Drawing on 32 months of interview-based ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines Finland's "mankala" nuclear energy companies through the lens of anthropological theories of corporate form. ...Mankalas are limited liability companies run like zero-profit cooperatives that bring together consortia of Finnish corporations and municipal energy providers to purchase, finance, and share the output of jointly owned energy-generation facilities. They have long been associated with "uniquely Finnish" modes of trust, cooperation, societal cohesion, and transparency. In recent years, however, political-economic uncertainties have destabilized Finland's mankala circuit, impacting how, whether, and when mankalas Teollisuuden Voima Oyj and Fennovoima have pursued new reactor projects. This has impacted reactor technology suppliers abroad, including France's Areva, Germany's E.On, and Russia's Rosatom. With that in view, this paper explores whether anthropological analysis of Finland's mankala corporate form can inspire new strategies for institutional innovation and reactor project financing for nuclear energy organizations. To chart out avenues for collaboration between anthropologists and nuclear energy practitioners, it concludes by proposing three pathways through which anthropological sensibilities could inform institutional decision making. I term these pathways holism, tracking and translation.
Research Question (RQ): What are the emerging practices that vehicle the institutionalization process of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in teaching, learning, and research practices? What are ...the emerging perceptions related to the implementation and use of AI systems in higher education (HE)? Purpose: The paper aims to explore and analyze, from an anthropological perspective, the impact of AI systems on teaching, learning and research practices and meanings in HE, including the ethical and moral considerations related to their implementation and use. Methods: This study utilized an ethnographic framework and an online ethnography to explore the relationships between practices and meanings in the implementation of AI systems in HE. It also conducted a systematic review of studies on the use of AI in HE in Google scholar, Scopus, Springer and ScienceDirect to identify dominant themes and concepts. The research considered the cultural context in which AI practices are situated and explored how AI influences and is influenced by cultural norms, values and power dynamics. Results: The research reveals how the introduction of AI systems affects teaching, learning and research practices and perceptions at HE. It sheds light on the silenced aspects of social practices and perceptions around this issue to provide elements for ethical development and use of AI systems. Organization: The study seeks to raise the awareness of HE organizations about the potential impact of AI systems on teaching, learning, and research processes. It can guide educational institutions to make informed and ethical decisions regarding the implementation and use of AI technologies in their educational practice through the lens of organizational anthropology. Society: The societal impact of the study lies in its potential to (re)shape educational practices and perspectives and to foster important ethical discussions. By addressing the impact of AI in HE, the study contributes to the creation of a more informed and technology-aware society. Originality: The originality of the study lies in the interdisciplinary combination of exploring the impact of AI systems on teaching, learning and research practices from an anthropological perspective. Limitations / Further research: Limitations of the study include that it relies on mainstream news databases and does not consider the perspective of users (administrators, teachers, students). Inclusion of non-Western sources and surveys or in-depth interviews to capture administrator/teacher/student engagement with AI tools could improve future research.
I propose the concept of anthropophagy as a metaphor for understanding Brazilian organizational knowledge, contributing to post-colonial thought, and better understanding issues of cultural mix and ...hybridity essential to contemporary social theory. After describing the diverse meanings of anthropophagy, I outline three important moments in Brazilian history where the concept has been central to understanding intercultural mixture. First, anthropophagy was an important component of indigenous reactions to intercultural contact, providing a ritual mechanism by which to negotiate identity. This identity crafting mechanism became revived in the 20th century modernist and tropicalist periods, where it took on symbolic functions in positioning modern Brazilian identity with respect to both European and indigenous roots. More recently, anthropophagy has entered the organizational literature, providing novel ways to make sense of key concepts in the discipline. I discuss three central issues around which anthropophagy contributes to contemporary theory, those of otherness, authenticity, and corporality.
Purpose
Starting from the challenges and implications of doing organizational ethnography within the organization which the researcher is also employed by, the purpose of this paper is to reflect ...upon the idea of “passing the test” in relation to such ethnographic endeavor. The paper discusses how “collaboration” on projects and in product development processes with colleagues/informants is a precondition for passing “tests,” which unfolded as subtle, verbalized demands made by colleagues/informants during fieldwork.
