Description
Book SynopsisJust as newspapers do not, typically, engage with the ordinary experiences of people′s daily lives, so organizational studies has also tended largely to ignore the humdrum, everyday experiences of people working in organizations. However, ethnographic approaches provide in-depth and up-close understandings of how the ′everyday-ness′ of work is organized and how, in turn, work itself organizes people and the societies they inhabit.
Organizational Ethnography brings contributions from leading scholars in organizational studies that serve to unpack an ethnographic perspective on organizations and organizational research. The authors explore the particular problems faced by organizational ethnographers, including:
- questions of gaining access to research sites within organizations;
- the many styles of writing organizational ethnography;
- the role of friendship relations in the field;
- problems of distance and closeness;
- the doing of at-home ethnography;
- ethical issues;
- standards for evaluating ethnographic work.
This book is a vital resource for organizational scholars and students doing or writing ethnography in the fields of business and management, public administration, education, health care, social work, or any related field in which organizations play a role.
Trade ReviewThis timely collection constitutes essential reading for all organizational ethnographers interested in the ways in which their discipline is developing. Although it will primarily be used for reference on the basis of individual chapters, this is a well crafted text which maintains a strong narrative throughout
Organization Journal Whether one′s background is in ethnography or organizations research, this volume is an excellent place to begin. With modest aims, it offers advice, guides, stories, and cautionary tales to which both students and experienced professionals can relate. Experienced researchers may find this book to be a useful teaching tool and occasional reference work. Highly recommended at all levels and to libraries
CHOICE Magazine
The volume offers a fine introduction to interdisciplinary research...the book is of tremendous value precisely because of its reformulation of classic and perennial issues and problems of ethnography in a new setting...This is more than enough reason to assign the book for both undergraduate and graduate courses
Open Anthropology Cooperative
The relationship between ethnography and the study of organizational settings is not an intuitive one, in that organizational ethnography is ‘a relatively new term’...The collection of essays contained in the book is successful in explaining what links the two, and why an ethnographic perspective on organizations, by engaging with the everyday experiences of people, may be a fruitful starting point for understanding work...Competent, informed and detailed
Work, Employment and Society
The editors have compiled a thought-provoking look at this method of research...The writing is vivid, engagingand humorous in places, using organizational ethnography itself as a means to illuminate the subject...Organizational Ethnography is an enjoyable read and an effective resource. It is helpful for researchers, students and practitioners in analyzing the culture of organizations
Journal of Occupational Science
Table of ContentsStudying Everyday Organizational Life - Sierk Ybema, Dvora Yanow, Harry Wels and Frans Kamsteeg PART ONE: ETHNOGRAPHIC DOING AND WRITING Getting Going: Organizing Ethnographic Fieldwork - Kees van der Waal Ethnographic Practices: From ′Writing-up Ethnographic Research′ to ′Writing Ethnography′ - Michael Humphreys and Tony Watson Reading and Writing as Method: In Search of Trustworthy Texts - Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow When the ′Subject′ and the ′Researcher′ Speak Together: Co-producing Organizational Ethnography - Simon Down and Michael Hughes PART TWO: FAMILIARITY AND ′STRANGER-NESS′ Making the Familiar Strange: A Case for Disengaged Organizational Ethnography - Sierk Ybema and Frans Kamsteeg Zooming In & Zooming Out: A Package of Method and Theory to Study Work Practices - Davide Nicolini From Participant Observation to Observant Participation - Brian Moeran At-home Ethnography: Struggling with Closeness and Closure - Mats Alvesson PART THREE: RESEARCHER-RESEARCHED RELATIONSHIPS Lies from the Field: Ethical Issues in Organizational Ethnography - Gary Alan Fine and David Shulman ′But I Thought We Were Friends?′ Life Cycles and Research Relationships - Nic Beech, Paul Hibbert, Robert MacIntosh and Peter McInnes Critical Action Research and Organizational Ethnography - Chris Sykes and Lesley Treleaven Beyond Complicity: A Plea for Engaged Ethnography - Halleh Ghorashi and Harry Wels Annotated Bibliography Defining ′Organizational Ethnography′: Selection Criteria - Dvora Yanow and Karin Geuijen Bibliography - Karin Geuijen
