Semi-native ethnographic study by a kibbutz member anthropologist expose oligarchic context that encouraged outsider executives managerial ignorance concealment and low-moral careerism that caused vicious distrust and ignorance cycles, stupidity and failures. A few high-moral knowledgeable mid-managers prevented total failures by vulnerable involvement that created virtuous trust and learning cycles. This, however, furthered dominance by ignorant ineffective executives.

1. Organization Studies 8th
Workshop: Day to Day Life of Cultures and Communities, Mykonos,
May 2013
Thicker Description and Unique Ethnography: Untangling the Web of
Managerial Careerism and Its Effects on Organizational Cultures
Reuven Shapira, Western Galilee Academic College, Acre, Israel
Published as “Prevalent Concealed Ignorance of Low-moral Careerist Managers:
Contextualization by a Semi-Native Multi-Site Strathernian Ethnography.”
Management Decision 53(7): 1504-1526. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/md-10-2014-0620
Thick description is decisive for interpreting cultures (Geertz, 1973), but anthropologists who seek
thick description of how executives shape organizational cultures face an impassable barrier: they
cannot become genuine participant observers as executives and cannot heed the age-old advice: ‘Do
not judge others until you have stood in their place’.
This advice is especially relevant for the study of careerism, a low-moral and concealed common
practice defined as vicious by Hannah Arendt in her 1963 book on Eichmann. Ever since Dalton (1959)
anthropologists have depicted low managerial morality and recent business scandals, from Enron
onward, prove its prevalence.
These scandals encouraged interest in executives’ ethics (e.g. Rhode 2006), but not in their
careerism, a major root of unethical behavior. Among the many thousands of articles published in
management and organization journals 966 titles included ‘Career’ but no title included ‘Careerism’,
and only two included ‘Careerist’: Feldman & Weitz (1991) and Dougherty et al. (1993).
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Dalton, M. (1959). Men Who Manage. New York: Wiley.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Rhode, D. (Ed.) (2006). Moral Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

2. By Semi-Native Anthropology I Almost Stood in Managers’ Place,
Overcoming the Achilles Heel of Regular Anthropology
Anthropologists never studied careerism and only implied its impact on organizational cultures by
exposing low-moral managerial behaviors due to their Achilles Heel: they did not stand in
executives’ place, having neither managerial education, nor experience. Hence, they could not
judge executives’ careerism and its cultural impact.
I overcame this Achilles Heel by having both managerial and anthropological education as well
as having managerial experience, and by semi-native anthropology: As a kibbutz member I studied
one plant and its parent inter-kibbutz cooperative of 40 kibbutzim (pl. of kibbutz) called Merkaz,
administered by 200 kibbutz members called pe’ilim (singular: pa’il). It served kibbutz agriculture
by six plants and other units, some 650 hired employees and sales amounting to US$350 million.
Moreover, I have considerable experience in industrial ethnography: At 20 kibbutz factories I
studied three major issues occupying managers through observations and interviews with 33
managers, 45 engineers, and 86 foremen, technicians and workers.
I also knew some pe’ilim personally prior to my fieldwork and as an ex-manager kibbutz member
I approached Merkaz executives as their peer; interviews often turned into discussions of common
managerial problems.
After 24 such interviews I focused on the Merkaz cotton gin plant, observed it for five years, and
interviewed 164 current and former managers and employees. Industry experts taught me its
problems, and participant observations as a shift-worker was made for a 3.5 months season. Then
I toured four other gin plants and interviewed 63 of their present and former pe’ilim.
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3. Pe’ilim Advanced Careers through Low- and High-Trust Cultures in
Both Parts of the Kibbutz Field
The kibbutz field consisted of two parts: 1) 125,000 people in 269 egalitarian and democratic
collectivist kibbutzim. 2) 250-300 hierarchic and bureaucratic inter-kibbutz firms and cooperatives
(IKCs) in which 4000-4500 pe’ilim administered 15-18,000 hired employees (Shapira 2008). All
successful managerial careers commenced within the kibbutzim and were promoted in IKCs.
Pe’ilim were sent to manage IKCs to ensure kibbutz needs were served. Their official term was
five years, in accord with the supposedly egalitarian rotatzia (rotation) norm of kibbutzim, but
powerful executives violated rotatzia and became oligarchic rulers for good. Others circulated
between kibbutz and IKC managerial jobs, while a few ascended the field’s seven-eight hierarchic
levels and reached top jobs: cabinet ministers, parliament members, heads of national monopolies
and others who also mostly stayed for good.
Kibbutz work units were mostly egalitarian, democratic and high-trust: Managers came from
among the workers, jobs were part-time, managers performed manual tasks as well, wore the
same dirty work clothes, dined with the workers and met with them in the evenings to solve work
problems. These enhanced sociability, camaraderie and high-trust, innovation-prone cultures much
like those called ‘organic’ by Burns and Stalker (1961).
