Why is ethnography so popular in business now?
On the AnthroDesign list awhile back, a grad student asked why there seemed to be an increase in ethnographers and ethnographic methods in business in the last ~20 years. Her question generated a number of responses from list members — here’s an edited version of mine:
As far as I knew (as a fleeing anthro student who went into business jobs back in late 1980s), the only roles for social sciences people in mainstream US business ~20 years ago were:
- market researchers (although most of them tended to be quants and not ethno / antho orientation)
- organizational development people (often folded into the HR organization, though it usually wasn’t the right place for them)
- occasional one-off others (sometimes a process improvement or product development person would have some anthro type skills)
( There may well have been other roles — these were just the ones I knew about. )
But now — things look different (in some industries / organizations at least). My view is that it’s a convergence of two big trends: 1) the globalization of business and the workforce, and 2) the increasing importance of design in business.
1) Increasing global interconnectedness and day-to-day business contact between people from different countries/regions/ethnicities
US organizations are struggling with their employee mix, their mix of customers, and their mix of vendors/distributors. Yeah, there’s always been international trade — but the amount of direct daily/weekly contact that a random Sue Smith American had, with a person from another country, was minimal. Now, people regularly work with and get services from people from different countries.
It’s in “traditional heartland” companies too, not just in Silicon Valley or other “leading edge” industries: Latino workers in poultry processing plants in the Midwest, my brother-in-law’s roofing company in Texas where it seems like 90% of the workers are either Latinos or white supremacists (he’s got some interesting leadership challenges), etc.
Used to be, only big companies had global reach, and it was only a lucky few American employees who had “international work experience.” Now even small companies and individuals can work globally.
I updated a bathroom recently and ordered a copper sink off of eBay, from a family company in Mexico; I wasn’t doing that 10 years ago. 80%+ of my husband’s technical employees (here in the US) are not American citizens, and his team has people from Ireland, Russia, China, India, Japan and everywhere in between; they work together on a daily basis. I have a guy in Canada who manages websites for me (that’s for me as an individual professional, not me in my corporate role — thank you, eLance).
One of the toolsets that organizations (and individuals) are turning to, for help in understanding this globally interconnected world, is mental models that have an anthro / ethno bent. Businesses are looking for people with anthro/ethno skill sets who can address the business’ challenges in each of the above 3 areas (global workforce, global customers, global supply chain).
2) An oversupply of products and the importance of design in making a product stand out and command higher prices.
Thanks to various forces (niche-ification of the market, Long Tail etc.) — there’s a greater-than-ever variety of products in the marketplace. Simultaneously, the old models for advertising and getting consumer attention are changing: media usage patterns are shifting, etc. Organizations are trying to find new ways to understand and connect with consumers.
It’s become clear to many businesspeople that design is a way to do this. Design meaning two things:
a) the object has a certain look (which often becomes part of the company’s brand image)
b) the object is useful and connects with customers, in a way that other objects in its category do not.
The mainstream business press increasingly carries stories about the growing importance of design. BusinessWeek has an ongoing focus on design-in-business. Apple is a big example; Apple’s products sell at a premium because they’re Apple, and Apple is famous for not discounting (very rare in the market for technical goods, where discounting over the lifespan of the aging tech product is common). Target’s another example; Target’s designer household goods sell for higher prices and generate higher margins than commodity household goods, which has allowed Target to create a brand and customer base that differs from Wal-Mart. (Here’s a short article from Harvard Business School on this — “Bullseye: Target’s Cheap Chic Strategy”.)
There’s a range of skill sets needed to do this — from being able to investigate and understand the target customers and their needs; and being able to turn that understanding into an actual product design. Anthro/ethno is more oriented towards in the first step, and designers more oriented towards in the second. But as businesspeople see it, it’s all part of the same process that builds popular, profitable products.
So bottom line: modern business has a real and ongoing need for the perspective and skills of anthropology, enthnography and related social sciences. I’d love to see more programs like San Jose State’s Masters in Applied Anthropology — a program that’s designed to place its grads into jobs outside of academia.