Cross-Cultural and Anthropological Perspectives in Management Education: Towards the Chinese Characteristics

Abstract

Management education focuses on business-related events and processes; one of its objectives is to emphasize cultural values and culturally related issues in the business world's realm from a cross-cultural perspective. Anthropology, as social and behavioral science, has a unique tradition in terms of profoundly studying cultures, and as such, is one of the fundamental pillars of management science. Anthropological methodologies play an influential role in directing the practice of business administration. Having provided the necessary guidance to the practice of business administration, the research methods of anthropology, especially its research methods for ethnography, are now widely applied to the world of business administration. This paper offers an initial exploration of intrinsic relations between anthropology and management education, discusses the development and application of interdisciplinary business anthropology, and probes the pathway to localize anthropology in business administration in China.