The concept of the "future of work", though widely-referenced in mainstream media and policy discourse, remains...
Tag: retail
Friction between Reticence and Narrative in Local and Global Interconnections along the Ethical Canadian Diamond Supply Chain
This paper introduces an theoretical and interpretive tool, the Process of Argumentative Aphasia, for...
The Roller Coaster: How to Go from Global to Local and Back again—the Case of a Walking Drive Model in Paris
The act of shopping for food is a very local experience, yet large food retail chains have built their business on homogenizing and standardizing the experience. In this article, we mobilize an ethnographic study carried out in 2018 for a food distributor regarding a new model of online...
Media, Mediation and the Curatorial Value of Professional Anthropologists
This paper seeks to broaden the discipline of professional anthropology by considering the role of the anthropologist as a curator and a guide for the mediation of cultural symbols, artifacts and products in and among the organizations we work for or with. It employs two case studies of product...
Plus Size Fashion: What Happens when Stereotypes, Fueled by Popular Culture, Creep into a Retailer’s Business Decisions?
Case Study—This case demonstrates the power of video as a data collection tool and a storytelling approach to the presentation of research findings. Fresh Produce Clothing specifically selected Bad Babysitter as a consulting partner for their expertise in video-based ethnography and narrative...
Building Bridges between Management and the Workforce
This paper examines the sales force in a retail setting, considering how Business Anthropology can enlighten managerial practices as a means to defining organisational strategy. Specifically, we look at sales force engagement, motivation and reward – considering how to build bridges in the...
Knee Deep in the Weeds—Getting Your Hands Dirty in a Technology Organization
For many months our organization had us performing “technical grunt work.” Upon reflection, getting deep into our company's technological system put us in the unique position of understanding, at a much finer level of detail, the entire assemblage of people, objects, systems, and organizations...
The Para-Ethnographic Trajectories Of Professional Ethnography
Professional anthropologists frequently occupy unique roles, simultaneously inside and outside the organizations we work for or work with. Most of us are already adept at negotiating these roles, but don’t necessarily highlight this skill as something of great value, either to professional...
Strategic Ethnography and Reinvigorating Tesco Plc: Leveraging Inside/out Bicultural Bridging in Multicultural Teams
This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core...