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The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the affective entanglement of both researcher and practitioners in a study of workplace diversity with a transformative agenda.

Events and experiences related to interventions in a municipal center are presented. The study is embedded in critical diversity research and applies engaged ethnographic methods.

The researcher reflects on how interventions designed to challenge the status quo faced difficulties while considering the impact of the research entry point, efforts to mobilize organizational members in favor of a diversity agenda and the micro-politics of doing intervention-based research.

The study reflects on how “useful” research with an allegedly emancipatory agenda might not be considered favorable to neither majority nor minority employees. The notion of affectivity is applied to deal with the organizational members’ multi-voiced response to the change efforts, as well as how the researcher’s position as researcher-change agent critically shaped the fieldwork experiences and their interpretation.

Few critical diversity scholars engage with practitioners to produce “useful” research with practical implications. In doing so, this paper contributes to critical diversity methods by exploring why presumably emancipatory initiatives apparently did not succeed, despite organizational goodwill. This involves questioning the implied assumption of the inherent “good” of emancipation, as well as notions of “useful research.”

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a general review of the ethnographic method. It uses metaphors to read several pieces of ethnographic research and discuss the different issues encountered during the research process. The review consisted of new articles but also important books that helped to construct and maintain the field of organizational ethnography.

The paper aims to discuss the ethnography research process through the metaphor of the Christian Seven Sins. It proposes a reflection on planning and conducting ethnographic research. The seven sins are used as a metaphor that can lead to more reflexive research for educational and explanatory purposes. Ultimately, the authors encourage organizational scholars to conduct ethnographic research.

The metaphors of the Christian seven sins represent issues that may arise during an ethnographic research. Gluttony is the dive in all topics that may appear; Greed is to lose yourself in the amount of data; Lust is to get too much involved in the field; Wrath is to take the struggles of the subjects as your own; Envy is to judge other's research according to your paradigm; Sloth is to not collect enough ethnographic data and Pride is forgetting to have a critical perspective toward your data. The redemption of these “sins” brings reflexivity to ethnographic research.

The paper opts to treat ethnography as a methodology that can be utilized with different epistemological and ontological approaches which could diminish the degree of reflection. No metaphor would be able to explain all the details of an ethnographic research project, still the seven sins provided a wide range of ideas to be reflected upon when using the methodology.

As a paper on ethnography, researchers and especially PhD students and early careers can get to know the issues that can arise during ethnographic research and put them in contact with good examples of ethnography in Organization and Management Studies.

This paper groups different complexities and discussions around ethnographic research that may entail research reflexivity. These ideas were scattered through various ethnographic publications. With the review their highlights can be read in a single piece. With these discussions, the paper aims to encourage researchers to conduct good quality ethnography.

Purpose — In this paper we describe a total design data collection method (expanding the definition of the usual “total design” terminology used in typical household travel surveys) to emphasize the need to describe individual and group behaviors embedded within their spatial, temporal, and social contexts.

Methodology/approach — We first offer an overview of recently developed modeling and simulation applications predominantly in North America followed by a summary of the data needs in typical modeling and simulation modules for statewide and regional travel demand forecasting. We then proceed to describe an ideal data collection scheme with core and satellite survey components that can inform current and future model building. Mention is also made to the currently implemented California Household Travel Survey that brings together multiple agencies, modeling goals, and data collection component surveys.

Findings — The preparation of this paper involved reviewing emerging transportation modeling approaches and paradigms, policy questions, and behavioral issues and considerations that are important in the multimodal transportation planning context. It was found that many of the questions being asked of policy makers in the transportation domain require a deep understanding of the interactions and constraints under which individuals make activity-travel choices, the learning processes at play, and the attitudes and perceptions that shape ways in which people adjust their travel behavior in response to policy interventions. Based on the work, it was found that many of the traditional travel survey designs are not able to provide the comprehensive data needed to estimate activity-based model systems that truly capture the full range of behavioral considerations and phenomena of importance.

Originality/value of paper — This paper offers a review of the emerging transportation modeling approaches and behavioral paradigms of importance in activity-based travel demand forecasting. The paper discusses how traditional travel survey designs are inadequate to meet the data needs of emerging modeling approaches. Based on a review of all of the data needs and new data collection methods that are making it possible to observe a full range of human behaviors, the paper offers a total survey data collection design that brings together many different surveys and data collection protocols. The core household travel survey is augmented by a full slate of special purpose surveys that together yield a rich behavioral database for activity-based microsimulation modeling. The paper is a valuable reference for transportation planners and modelers interested in developing data collection enterprises that will feed the next generation of transportation models.

