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The purpose of this paper is to describe a research methodology that was used to identify dominant socio‐cultural discourse using a feminist post‐structural lens.

Based on a literature‐based study focusing on research methodology and theoretical frameworks, the conduct of an ethnographic case study is described in detail. A discussion of the reporting and analysis of the data is also included.

The study indicates that using an ethnographic case study approach is a very effective tool for identifying dominant socio‐cultural discourses. This in turn can lead to greater emancipation for women through discourse analysis and re‐positioning.

This paper presents a focused literature study and contains a description of an effective research methodology for specific purposes. It may be of use to others interested in conducting similar types of research.

The study indicates that using unstructured interviews and a narrative reporting technique is a valuable way to collect data about socio‐cultural discourses in an Arabic context. The importance of the position, power, and reflexivity of the interviewer is also explored. In addition, the study suggests that successful feminist movements should be gradual and should take into account societal discourses to allow women to gain emancipatory action through re‐positioning themselves within their societal discourses.

The paper is one of the few attempting to describe an ethnographic case study approach with a feminist, post‐structuralist view in an Arab context.

This paper aims to explore and demonstrate how an ethnographic research approach can reveal new aspects of the dynamics of service innovation processes. In contrast to the retrospective research approach found in most service innovation research, the ethnographic approach captures the innovation process as it unfolds.

An ethnographical investigation of an incremental service innovation at a bank was conducted. The innovation activities were performed jointly by a team of bank members from various functions and external business partners. This was a formal project with a pre-specified plan, budget, and timetable.

The ethnographical approach, capitalizing on its real-time, multi-methods, longitudinal, and up-close characteristics, made it possible to capture unforeseen events and issues at the micro level. The authors suggest that such critical events determine what direction the innovation process takes. The initial intentions and plans were partly realized; new issues emerged during the innovation work and were realized, while other emergent issues were finally not realized.

The study suggests a framework that can be used to identify four categories of micro-level processes. Critical events in the micro-level processes represent potential turning points and are important foci in practice and remain issues for further research.

Managers may benefit from being open to including emergent issues and understanding the micro-level dynamics of the innovation process.

This study illustrates how the ethnographic research approach captures the dynamics of innovation processes and the potential challenges and possibilities for innovation managers. This finding suggests the need to address micro-level dynamics.

This article explores the analytical gains of what we refer to as “awkward ethnography.” How might our understanding of organizational phenomena benefit from those unexpected moments when our observations are laughed at, when our questions cause discomfort, or when we feel like a failure? While such instances seem to be an inherent aspect of organizational ethnography, they are often silenced or camouflaged by claims of intentionality. This article takes the opposite approach, arguing for the analytical value of awkwardness.

The authors draw on their respective ethnographic fieldwork in the Danish and Swedish armed forces. Based on observations, participation and interviews in two military units, the analysis focuses on situations that rarely find their way into final research publications. These will be explored as analytically productive material that can provide crucial insights into the organizational context studied.

The authors’ analysis demonstrates that awkward situations that arise during ethnographic work not only bring about unforeseen insights; they also enable vital analytical opportunities for discovering silent knowledge in the organization which researchers might otherwise not have considered to inquire about or understood the gravity of.

Implied in the suggested methodological approach for ethnographers is an acceptance of awkward situations as productive encounters. This means doing away with ideals for (ethnographic) knowledge production steered by notions of objectivity, instead embracing the affective dimensions of fieldwork.

This research addresses a key, and often silenced, aspect of ethnographic fieldwork, and stresses the unique value of the unintended and unexpected when doing ethnography.

This paper examines the value of mobile phones in ethnographic research, and seeks to demonstrate how this particular technology can support and enhance participant observation.

Reflecting in detail on one researcher's experience of incorporating this technological device into an ethnographic study, the paper considers how new observational tools can contribute to research beyond data generation.

The study suggests that the mobile phone can be an extension of the ethnographer and act as a powerful prosthetic, allowing the researcher to translate ethnographic principles into practice.

This paper reflects on the uses of a mobile phone in an ethnographic study of young men's consumer experiences. Thus, the discussion focuses on a research site where the mobile phone holds a ubiquitous position. However, there are now more than four billion mobile phones in circulation worldwide, so whilst acknowledging important differences in research sites, this research can be seen to have wide implications beyond the study of young consumers.

The paper argues that mobile phones allow researchers to record their observations, co‐create data and share experiences with their participants in ways that enhance the quality of ethnographic interpretations and understanding.

Little research attention has been paid to how emerging technologies support the more traditional participant observer, or how researchers actually embed them within their fieldwork. This paper addresses this gap and considers the wide‐ranging role that technology can have throughout this research process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore emerging issues related to conducting research of an ethnographic nature for a case study based within the school environment where the author is a teacher and faculty coordinator.

