David, Kenneth A.
(Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1972)
Associate Professor
kendavid475@hotmail.com

KENNETH DAVID is an Associate Professor of Anthropology with a specialty in boundary-spanning project studies and organizational studies – an anthropological commentary and critique of management and communications studies.

Dr. David’s research record has two phases. From 1968-1977, he did field research in Sri Lanka on variations in socio-cultural structure among fishermen, artisans, traders, and farmers of the Jaffna region. He later studied social movements in Sri Lanka. After retraining in organizational and business studies, he has done Organizational Anthropology research in France, Holland, India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and the United States, focusing first on country-company relationships and later on inter-organizational relationships (acquisitions, joint ventures, long-term consulting relationships, and strategic alliances) among corporate, developmental, and academic organizations.

The most recent boundary-spanning research deals with cultural and power issues that affect project activities. Dr. David is co-PI on an NSF sponsored grant studying geographically-dispersed and culturally disparate teams of engineers doing design work. This is a tri-discipline (Anthropology, Engineering, Telecommunication), six-country (China, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, United States) research consortium.

Dr. David teaches courses on Social Movements, Social Differentiation and Rank, Environments of International Business, Field Research on Dispersed Teaming (a professional application of Anthropology), and Religion and Culture.

A few recent publications include:

• Steinfield, C., Huysman, M., David, K., Jang, C., Poot, J., HuisVeld, M., Mulder, I., Goodman, E., Lloyd, J., Hinds, T., Andriessen, E., Jarvis, K., van der Werff, K., Cabrera, A. "New methods for studying global virtual teams: Towards a multi-faceted approach." In the Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, IEEE, Maui, Hawaii, January 3-6, 2001.
• Steinfield, C., Jang, C., Huysman, M., David, K., Lloyd, J., Goodman, E., Hinds, T., Andriessen, E., Poot, J., Huis in't Veld, M., and Mulder, I. "Communication and collaboration processes in global virtual teams." Under review at Information Systems Journal.
• David, Kenneth and John R. Lloyd (Mechanical Engineering, MSU). "Engineering Across Borders: Educational Practices for Improving the Effectiveness of Globally Distributed Engineering Design Teams." Proceedings of the International Mechanical Engineering Congress, to convene Nov. 14-17, 2001, New York.
• Huysman, M., Steinfield, C., Jang, C., David, K., HuisVeld, M., Poot, J., and Mulder, I. "Virtual teams and the appropriation of communication technology: Exploring the concept of media stickiness." Computer Supported Cooperative Work: Journal of Collaborative Computing, forthcoming.
• David, Kenneth and John R. Lloyd (Mechanical Engineering, MSU). "Boundary Spanning Processes in Globally Distributed Engineering Design Teams." Delivered at: American Society for Engineering Education, St. Louis, MO, on 19 June 2000.
• David, Kenneth and Paul Verweel (Univ. Utrecht). "Hidden Dimensions: culture and power in mergers (De Verborgen Dimensies: cultuur en macht in fusies), in the series, Bibliotheek Beleid en Management. Utrecht: SWP Publishers, 1995.
• David, Kenneth. "No work on Sunday! - Boundary-spanning processes in intercultural project management." Journal of Strategic Change. Vol. 3, 124.1-8, 1994.
• David, Kenneth. "Changing the Dutch higher education system: From Leitmotif to Counterpoint." Adviesraad voor Het Onderwijs (National Advisory Council for Education), The Netherlands. 54 pages, 1994.
• David, Kenneth. "Sources of Acquisition Cultural Risk." In G. VonKrogh, A. Sinatra, and H. Singh (eds). Managing Corporate Acquisitions. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
• David, Kenneth. "Acquisition Regimes: managing cultural risk and relative deprivation in corporate acquisitions." International Review of Strategic Management, Volume Four. London: Wiley, 1993.
• David, Kenneth and Vern Terpstra. The Cultural Environment of International Business, Cincinnati: South-Western; 2nd edition 1984; 3rd edition, 1991; 4th edition will appear in 2002.
• David, Kenneth. "Transcultural Management Training Site," Web publication on www.cscw.msu.edu site of the NSF Research Consortium, International Networked Teams for Engineering Development.