When such a manager was promoted to manage a kibbutz, however, relations became more
formal and less trustful, often encouraging low-morality such as ingratiating a fellow member pa’il
holding a high IKC office in order to ensure promotion to an IKC managerial job after completing a
2-3 year term at a local kibbutz office.
---------------------------
Burns, T. & Stalker, G.M. (1961). The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock.
Shapira, R. (2008). Transforming Kibbutz Research. Cleveland: New World Publishing. 3

4. Knowledge Gaps of Pe’ilim Encouraged Ignorance-Concealing
Detachment, Rather than Trust-Creating Vulnerable Involvement
As outsiders, pe’ilim mostly lacked much of the knowledge and expertises required for jobs. They
could acquire these by vulnerable involvement that exposed ignorance and gained locals’ trust
and willingness to teach them (Zand 1972), but this diminished authority until one learned and
hopefully regained it by becoming competent.
Pe’ilim mostly defended their authority and jobs by ignorance-concealing detachment from
knowledgeable locals who might have exposed their ignorance, as did senior officers of a US law
enforcement agency (Blau 1955) and retarded youths upon leaving their shelter (Edgerton 1967).
This personal strategy retained ignorance and caused mistakes, wrongs and failures, but under
the auspices of a powerful patron and political ally a manager’s career might not have suffered
beyond short periods (e.g. Dalton 1959).
Rotatzia in managerial jobs also discouraged the involvement required in order to learn local
knowledge: this knowledge would be unusable in subsequent jobs elsewhere in the kibbutz field
to which a manager hoped to advance soon. Rotatzia encouraged careerism, grasping managerial
jobs as stepping stones in kibbutz field careers.
As mentioned, after studying the focal gin plant I studied four others more briefly; only one of
11 present and past plant managers chose vulnerable ignorance-exposing involvement, learned its
problems together with employees, and led it to excel on a national scale.
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Blau, P.M. (1955). The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Edgerton, R.B. (1967). The Cloak of Competence. Berkeley (CA): University of California.
Dalton, M. (1959). Men Who Manage. New York: Wiley.
Zand, D.E. (1972). `Trust and managerial Problem-Solving’. Administrative Science Quarterly 17, 229-39.
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5. The Context of Gin Plant Managers: Careerist Merkaz CEOs and
Executives Interested in Perks Rather than Effectiveness
Initial touring of Merkaz plants and interviewing of executives untangled signs of a self-serving
careerist power elite, contrary to the assertions of pe’ilim that their prime aim was to advance
plant effectiveness and efficiency to best serve kibbutzim. I have rarely found signs of genuine
interest in effectiveness on plant shop-floors. For example, in contrast to brand new company cars
of pe’ilim, plant fork-lifts were cheap old sluggish models that frequently broke down.
Another contrast: plants were enlarged far beyond kibbutz agricultural needs and exhibited
technological virtuosity, signaling accumulated power and intangible capitals used by pe’ilim to
raise prestige, status, privileges and to lengthen tenures (Bourdieu 1990; Galbraith 1971).
This was also true of pe’ilim lavish amenities: air-conditioned offices and ample company cars
which were rare in kibbutzim at the time, and privileges such as trips abroad which were often
unrelated to declared aims. The standard of living enjoyed by pe’ilim especially senior ones, was
well beyond that prevalent in kibbutzim contrary to the egalitarian ideology (Shapira 2005).
I found much interest in company car models among pe’ilim: Coming to the CEO’s office for a
prearranged interview I had to wait twenty minutes for him and his deputy to conclude a lengthy
debate on the experience of driving the deputy’s new car model. Former pe’ilim testified similarly
on previous CEOs and executives.
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Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity.
Galbraith, J.K (1971) The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Shapira, R. (2005) Academic capital or scientific progress? A critique of studies of kibbutz stratification. Journal of
Anthropological Research 61, 357-380.
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6. Detached Executive Pe’ilim versus Involved Mid-Level Managers
Merkaz’s three gin plant managers throughout its nineteen years were all careerists, preferring
their own interests over the common good. Signaled it inter alia contrasts between detached
dysfunction executive pe’ilim with their loyalists and involved effective mid-level managers.
For instance, the well-cared-for nice clean air-conditioned second floor of the office building
contrasted the neglect and squalor of the first floor with its partially air-conditioned offices, non-
air-conditioned dirty dining room of the seasonal and shift-workers, and their showers and toilets.
(The industrial park’s nice spacious air-conditioned dining hall served pe’ilim and permanent hired
staff).
