An anthropologist in the boardroom

“It is often tempting to think that the 21st-century world is so closely integrated and digitised that the issue of culture is becoming irrelevant,” writes Gillian Tett in the Financial Times. “But behind the scenes, a growing number of companies appear to be quietly realising that the reverse is true: as the world becomes more globalised, there is actually more — not less — need to understand cultural difference.”

She writes about how more and more companies are using social scientists and argues that there are three reasons to think (and hope) that this trend will continue:

• The start of a backlash against the emphasis on scientific management that has dominated business — and the curriculum of business schools — for the past century and the realisation that not everything can be explained on the basis of past data or theories about rational behaviour
• The spread of digital technology is making some companies more aware of the need for cultural analysis. Culture can impact digital technologies in subtle and unexpected ways, creating the need for a new breed of “digital anthropologists”.
• Globalisation. As companies become more international in scale and ambition, they are discovering that cultural differences matter today as much as in the past, when it comes to consumers (and employees).