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Ethnographic Research 2.0: The potentialities of emergent digital technologies for qualitative organizational research

Dhiraj Murthy (Department of Sociology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA)

Journal of Organizational Ethnography

ISSN: 2046-6749

Article publication date: 19 April 2013

1955

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to present current and potential uses of innovative social research methodologies which harness emergent technologies. This article also seeks to note ethical issues surrounding emergent technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

Specifically, the use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook as well as their applications will be explored. The use of iPhones as data gathering devices will also be explored as an example of the utility of ubiquitous technologies to ethnographic work.

Findings

This paper finds that emergent technologically‐mediated ethnographic methods are of potential value to organizational ethnographers and that methodological barriers can be overcome to best leverage new media technologies in organizational ethnography.

Research limitations/implications

This article has not been designed as a comprehensive overview of these social research methods nor as a primer to implement them. Rather, the main purpose of it is to begin to explore their potential applications to organizational research and to raise awareness amongst organizational researchers.

Originality/value

This article is original in its review of emergent digital research methods for qualitative organizational research. It reviews newer technologies and presents cases from the literature to highlight the varied methodological approaches implemented by organizational and other researchers in the field.

Keywords

Citation

Murthy, D. (2013), "Ethnographic Research 2.0: The potentialities of emergent digital technologies for qualitative organizational research", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-01-2012-0008

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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