On the second floor sat the detached plant manager, who rarely visited the shop-floor and was
ignorant of its problems, and five similar pe’ilim administrators. On the dirtier first floor were the
offices of three lesser pe’ilim and two pe’ilim had similar offices in the garage and electric
workshop. Despite plant manager ignorance the plant functioned quite well up to last year of
research due to the vulnerable involvement of four of the five latter pe’ilim who were trusted by
local staff and became knowledgeable, led by one of them, the highly involved expert technical
manager Thomas.
Parallel to office differences differed cars: Second floor pe’ilim and the detached first floor
ignorant pa’il called Avi had shiny nice new model cars, versus the other four’s lesser cars. The
former cars were clearly status symbols, the latter mainly vehicles.
One particularly conspicuous old vehicle was Thomas’s large station wagon which he kept as his
company car since it served urgent tasks such as transporting a burned major electric motor
weighing half a ton to a repair shop in town, shortening production time loss.
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7. Thomas’s Trustful Practices Differentiated Him from Shavit and Avi
Until last year of observations technical manager Thomas led three involved knowledgeable pe’ilim
who did manage the shop-floor, the yard and store operations successfully. Dirty work clothes vs.
clean clothes differentiated the four from other pe’ilim including Avi who was also called ‘technical
manager’ though he just helped Thomas administratively.
Avi wore working cloths and shared Thomas’s dirty office, but he remained clean as he was never
involved in coping with a problematic machine as did Thomas and his three colleagues. Contrary to
detached Avi the four continued kibbutz habituses of egalitarian camaraderie and trusted servant
leadership; involved in every recalcitrant problem of their domains, they learned and functioned
well.
I witnessed Avi’s ignorance of major technical problems when I came to participant observation
shortly after Thomas had left frustrated after suppression by detached ignorant plant manager
Shavit. Avi succeeded him because of Shavit ignorance preventing discerning Avi’s title was a bluff
used by Shavit’s predecessors to counter Thomas’s rising power with successes.
I soon learned that Avi could not solve even minor technical problems, contrary to the three
involved, dirty-cloth pe’ilim who didn’t left with Thomas. Avi tried to conceal ignorance by minimal
visits to the shop-floor but Shavit and his deputy Danton pressured him to cope with major
problems with recalcitrant machines and he repeatedly failed.
Thomas on the other hand became nationally renowned ginning expert, invented a major
machine and when exited he was invited by the world largest manufacturer of gin plant equipment
in the US to join its R&D center.
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8. Self-Enhancing Cycles
Virtuous Trust and Knowledge Cycle versus Vicious Distrust and Ignorance Cycle
Vulnerable involvement choice Ignorance concealing Detachment
choice
↓ ↓
Ignorance exposure causes an Concealing ignorance by detachment
ascending trust spiral (Fox 1974) causes a descending trust spiral
↓ ↓
Openness and knowledge sharing Secrecy retains ignorance and causes
enhances learning and right decisions mistaken decisions and/or indecision
↓ ↓
Successes enhance trust, learning, Misunderstood failures further
mistakes,
problem-solving and openness distrust, secrecy and more failures
↓ ↓
Effective functioning encourages Conservatism spares some mistakes but
innovations and more successes causes brain-drain, foolishness, mistakes,
and furthers learning and successes and failures, furthering detached
ignorance
↓ ↓
Innovation-prone high-trust culture Conservative low-trust culture
(Six & Sorge 2008)
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Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract. London: Faber.
Six, F. & A. Sorge (2008). Creating a high-trust organization: An Exploration into Organizational Policies that

9. Thomas’s Trustful Practices Differentiated Him from Shavit and Avi
Both Thomas and Avi had a similar education in practical engineering, both held prior managerial
jobs in their kibbutzim, and Avi’s intelligence seemed higher than Thomas’s, but in terms of relevant
know-how and phronesis, practical wisdom, they differed radically and this difference explained
both the contrary choices of involvement vs. detachment and their opposite results.
Thomas ample technical knowledge from twenty years in the kibbutz garage gained him
interactional expertise (Collins & Evens 2007) by which he communicated with local experts,
discerned them from impostors and bootlickers, hence he was sure that after exposing what he is
ignorant of and involved himself in locals’ problem-solving efforts, he would gain their trust, learned
and achieved successes as did happen.
Moreover, he enhanced a high-trust culture by rejecting any kind of dirty politics which were
proposed to him by the shop steward and others. This enhanced his own credibility and trust
relations with knowledgeable employees, and between them and the three pe’ilim who joined him
and followed his practices: deputy manager Danton, the garage manager and chief electrician.
Thomas servant transformational leadership enhanced high-trust culture by modeling high-moral
commitment to tasks, working 15-18 hours a day in the high season as involvement in employees
deliberations took much of his time. He encouraged proposed innovations of subordinates by
carefully reviewing them and adopting successful ones.
Thomas also enhanced employees learning in sessions he convened for his two-hours lectures
and discussions of ginning on Fridays afternoon until Shavit shattered his effort to educate
employees.
