Max Weber's pre-World War I analysis of bureaucracy reveals his belief in the efficiency of the Prussian General Staff, contrasting it with Germany's other institutions, which he viewed as hindered by self-interest. He criticized the Civil Service, industry, and army for their inability to achieve excellence. After his death, his wife Marianne published a model that omitted Weber's favorable views on military bureaucracy, highlighting a significant shift in the portrayal of his ideas.
Assessing the World Bank's attempts to combat global poverty over the past 50 years, anthropologist and former World Bank Advisor Glynn Cochrane argues that instead of the Bank's prevailing strategy of management by seclusion, poverty alleviation requires personal engagement with the poorest by helpers with hands-on local and cultural skills.
Community Relations after Bougainville's Civil War
This book outlines how Rio Tinto—one of the world’s largest miners—redesigned and rebuilt relationships with communities after the rejection of the company during Bougainville’s Civil War. Glynn Cochrane recalls how he and colleagues utilized their training as social anthropologists to help the company to earn an industry leadership reputation and competitive business advantage by establishing the case for long-term, on the ground, smoke-in-the-eyes interaction with people in local communities around the world, despite the appeal of maximal efficiency techniques and quicker, easier answers. Instead of using ready-made, formulaic toolkits, Rio Tinto relied on community practitioners to try to accommodate local preferences and cultural differences. This volume provides a step-by-step account of how mining companies can use social anthropological and ethnographic insights to design ways of working with local communities, especially in times of upheaval.