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Meeting the Maasai

Messages for Management

London Business School

This article reflects on implications of a brief ethnographic field trip to visit a remote Maasai clan in Northern Kenya. The author, approaching the inquiry from an interest in evolutionary psychology and the study of family business, conducted in-depth interviews with a range of elders, warriors, women, and children, asking questions relating to the intersection of kinship, culture, and organization. The reflections take the form of eight messages for management. These relate to such themes as the relationship between social harmony and the clarity and simplicity of social structure, collectivist values and stewardship models of leadership, the role of mythical beliefs in sustaining cultural integrity, the fragility of strong cultures to certain kinds of change, and the ethical challenges and dilemmas posed by some of the factors that help to sustain them. The article concludes by emphasizing the degree to which one can choose how to configure business cultures to generate outcomes that one regards as desirable and ethical.

Key Words: leadership • culture • family business • ethnography • evolutionary psychology

Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. 3, 255-267 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1056492605279095


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