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Out of all the countries that rose in a mercurial fashion, after the Second World War, the People ' s Republic of China (in short, China) has emerged as an all-pervasive dominant nation in the world. It has been giving a stiff competition to the well-developed western nations in all facets of its national growth. Despite the fact that work extracted under duress will not excel in qualitative terms, almost all the large projects that the country has undertaken have been of spectacular success raising every nation ' s eyebrows. At the same time, it is very glaring to note, that despite India too enjoying similar infrastructure growth facilities, and as the other fastest growing economy of the world, has not been able to keep pace with China ' s growth in equal proportions. In order to unearth the causal factors which are aiding China, when compared with its nearest rival India, for its major successes in implementing large infrastructure projects, an empirical, investigative study has been undertaken by the Author. The study spanned nearly 20 years. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This is an empirical study which is the first of its kind to probe into both China and India to compare the success outcomes for large projects. The methodology used was unstructured interviews and administration of a scheduled instrument designed for the study – bilingual (English/Chinese) for the Chinese population and in English for Indian population.

The study has revealed that, given the same kind of infrastructure facilities for both China and India, China has been able to move their projects onto successful completion, almost staying within the time and cost resources. However, in India, as is the case in most of the other nations of the world, there has always been both time and cost over-runs. The empirical findings conclusively prove that three sociocultural factors in China play a significant role in determining the success outcomes of Chinese projects.

China being a staunchly communistic country, with a close-knit society operating, gaining access to investigative research information has been really challenging for the author. Gaining access to sample populations has been a daunting task, and the researcher had to first get into the “out-group” of the Chinese “wu lun” relationship to elicit responses from an ethnic Chinese sample population.

Being an empirically proven study, the results have wider ramifications for all global nations, especially in knowing why the Chinese are more successful in all their large projects? The study opens up new vistas to other global nations who can emulate the Chinese model of project management. Further, the study also throws open the doors for exploratory as well as post-doctoral research studies in this area.

This is a maiden empirical study in China and in India. Wide-ranging investigative studies may follow, once this study ' s results are widely disseminated to the world. The author feels that the Chinese model when adopted by other countries in the world may result in both time and cost savings for projects. This may in turn result in increased economic benefits to those nations.

Managing the triple constraints of time, cost and scope of the work, to ensure the quality desired by the stake holders, is a daunting task for any project manager. When the teams involved are for accomplishing large-scale projects, spread over different geographic regions and drawn from multi- or cross-cultural background, the task of the project manager becomes even more complicated and complex (Lothar, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to examine some of those challenges as well as the socio-cultural factors’ influence on the outcome of projects.

An extensive investigative survey in these complex aspects has been undertaken, spanning both in China and in India.

Some solutions to the leadership role have been found through the intense study and data analysis.

The scope of multicultural and cross-cultural factors and the number of socio-cultural factors affecting such teams spread in diverse parts of the globe is stupendous. However, the study restricted itself to examining only three important socio-cultural factors out of the several, impacting the outcome of multi- or cross-cultural team executed projects.

The study reveals the causal effect of poor performance outcome for large projects when the team comprises multi- or cross cultural personnel. The limitations for the team leader heading such diverse teams are brought out.

The study will help the future compositions of cross- or multicultural team projects, to know in advance the sensitive areas where they have to focus to ensure seamless execution of large projects with the help of virtual platforms for face-to-face interactions between the team members and their leader.

The literature available on generic behavioural aspects of multi- or cross-cultural teams is plenty. However, very few empirical studies are available in evaluating the influence of socio-cultural factors affecting such large project teams. This study extensively covers both China and India, which is a unique investigative study of its kind.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relatively hidden phenomenon of researchers who not only study dirty work but who also occupy the position of dirty workers. Drawing on the sociological debate on insider-outsider categories in research, this paper describes how these types of “dirty work/er researchers” understand and negotiate their occupational subjectivity and the methodological and epistemological resources they bring to their research practice.

Two biographical narratives from different types of “dirty work/er researchers” are analysed using a feminist epistemology of corporeality, social difference and power.

Ambivalence is an underlying dynamic of the narratives which indicate that the stigma attached to certain types of dirty work histories act to both facilitate and constrain research practice. Ambivalence disrupts strict binary categories often relied on in research such as insiders and outsiders, empowered and powerless and researcher and Other.

