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Article
Publication date: 13 June 2016

Clare Mumford

The author argues for the use of unedited, fixed-camera-position video footage in relationally responsive research grounded in Bakhtinian dialogic theory. The purpose of this…

Abstract

Purpose

The author argues for the use of unedited, fixed-camera-position video footage in relationally responsive research grounded in Bakhtinian dialogic theory. The purpose of this paper is to offer an empirical example of such a use, and shows how this contrasts with an ethnomethodological interactionist use of similar types of video footage.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical material is taken from an ethnographic study of a project group in the UK, in which video is used alongside other data during the fieldwork period.

Findings

The author proposes that the audio-visual detail of social interaction and the sense of experiential immersion upon re-viewing can provide a “talking back” dialogic potential for video recordings, that helps to show multiple narratives in social interaction other than the researcher’s original interpretation, and that points to new ways to engage with research participants.

Research limitations/implications

The paper focuses specifically on unedited video footage that is generated through fixed-camera positions. It is also limited to the ethnographic fieldwork period rather than the textual practices of writing up research.

Practical implications

The purpose and positioning of unedited, fixed-camera-position video footage in the empirical study is contrasted with other research approaches to video. Through this contrast, the paper offers methodological support for a way of using such footage which brings out a range of voices and alternative perspectives on social interaction.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the methodological literature by discussing a research approach in which both interactionist and phenomenological qualities of video footage were combined to develop a radically reflexive (Cunliffe, 2003) purpose for video in relational research.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 November 2013

Leah Tomkins and Virginia Eatough

The purpose of this paper is to look at how phenomenology can be used to explore the meaning and experience of organizational life. It argues that phenomenology provides more than…

2019

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to look at how phenomenology can be used to explore the meaning and experience of organizational life. It argues that phenomenology provides more than just themes or leitmotifs for post hoc analysis of narrative data; in its basic formulation, phenomenology is a way of thinking – a method – which illuminates the embodied, subjective and inter-subjective qualities of the life-world.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper follows Husserl's command to “go back to the things themselves” to access raw experience, asking ourselves, “what does experience mean phenomenologically?” We draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty to “flesh out” the embodied aspects of that phenomenological experience, outlining how the idea of a “field of presence” grounds our reflections in the here-and-now and gives our selfhood its coherence.

Findings

The paper presents data on the diverse meanings of “experience” to suggest that phenomenological and organizational understandings can be differentiated in terms of both temporality and selfhood. The paper argues that these differentiations expose different ways of thinking about the world more generally, drawing on Husserl's philosophy of the “natural attitude” to propose that one of its derivations, an “organizational attitude”, is obscuring our view of embodied experience.

Practical implications

The paper provides practical guidelines for those interested in researching the embodied, experiential qualities of organizational life. These emphasize the need to suspend the “organizational attitude”, modify how the authors position and explain the research, and attend to the interplay between the felt sense of the world and the words used to articulate it.

Originality/value

The logic of the body helps the authors to work towards a more integrative, conciliatory epistemological position for qualitative organizational research. The paper uses a phenomenological view of embodiment – as both subjectively experienced and objectively presented to the world – to suggest that the body, particularly when it is sick, is giving us clues for how to conceptualize the life-world of work.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Content available
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Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Content available
Article
Publication date: 13 June 2016

Ann L Cunliffe and Karen Locke

1212

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Content available
Article
Publication date: 23 August 2011

Ann L. Cunliffe, Stephen A. Linstead and Karen Locke

668

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Content available
Article
Publication date: 18 November 2013

Ann L. Cunliffe and Karen Locke

694

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Article
Publication date: 18 November 2013

Tim Butcher

The purpose of this paper is to examine distinctions between embeddedness and belonging in ethnographic fieldwork to make sense of a researcher's identity position in the field…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine distinctions between embeddedness and belonging in ethnographic fieldwork to make sense of a researcher's identity position in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

A confessional ethnographic narrative was retrospectively crafted from field notes from a 12-month fieldwork period. This narrative is presented and critically discussed to problematize the author's remembered sense of place and temporality in the field.

