ABSTRACT
Consonant with a complex view of organisations, anchored in an anthropological approach, I contend that companies can no longer seek discrete solutions to wider business issues. Viable, long-term solutions can only come from complex understandings of company contexts where a variety of variables are looked at holistically rather than segmentally. This requires companies to collaborate across divisions but also to move beyond their traditional territory to pair up with companies specialising in other domains. While such arrangements are by no means new, they move away from the tendency of corporations to be self-sustaining, megalithic entities embracing and incorporating a variety of fi elds. It can also be argued that such entities, however, are far from operating holistically and that the approaches discussed here might also contribute to creating greater collaboration within corporations as well. Because of its holistic understanding of business contexts in general and problems in particular, anthropology can contribute to develop collaborative solutions for successful business propositions.
