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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contributions that critical realist ethnographies can make to an understanding of the multinational corporation.

This paper draws on a discussion of methodological challenges in researching the multinational corporation and the ways in which critical realist ethnographies can respond to these challenges. The example of research on the transfer of management practices is used to illustrate this.

Taking the example of researching the transfer of management practices within the multinational, the paper argues that the potential of critical realist ethnography including critical realist global ethnography to contribute to the field of International Business and International Management remains relatively untapped.

Adopting the sociological imagination of the critical realist ethnographer has implications for the kinds of questions that are asked by the researcher and the ways in which we seek to address these methodologically. Researching from a critical standpoint fruitful empirical themes for further research relate to the experience of change for example in business systems, internationalization of organizations and “globalization”.

The critical realist ethnographer can contribute insights into the complex social and political processes within the multinational and provide insights into how social structures are both impacting on and impacted by individuals and groups. Ethnographic research located within a critical realist framework has the potential to address questions of how stability and change take place within specific structural, cultural and power relations.

At the methodological level, this paper highlights the potential of critical realist ethnography in researching the multinational, in addressing significant questions facing the critical researcher and in gaining a privileged insight into the lived experience of globalization.

This paper presents an in‐depth analysis of processes of “team” working within a shopfloor manufacturing setting. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the paper examines how human resource management (HRM) practices shaped and influenced the outcomes of “team” work, and addresses the influence of context in examining how and why team‐based systems took on their own particular characteristics and processes with both intended and unintended consequences on the shopfloors studied. The paper argues that an interplay of contextual factors (important factors include company history and worker orientation), HRM strategies and features of the socio‐technical system (including technology, work organisation and control, and social dimensions of the managerial control system in the teams) influenced team processes and outcomes. This analysis builds on Mueller’s work on contextual factors by recognising the influence of traditional modes of managerial control, management style and company culture.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

AS J. L. Hobbs shows so clearly in his recent book, the interest in local history is growing enormously at present. The universities, training colleges and schools, as well as the institutions of further education, are all making more use of local studies—geographical, economic, social and historical—in their regular courses, in their advanced work, and in their publications.