The experiences of “dirty work/er researchers” indicate a need to reconsider ethical, methodological, epistemological issues within social research.

Participatory research frameworks such as peer research should pay closer attention to issues of professional status, power and risk. Further research is required on what happens after peer researchers leave the field.

This paper contributes to the knowledge of the relatively hidden world of the “dirty work/er researcher”, their occupational experiences and the methodological and epistemological resources they bring to their job.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the methodological significance and potential of integrating Facebook in ethnographic research. The authors discuss how friendly relationships with participants could be initiated, fostered and managed by incorporating Facebook in ethnographic data collection and how such relationships deepen ethnographic interpretation.

This paper focuses on the methodological implications of adopting “friendship as method” during ethnographic research. The discussion is premised upon a longitudinal, multi-method ethnographic research process exploring new family identity formation in Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

Building on friendship theories, the authors suggest that Facebook engagement helps overcome three challenges inherent to ethnographic research: gaining access and immersion, capturing multiple perspectives, and developing rich and thick interpretations. The findings illustrate that adopting Facebook as a platform to strengthen friendships with research participants expands the researcher’s field by enabling him to follow the ethics and pace of conventional friendship and by inspiring dialogical interaction with participants. Thus, it is suggested that Facebook helps diluting the power hierarchy in the participant–researcher relationship and encourages participants to reveal more subtle details of their mundane lived experiences.

Even though researchers have often used social media interactions in ethnographic research, there is no theoretical foundation to understand how such interactions could better inform the depth and richness of research phenomena. Particularly, considering the emerging significance of social media in personal identity construction, sustenance and enactment, it is import to understand how such mediums enable researchers overcome inherent methodological complexities. Therefore, this paper contributes to literature on conventional ethnography, netnography and friendship theories by presenting a theoretical framework to understand how Facebook interaction contributes to overcome challenges in conducting ethnographic research.

This study aims to critically expose and explore “taking sides” in the context of a covert ethnography of bouncers in the night-time economy of Manchester, UK.

The methodology adopted is covert ethnography. The author reflects on the application and use of situated deception within an embedded and insider ethnography of bouncers, alongside other relevant covert ethnographies. Fieldwork vignettes are drawn upon to articulate the management of situated ethics and moral dilemmas.

The findings argue that bouncers are a deeply maligned occupational group, who perform a valuable regulatory role in the night-time economy. Moreover, a covert role ethnographic presents an interesting liminal stance of being on both sides, rather than a reductionist choosing of a single sides. Theoretically, phenomenological bracketing and ethnomethodological indifference are used to justify the position taken in the paper.

Covert research has limitations around fieldwork time consumption, instigation tactics and “going native” distortion, alongside common fears of ethical belligerence and cavalier morals.

The lessons learnt, particularly for early career researchers, are about pursuing creative ethnographic methods.

Occupationally, bouncers should be less demonized and more accessible to more women. This rather hyper-masculine domain should be disrupted and democratized.

The field is relatively niche, with a purist covert ethnographic approach being an innovative way to unpack it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three communication interventions commonly used during discharge planning and care transitions enable inter-professional knowledge sharing and learning as a foundation for more integrated working. These interventions include information communication systems, dedicated discharge planning roles and group-based planning activities.

A two-year ethnographic study was carried out across two regional health and care systems in the English National Health Service, focussing on the discharge of stroke and hip fracture patients. Data collection involved in-depth observations and 213 semi-structured interviews.

Information systems (e.g. e-records) represent a relatively stable conduit for routine and standardised forms of syntactic information exchange that can “bridge” time–space knowledge boundaries. Specialist discharge roles (e.g. discharge coordinators) support personalised and dynamic forms of “semantic” knowledge sharing that can “broker” epistemic and cultural boundaries. Group-based activities (e.g. team meetings) provide a basis for more direct “pragmatic” knowledge translation that can support inter-professional “bonding” at the cultural and organisational level, but where inclusion factors complicate exchange.

The study offers analysis of how professional boundaries complicate discharge planning and care transition, and the potential for different communication interventions to support knowledge sharing and learning.