Findings

Regardless of whether a researcher “longs to belong” in the field, the paper finds that the research and the researcher belongs to the field. The temporality of an ethnographer's being in the field causes its inhabitants, the research participants to assign him/her a distinct and hybrid identity position.

Research limitations/implications

It is recognized that the research presented is bound by nostalgia. However, such reflexive intersubjectivity must be accounted for in ethnography. The identity position of a researcher influences the research process and outcomes. And that identity is not at the discretion of the researcher.

Originality/value

Adopting the trope of habitus and postcolonial principles, this research illustrates the criticality of reflexive intersubjectivity in ethnography to positioning the researcher as “Other,” not the research participants. For organizational ethnographers, and qualitative researchers more widely, to recognize this ethical consideration has consequences for how fieldwork is practiced and reported.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 November 2013

Jenny Helin

In recognizing that we have different modes of listening, just as there are different ways of talking, the purpose of this paper is to explore how a greater awareness of listening…

Abstract

Purpose

In recognizing that we have different modes of listening, just as there are different ways of talking, the purpose of this paper is to explore how a greater awareness of listening can be a resource during fieldwork.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a collaborative study of a family business as a starting point and focusses on a meeting held in the owner family where emotional issues concerning conflicts were discussed. Detailed illustrations from this two-hour meeting show how listening guided all participants, including the author in her role as a researcher.

Findings

Based on Bakhtin's work on dialogue as well as literature on listening the notion of “dialogic listening” is developed. This notion emphasizes four dimensions of listening: relationality and conversations as a shared activity, listening as an active process, the polyphonic nature of listening, and listening as an embodied activity. The paper illustrates how dialogic listening can create a feeling of an “us” where we can “listen into” things. “Listening into” involves a prospective way of exploring which can offer a feeling for that which we bodily “know” but do yet not understand cognitively.

Originality/value

The focus on listening makes it possible to explore new research practices in that it suggests an orientation toward language that does not depart from talk but rather emphasizes how the embodied and intertwined nature of relating to one another can guide and direct us during field studies.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2009

Kevin Orr and Mike Bennett

The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflexive account of the co‐production of a qualitative research project with the aim of illuminating the relationships between research…

1909

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflexive account of the co‐production of a qualitative research project with the aim of illuminating the relationships between research participants.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws upon personal experience of designing and conducting a research project into management learning, run jointly between an academic and a senior practitioner. The methodological issues involved and the reflexive dynamics of how the work of research collaboration is accomplished are considered.

Findings

Engaging with radical reflexivity helps to produce insights about the co‐production process.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the field of reflexivity and is innovative in its context of academic‐practitioner research.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2011

Jasmin Mahadevan

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for reflexive ethnographic writing that transports the researcher's claims of having conducted participatory reflexive research…

1603

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for reflexive ethnographic writing that transports the researcher's claims of having conducted participatory reflexive research to her audience.

Design/methodology/approach

Auto‐ethnographic vignettes from the author's own ethnographic research are used to establish five levels of reflexivity for writing organizational ethnography.

Findings

The author argues that the audience needs to be able to judge a researcher's claims to reflexivity through his/her writing. Yet, due to the participation mode of reflexivity while doing ethnographic research, the researcher is not in control over his/her own reflexive writing. Therefore, processes between three groups of stakeholders, namely researcher, field and audience, and their power relations need to be considered in reflexive writing. The author calls this process ethnographic triangulating and derives a five‐tiered model of reflexive writing from it.

Research limitations/implications

The paper offers a perspective on how to write organizational ethnography. Others will have to put this perspective into practice.

Originality/value

The paper moves the participation mode of reflexivity to the level of writing, thereby offering a fully conceived view on reflexivity that acknowledges the influence of field and audience on ethnographic writing.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

1 – 10 of 89