ABSTRACT
Business anthropologists play diverse roles ranging from products and marketing issues to the way organizations are structured. Business anthropologists provide insights regarding culture and social structure, beliefs, values, and gender related issues. The creation and dissemination of business-specific theory and knowledge was emphasized. Business programs were encouraged to cease being second class citizens of the university system and to arise as distinct, but equal, members of the academic world. The qualitative work of business anthropologists should be judged by the appropriate criteria. To a large extent, the increasingly tolerant situation that business anthropologists face was established by earlier pioneers such as the naturalistic wing of consumer research that demonstrates the value of qualitative methods. Providing tools that facilitate the even-handed evaluation of business anthropologists is a vital task because if recruitment committees do not feel confident when doing so they are apt to take the traditional and safer route.