Design/methodology/approach
Longitudinal anthropological fieldwork was carried out as part of an industrial PhD project, which investigates digitization as organizational, professional and social practices in the Danish construction industry. The fieldwork lasted on/off from April 2017 to December 2018. Various forms of participant observation and collaborative ethnographic methods were used during fieldwork.
Findings
The paper investigates how these “tests” focused on two key aspects: the relevance of anthropology in a profit-oriented, technical corporate organization; and the application of anthropological theories and ethnographic methodologies for the benefit of product development, usability studies and organizational change. It is argued that the tests were passed through collaborative engagements, where the author oscillated between positions as collegial insider and outside researcher for the dual benefit of both commercial interests and research interests.
Originality/value
The paper suggests that daring to collaborate and co-create products (as something different than texts) during organizational fieldwork for the benefit of both corporate and ethnographic interests offers strong possibilities for keeping ethnography relevant and applicable, passing tests in organizational settings and advancing ethnography’s impact in the world.
At the heart of New Public Management (NPM) reforms lies a theory of accountability for results. In the past three decades, this normative idea transferred from the “Anglo-American heartlands” of ...such reforms to many other parts of the world. By means of an organizational ethnography of a Mexican water users’ association, the article shows that, in spite of reforms, such an organization can operate as a body that is largely unresponsive and non-transparent to its users and the regulatory authority. The management instead reverses accountability and shifts blame downwardly. Because culture shapes the reform from the inside, reform does not necessarily change and depoliticize managerial practice as intended but does have concrete implications for the practice and effects of accountability arrangements. The article argues that management performs accountability culturally, and this works to morally legitimate managerial conduct that is unaccountable for results and produces a sub-optimal financial and organizational performance. The case study contributes to an interpretive perspective that is applicable to a wide range of administrative reforms that promote accountability in different cultural and political settings. This study leads to specific recommendations to deal with the counterproductive results of NPM reforms in Mexican irrigation management.
Anthropology is known for its qualitative methods and its body of theory which is based on 150 years of study of human origins and cultures. This vast body of knowledge provides a base for the ...continuing study of humans in all contexts and twenty-first-century anthropology includes an array of subfields specializing in human behavior in diverse contexts. Enterprise anthropology is one of these subfields and this volume captures some of the valuable work being conducted in this field in Asia. It is a welcome addition to the literature on business anthropology not only for the quality of the research but also because it demonstrates the growth of the field in Asia. In this chapter, I first discuss enterprise anthropology and its relation to the field of business anthropology. Then I provide a brief history of the field's development to put the importance of this current volume in context.
Purpose
– In this paper the annual general meetings (AGM) of corporations are conceptualized as front-stage performances and dramas where the three roles of the corporation – the shareholder, manager ...and director – perform the corporation as a particular type of organization. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
– Meeting ethnography conducted at four seasons of AGMs in Sweden.
Findings
– The study sheds light on how the required AGM of public companies may be seen as a ritualized, legitimizing and trust-building corporate performance where the different roles of the corporation are played out in positioning procedures and where the corporation as an organizational form is enacted.
Originality/value
– The topic is of this paper is clearly original. Looking at corporations from an anthropological angle, exploring foundation myths, rites and organizational cultures, have been employed earlier, but exploring AGMs from an anthropological angle, is new.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the monstrous in organizational diversity by introducing the concept of cultural anthropophagy to the diversity literature. Using Kristeva's notion ...of abjection to better understand cultural anthropophagy, the paper argues that cultural anthropophages cross boundaries, and build identity through desire for and aggression toward valued others.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper uses a conceptual discussion of abjection, along with a historical survey of anthropophagic approaches from Brazilian art and cultural studies.
Findings
– Anthropophagic approaches highlight unique features of organizational identity, framing identity formation as a fluid process of expulsion and re-integration of the other. While abjection approaches focus on the exclusion of material aspects of the self and the formation of self-other boundaries, anthropophagy focusses on the re-integration of the other into the self, in a symbolic gesture of re-integration, desire, and reverence for the other.
Originality/value
– The idea of anthropophagy is a recent entrant into the organizational literature, and the close relation between anthropophagy and abjection is illuminated in the current paper. Original insights regarding the search for positive identity, the ambivalence of self and other, and the relation of the particular and the universal, are offered with regards to the diversity literature.
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