The paper builds upon existing research on inter-professional collaboration and patient safety by focussing on the problems of communication and coordination in the context of discharge planning and care transitions. It suggests that care systems should look to develop multiple complementary approaches to inter-professional communication that offer opportunities for dynamic knowledge sharing and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to show that numerous studies have advanced social capital research over the past decade. Most studies have accepted the theoretical distinction between bonding and bridging social capital networks. Many, however, tend to agglomerate empirical research under the one catch‐all social capital concept, rather than classifying it according to the bonding/bridging distinction. Furthermore, most studies make little distinction on the basis of methodology, between qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigating social capital. These omissions need to be addressed.

This paper reviews definitions and applications of bridging and bonding social capital, classifies empirical studies according to each network type, and produces a further breakdown according to methodological approach.

The result is a four‐part “grid” of social capital research, encompassing bonding and bridging, and quantitative and qualitative aspects. This paper finds that most qualitative research examines non‐excludable and excludable goods and is relevant to bonding social capital, whilst most quantitative analysis looks at civic networks and norms of trust, and relates to bridging social capital.

Results advance the task of clarifying and measuring social capital.

Further development of the bridging/bonding social capital conceptual pair should allow for a more precise measurement of a community, or region.

No review paper to date captures the above empirical and methodological “grid” clearly.

This article explores theoretical assumptions regarding negative consequences of social capital in the empirical case of a failed cooperation project, and how these consequences are related to processes involving people, structures and environments.

The article is based on a case study of a cooperation project within municipal labor market services. The methodology followed a theorizing process, where data were collected through ethnographical methods and analyzed in relation to existing concepts from theories describing negative effects of social capital and shadow organizing.

The results highlight how the development of negative social capital in the project can be understood through three relational processes, namely the social dynamics of insulation, homogenization and escalating commitment. The authors conclude that the quality of social capital is conditional upon complex interactions within social structures. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of studying organizing practices outside explicit structures, in order to identify the development of non-canonical practices and their consequences.

Organizing cooperation projects that aim to bridge professional competencies or organizational boundaries have to be attentive toward informal organizing practices which if remaining unrecognized may grow and threaten the original intentions.

The study makes a theoretical contribution by combining a shadow organizing approach with literature on social capital. This combination proves especially useful for analyzing how organizational dynamics can influence the development of social capital into producing negative effects.

This study examines the experiences and perceptions of boys and girls vis-à-vis racial integration in two former segregated South African secondary schools. The study is presented in a twofold way since it explores the ethnographic methodological understanding and dilemmas of conducting ethnographic race research in South Africa, and the gendered differences and identities through the manner in which the boys and the girls mediated racial integration in a micro school setting. These two dimensions are tied together in order to present a coherent relationship from the conceptual understanding of ethnographic race research to the dominant themes that emerged in the process of generating that knowledge. The study is part of a Ph.D. project, which was conducted in order to understand how the process of racial integration was experienced and perceived by students in two South African Secondary schools. In 1996 the South African government passed legislation desegregating segregated schools. However, a number of exclusive schools had already opened their doors to non-white students in the 1990’s. There had been studies conducted on these former segregated schools, which mirrored different dimensions from racial desegregation of schools to complex processes of racial integration (Bhana, 1994; Carrim & Mkwanazi, 1993; Dolby, 2001; Metcalfe, 1991; Valley & Dalamba, 1999). This study moved from a premise to study racially integrated schools with a relatively stable reputation in order to find out what is happening today in these schools vis-à-vis the process and extent of racial desegregation. What emerged at the end was a dialectic relationship between the gendered reaction to integration and the dominant school ethos.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the care provision of charity organizations that assist people in situations of economic vulnerability. After analyzing central theoretical elements of kinning, the authors contend that charity organizations function as symbolic families for people in need.

Ethnographic fieldwork was performed in two sites of a large catholic charity organization in the outskirts of Barcelona. Ethnographic fieldwork included participant observations and informal interviews with individuals located under the official poverty threshold.

Symbolic family bonds among different individuals are created through the entwining of interconnectedness, obligation and commitment, sense of belonging, interdependence and the projection of symbolic spaces of hearth. The authors propose the term of “disposable families” (akin to that of Desmond’s, 2013 for dyadic relationships) because a remarkable feature of these bonds is its short-term nature.

The consideration of charities as symbolic families offers new insights into their social role and may contribute to reshaping the social function within emergency situations.

This research opens new ground for the understanding of charities as something else than care providers, as the relational dimension with clients extends beyond the conventional patron/client relationship. This fact has particular relevance in an economic context of post-crisis, with the Welfare State withdrawal and a deterioration of the traditional sources of informal support.