Guillaume Dumont

I am an Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Institute for Ethnographic Research at emlyon Business School

As a public anthropologist with expertise in organisational and managerial topics, my work offers finely grained, people-centred perspectives uncovering and explaining hidden organizational dynamics. I have worked with elite athletes, filmmakers and photographers, social entrepreneurs, impact investors, heroin and cocaine dealers, homeless migrants, harm reduction workers, and online job seeker and recruiters. My research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, EHEHI, CIS, Fundación Reina Sofia, and featured in Liberation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Alpimag, Pop Science, Public Senat, among other popular media. 

My research has appeared in journals such as the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice; Ethnography; Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal; New Technologies Work and Employment; Journal of Business Ethics; Journal of Contemporary Ethnography; Social Inclusion; Organizational Research Methods; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Cultural Economy; Consumption, Market and Culture. I am the author of two monographs: "Professional rock climber: Creative work on the sponsorship labour market" (EHESS, 2018) and "Impact Work. An Ethnographic Journey into the Craft of Impact Entrepreneurship" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025), and the co-editor of The Professionalization of Action Sports: The Changing Roles of Athletes, Industry and Media (Routledge, 2022).

I earned a joint Ph.D. in Public Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Madrid and in Sociology from the University of Lyon (2016). I have held visiting positions at UCLA, IESE Business School, The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Jonkoping International Business School, Colorado University, the Open University of Catalunya, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.