships, organizational innovation, social networks, cognitive models and team building, organizational dysfunctions, global networked organizations, NGOs, indigenous organizations, labor unions, virtual communities, as well as corporate culture and social responsibility.
The authors study processes in organizations and also the complex relationships among organizations and how those relationships impact and are impacted by market, societal and global issues.
The Companion demonstrates how the work anthropologists conduct in complex organizations is a body of work so large, broad-based and important to understanding of life in the twenty-first century as to constitute an important subfield in the discipline.
Leading scholars provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of developments in the field, to make this new companion the authoritative guide for researchers, instructors and students in anthropological studies of complex organizations.
From the Back Cover
A Companion to Organizational Anthropology is a broad overview of the field that has evolved over the last few decades from the study of work and economic organizations to a broader research agenda of analyzing complex organizations that include government agencies, transnational corporations, supernational regulatory bodies and non-profit organizations.
The Companion outlines the historical development of the field, and surveys the rich variety of ethnographic methods and how they are used in the study of organizations. The authors illuminate such vital topics as organizational dynamics, entrepreneurship, partnerships, organizational innovation, social networks, cognitive models and team building, organizational dysfunctions, global networked organizations, NGOs, indigenous organizations, labor unions, virtual communities, as well as corporate culture and social responsibility.
The authors study processes in organizations and also the complex relationships among organizations and how those relationships impact and are impacted by market, societal and global issues.
The Companion demonstrates how the work anthropologists conduct in complex organizations is a body of work so large, broad-based and important to understanding of life in the twenty-first century as to constitute an important subfield in the discipline.
Leading scholars provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of developments in the field, to make this new companion the authoritative guide for researchers, instructors and students in anthropological studies of complex organizations.
About the Author
D. Douglas Caulkins is emeritus professor of anthropology at Grinnell College and emeritus director of the Donald L. Wilson Program in Enterprise and Leadership. His research encompasses voluntary organizations and social capital in Norway, entrepreneurship and regional development in the UK (Wales, Scotland, Northeast England), heritage sites and national identity in the UK and US, and anthropological contributions to management theory. He has published in various journals and books and currently is engaged in social entrepreneurship and organizational development projects.
Ann T. Jordan is professor of anthropology at University of North Texas. She is an applied anthropologist specializing in business anthropology, globalization and transnational organizations, Saudi Arabia, and North American Indian studies, and is the author of the books Business Anthropology and The Making of a Modern Kingdom: Globalization and Change in Saudi Arabia.
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