Presidential - Oral Presentation Session

Business Anthropology on the Road! Driving Practice onto Campus

Presenter(s)

• 

  Elizabeth Briody

  Founder and Principal
  Cultural Keys LLC

Co-Author(s)

Robert Morais (Columbia Business School)

Planned cultural change is a domain spearheaded primarily by business scholars and psychologists such as Burke; Cameron and Quinn; Kotter; Lewin; and Schein.  Their approach is stage-based, leadership-centric, and reflective of key issues.  Those taking a holistic approach to planned cultural change, including Alvesson and Sveningsson, Briody et al., and Gluesing, attempt to understand stakeholder views and engage all stakeholders in the change process. 

We build on Briody et al.’s research in which the identification of cultural obstacles and enablers was critical to the success of planned change.  Business Anthropology on the Road is designed to address a key cultural obstacle – resistance to change – which has affected the majority of anthropology departments and students.  Most students hope to secure full-time, non-academic employment, yet lack the necessary training, skills and departmental support to apply their education in the job market.  This new educational initiative, conceptualized in spring 2018, leverages key enablers such as preparing students for the job market and appealing to faculty-member interest in helping their students find work.  It represents one strategy to address resistance to change head-on. 

Sponsored by the Consortium of Practicing and Applied Anthropology Programs (COPAA), our on-site workshops help fill a gap in institutions with no dedicated business anthropology courses and/or limited ability to provide career guidance.  We describe our pilot program, report on the evaluations by students and faculty, and offer thoughts on the usefulness of this “on the road” model.