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Collins, H.M. & Evans, R. (2007). Rethinking expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago. 9

10. Other Practices of Involved Pe’ilim Helped Thomas Succeed
The High-trust culture was engendered by another practice as well: accessibility of the four to hired
employees. They were mostly outside their offices and were easy to reach informally in order to
receive and supply information, listen to complaints, work problems and suggestions (e.g. Guest
1962), unlike the other pe’ilim who were quite inaccessible except for intrusions into their clean
offices on the second floor, clearly differentiated from the dirtier first floor of Thomas’s and
Danton’s offices and the non-air-conditioned shift worker facilities.
In addition, Danton frequently congregated with employees on the benches in front of the offices
and sometimes Thomas joined in. A visitor could not discern managers from foremen and workers;
only if arriving towards the end one saw that Danton or Thomas summarized what had to be done
and all departed to do it. Previous discourse was egalitarian and included an occasional dirty joke by
a worker, sometimes aimed at a manager or foreman.
Less frequently, the electrician and the garage manager would drop by, while neither Shavit nor
Avi or any other pe’ilim participated in these informal meetings, another way of minimizing
accessibility to subordinates and of concealing ignorance.
Danton also enhanced high-trust relationships by another practice: He could have remained quite
clean if he had only managed transportation and yard operations by directing drivers of lorries,
tractors and forklifts. But his clothes were soiled since he used his vast kibbutz experience in
operating and problem-solving of such machines to help with any problem employees faced such as
overcoming common mechanical failures. Sometimes he even replaced a tractor driver for lunch and
the like, hence, he was highly trusted by employees (e.g. Kanter 1977: 33).
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Guest, R.H. (1962). Organizational change. London: Tavistock.
Kanter, R.M. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
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11. Conclusions and Further Research
Thicker description no longer ‘leaves us at a loss as to the real psychological and social processes
that are driving executive behavior’ (Hambrick 2007: 335). Knowing of executive life worlds,
histories, and contextual impacts enables interpretation of their conceptions of their roles and
choice of practices, explaining their contrasting job survival efforts and career advancing strategies,
including the illogical logic practice (Bourdieu 1990) of ignorance-maintaining detachment.
Previous ethnographies depicted managers who created either high- or low-trust cultures but
did not explain these by their choices of how to establish authority. By extensive data gathering an
insider-outsider anthropologist found that ignorance led to concealment efforts resulting in the use
of low-moral practices, engendering low-trust cultures, independent of managers’ benign or
malicious intentions.
The concealment choice was made before/without managers knowing it would cause a vicious
distrust and ignorance cycle, requiring low-moral practices in order to gain and maintain authority.
The careerist motive that encouraged concealment was rarely admitted even to oneself and was
kept a dark secret.
Careerist executives dominated IKCs primarily due to knowledge gaps of pe’ilim, rather than
because of cunning plots. Outsider pe’ilim who monopolized managerial jobs encouraged detached
ignorance, while the rotatzia norm empowered executives who overruled it, weakening mid-level
managers by legitimizing early malicious replacement if empowered by successes and
overshadowed executives.
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Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity.
Hambrick, D.C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review 32, 334-43.
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12. The findings support Ficarrotta’s (1988) proposal of the violation of moral principles as the criterion
for careerism rather than Feldman and Weitz’s (1991) criterion, advance without competence by
non-performance-based means which was found to be problematic: All outsiders lack at least some
local competencies but only few expect advance by such means as all come from previous successes
or at least have not failed in jobs and expect to repeat this; only when facing debilitating ignorance
and the menace of authority loss do they often use detached concealment that tends to lead to low-
moral careerism.
Much research was recently devoted to managerial ethics, to trust and to organizational cultures,
but only a few studies explained local cultures by higher ethical choices leading to trustful hierarchic
relations, and only the present thicker ethnography did explain ethics by processes resulting from
attempts to achieve positive organizational results or just to gain and maintain authority, power,
status and privileges.
This supports Flyvbjerg’s (2006) critique of survey studies and calls for phronetic research that
seeks a concrete, practical and ethical answer to a troubling question concerning power-holders of
major organizations in one’s society. This will require thicker ethnographies combined with
longitudinal process studies, as exemplified here.
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Ficarrotta, J.C. (1988). Careerism: A moral analysis of its nature, types, and contributing causes in the military
services. From: www.isme.tamu.eduJSCOPE88Ficarrotta88
Feldman, D.C. & Weitz, B.A. (1991). From the invisible hand to the gladhand: Understanding the careerist
orientation to work. Human Resource Management 30, 237-257.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Making organization research matter: Power, values and phronesis. In: S.R. Clegg et al. (Eds.),
Sage handbook of organization studies, pp. 357-381. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage.
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