Reclaiming “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history” – commentaries

Abstract

Purpose

This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.

Design/methodology/approach

The essays are invited and peer‐reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.

Findings

The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.

Originality/value

The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), anticipating as it did considerable reclamation of ethnographic methods in organizational studies in the decades that followed it. It was also deemed of value for our times and, in particular, for readers of this journal, as an historical document, but also as one view of the unsung role of anthropology in management and organizational studies.

Citation

Luthans, F., Milosevic, I., Bechky, B.A., Schein, E.H., Wright, S., Van Maanen, J. and Greenwood, D.J. (2013), "Reclaiming “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history” – commentaries", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 92-116. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-04-2013-0008