Corporate ethnography meets strategy consulting

Corporate ethnography is no longer a fringe craft project. Business schools, consultancies, and in-house insights teams hire anthropologists to read culture before roadmaps harden. Case Western coverage of ethnography meeting McKinsey-style strategy illustrates the bridge: qualitative immersion supplies the "why" layer dashboards flatten.

Why does corporate ethnography scale now?

Categories move faster than quarterly surveys. Digital traces multiply. EPIC and allied communities professionalize methods, ethics, and deliverables for enterprise settings. Brands need translators who can sit in a warehouse, a feed, and a board deck in the same week.

What should leaders expect from the work?

Thick description, not slide filler. Recommendations tied to rituals, incentives, and language, not persona cartoons. Ethnography should change what gets built, not only what gets said in a kickoff.