This research paper provides an outline of the experience of the researcher. The research was a single site case study incorporating participants from different faculties and with different roles. The approach taken here allows for consideration of some key arguments in related literature, and the consideration of the voice and experience of the researcher.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the complexity of ethnographic style research including the needs of both researcher and participants. The need for an ability to move between a multiplicity of roles as school teacher, faculty coordinator, participant in activities and researcher, and the demands of this requirement are considered. Further, the effect of this complexity on the notion of voice in research writing is also discussed.

The research was conducted by a single researcher at a single site. This presents some limitations in terms of the likelihood that while these issues may be present in a range of ethnographic case study environments, they may be experienced in disparate ways.

This paper examines the role of the researcher conducting an ethnographic case study. It contributes to the broader literature related to educational research through consideration of the personal decision making by the researcher and complex demands of this type of research. This is achieved through a contextualisation of the researcher's experiences within key arguments in relevant literature. It purports that whilst this approach to research is demanding, there are organisational advantages as well as important benefits related to knowledge, connection and understanding all of which can enrich the research process and the meaning ascribed to findings.

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 highlights the suitability, application and fruitful opportunities for ethnographic methodologies in contemporary B2B service research.

This paper is based on a literature review and conceptual analysis of ethnographic research methodology and B2B service literatures.

This paper discusses the central features of ethnographic research methodologies, their key differences to other qualitative methodologies, key trends in contemporary B2B service research and opportunities for ethnographic research methodologies in selected priority areas.

This paper highlights the opportunities, unique strengths and specific advantages of ethnographic research methodologies to advance B2B service research and theory development.

This paper encourages B2B firms to undertake ethnographic field projects to better understand customers’ roles, experiences and usage processes that relate to B2B services.

Ethnographic research approaches have been largely overlooked or neglected in B2B service research. This paper highlights their potential, suggests areas for application and encourages B2B service researchers to adopt ethnographic approaches to delve deeper into the social and cultural aspects of B2B services

This study explores citizen activism in the articulation of a politicised counter-account of Aboriginal rights. It aims to uncover the enabling factors for a successful challenge to established political norms and the obstacles to the fullest expression of a radical imagining.

Laclau and Mouffe's theory of hegemony and discourse is used to frame the movement's success in challenging the prevailing system of urbanised healthcare delivery. Empirical materials were collected through extensive ethnographic fieldwork.

The findings from this longitudinal study identify the factors that predominantly influence the transformational success of an Yaṉangu social movement, such as the institutionalisation of group identity, articulation of a discourse connected to Aboriginal rights to self-determination, demonstration of an alternative imaginary and creation of strong external alliances.

This study offers a rich empirical analysis of counter-accounting in action, drawing on Aboriginal governance traditions of non-confrontational discourse and collective accountability to conceptualise agonistic engagement. These findings contribute to the practical and theoretical construction of democratic accounting and successful citizen activism.

The purpose of this study is to provide a critical analysis of contemporary Lean leadership in the context of a healthcare practice. The Lean leadership model supports professionals with a leading role in implementing Lean. This article presents a case study focusing specifically on leadership behaviours and issues that were experienced, observed and reported in a Dutch university medical centre.

This ethnographic case study provides auto-ethnographic accounts based on experiences, participant observation, interviews and document analysis.

Characteristics of Lean leadership were identified to establish an understanding of how to achieve successful Lean transformation. This study emphasizes the importance for Lean leaders to go to the gemba, to see the situation for one’s own self, empower health-care employees and be modest. All of these are critical attributes in defining the Lean leadership mindset.

In this case study, Lean leadership is specifically related to healthcare, but certain common leadership characteristics are relevant across all fields. This article shows the value of an auto-ethnographic view on management learning for the analysis of Lean leadership. The knowledge acquired through this research is based on the first author’s experiences in fulfilling his role as a health-care leader. This may help the reader examining his/her own role and reflecting on what matters most in the field of Lean leadership.

Interprofessional collaboration and coordination are critical to developing solutions to complex problems, and many workplaces engage in coordination and collaboration across organizational boundaries. This development changes work conditions and workplaces for many people. The ethnographic study of workplaces needs to re-configure the toolbox to adjust to such changes. The purpose of this study was to explore how the ethnographic study of dispersed workplaces can benefit from the analytical concept of boundary work.

A multi-sited ethnographic study was conducted in two health promotion programs, introducing new collaborative relations across sectors and professions. The concept of boundary work was applied as the conceptual frame and introduced the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) as a boundary object.

Professional boundaries are key to understanding interorganizational and interprofessional collaborations. The ethnographic study of complex, multi-sited settings using boundary work as a conceptual framework can enrich workplace ethnographies by demonstrating how professions position themselves through framing. Such framing strategies are used to construct, defend or contest boundaries. Boundary objects may potentially bridge devices connecting people across boundaries.

The traditional ethnographic notion of “following” an object or a subject is difficult in a workplace environment dispersed across multiple sites and involving many different actors. This suggests that workplace ethnographies studying interorganizational workplaces would benefit from a shift in focus from place-based or group-based ethnography to a field-level ethnography of relations using boundary work as an analytical frame.