ABSTRACT
In organizations, corporate anthropologists interact with all sorts of “outsiders” —competitors, customers, shareholders, politicians, colleagues, network partners, stakeholders. This chapter describes two stories about relationships with outsiders. The first one is about how corporate anthropologists frame their relationship with the other. The second story searches for an answer to the question: who belongs to their inner circle? When two people are operating with different understandings of circles of relationships, misunderstandings and cultural mismatches can arise. Every circle of relationships brings expectations and obligations with it. As colleagues, friends, partners, family members, customers or leaders, it benefits us to examine the circumstances with the knowledge that people operate in different circles of relationships, even more so when they are aware of whether their relationships are oriented toward the specific or diffuse. This is true not only when people are living in distant places like India or Indonesia, but in Western communities and organizations.
