Paper short abstract:

Based on my research in Bang & Olufsen, a Danish business organisation, I want to argue that the potential for cultural critique lies in the reversal of a good old Marxist slogan: the managers and consultants have only changed the organiation in various ways; the point, however, is to interpret it.

Paper long abstract:

On the basis of my ethnographic fieldwork investigating how the culture concepts were used in management practices in the company Bang & Olufsen, a Danish producer of home electronics, I want to explore and reflect on the relationship captured in the notion of reflexivity (objectivity and social change) as it was put forward in the abstract for this session: Doing fieldwork among Middle-class middlemen (some anthropologists), who worked on identifying and communicating the culture of Bang & Olufsen was not a straight-forward matter. Studying this social world quickly becomes a meta-commentary offering my interpretation of some people's reflections on other people's perspectives on what they claimed was the essence of Bang & Olufsen. The complexity was immediate, and somehow getting oneself into a position from where to convincingly capture some connections was a continuous challenge. Addressing the question about the relationship between objectivity and the moral stance I will argue that in a corporate, highly ideologized setting, where analytical concepts like 'culture' are instrumentalized and the much celebrated 'change agent' is a role model, a genuine cultural critique - and the ability to say something new and interesting- depends on using reflexivity to avoid 'closure' and to resist the pressure to contribute to social change inherent in the field. In this setting the transformative potential of anthropology might lie in the reversal of a good old Marxist slogan: The managers and consultants have only changed the organization in various ways; the point, however, is to interpret it.