This study examines the consequences of stigmatization that occurred during a tuberculosis outbreak concentrated among Puerto Rican clients enrolled in a Chicago drug treatment center. Using ethnographic methods, I examine three factors that contributed to the stigmatization of those with TB. One factor concerns the fear elicited by the deadly disease that aroused reactions among Puerto Rican community members that were derived from earlier experiences. A second factor involves traditional public health measures enacted in response to the outbreak that facilitating labeling of those with TB, further fueling stigmatization. A third factor concerns the re‐articulation of group boundaries occurring among drug program inhabitants, whereby TB‐impacted persons were marginalized in order to reaffirmed the status of others whose identity had been compromised by the epidemic. The study’s implications for public health are discussed and suggestions are offered for developing innovative intervention approaches.

Although the number of studies that investigate supply chain sustainability learning has increased, little is known about the way sub-suppliers build knowledge and learn sustainability practices. Thus, moving beyond merely investigating the accumulation of knowledge, this research explores sub-suppliers’ knowing that supports the learning of sustainability practices in a multi-tiered food supply chain.

In the conduct of this interpretive research in South Brazil, two ethnographies were completed during 74 days of observations to understand similarities and differences between certified and non-certified sub-suppliers with respect to sustainability practices. As part of our research conducted in the context of poultry production, secondary data and data gathered through semi-structured interviews with representatives of the buyer and first-tier supplier firms were used to provide a better comprehension of the multi-tiered supply chain context. Then, we executed an interpretive textual analysis.

Our investigation explored six vignettes to reveal ways of learning sustainability practices in terms of waste management, biosecurity and animal welfare. Although the buyer firm requested these practices, we noted that the first-tier supplier was responsible for translating the practices to sub-suppliers. Moreover, we found that sustainability learning was shaped by the sub-supplier context embodied in knowledge through knowing. The ways of learning were related to sharing knowledge between experts and novices with the support of material practices; however, knowledge was also gained by unlearning some knowledge shared by the supplier. Sustainability practice learning, thus, was performed in a space of learning via knowledge creation among practitioners.

Recognising how sustainability learning happens in a multi-tiered supply chain context can help managers to develop plans to implement sustainability practices that will broaden their sustainability knowledge.

Unlike previous studies on supply chain sustainability learning, we reveal ways that sustainability practices emerge from knowledge that results from sub-suppliers’ knowing. We also explain how unlearning can consciously occur in several situations of sustainability learning.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the mental health of two immigrants supported by a non-profit organisation on the outskirts of Lisbon. The ethnography sets out the discourse of these users who are also residents of Terraços da Ponte, a social housing neighbourhood, and the workers who try to help them in the context of the non-profit organisation’s endeavours.

In order to explore the intersections between these users and state and non-state structures, this investigation relied on intensive fieldwork at a rehabilitated neighbourhood in Lisbon, as well as semi-directive interviews and life stories taken with workers of the institution and the people they were trying to help.

This paper shows how vulnerability has been produced in a social housing neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lisbon and how it connects to neoliberal policies employed by NGOs acting on the field.

Any general conclusions about the subject need to take into consideration that this research looks at the work of a specific non-profit organisation during a particular period in time.

This research seeks not only to promote a critical approach to the subject, but also to contribute to the production of appropriate health policies for the immigrant population residing in Portugal.

The analysis of health and social care practices regarding so-called vulnerable subjects relies heavily on “a mix of good intentions, developmental ambitions, paternalistic attitudes and desire to control deviant populations” (Pussetti and Barros, 2012, p. 47). Although there is not a single solution to this problem, several levels of analysis were explored: the non-profits’ goals and inspirations, the workers motivations, the subjects’ expectations regarding the kind of help they can get from these services and their ability to exert their own agency despite the conditions governing their lives.

As a fountainhead of postcolonial scholarship, Edward Said has profoundly impacted multiple disciplines. This chapter makes a case for why sociologists should (re)read Edward Said, paying specific attention to his warning about the inevitably violent interactions between knowledge and power in historic and current imperial contexts. Drawing on Said and other postcolonial theorists, we propose a threefold typology of potential violence associated with the production of knowledge: (1) the violence of essentialization, (2) epistemic violence, and (3) the violence of apprehension. While postcolonial theory and sociological and anthropological writing on reflexivity have highlighted the former two dangers, we urge social scientists to also remain wary of the last. We examine the formation of structures of authoritative knowledge during the French Empire in North Africa, the British Empire in India, and the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan during the “Global War on Terror,” paying close attention to how synchronic instances of apprehension (more or less accurate perception or recognition of the “other”) and essentialization interact in the production of diachronic essentialist and epistemic violence. We conclude by calling for a post-orientalist form of reflexivity, namely that sociologists, whether they engage as public intellectuals or not, remain sensitive to the fact that the production and consumption of sociological knowledge within a still palpable imperial framework makes all three violences possible, or even likely.

Responding to the call for an extension of social marketing scope and application, this paper aims to outline implementation of a multi-stream, multi-method formative research approach to understanding human trafficking in the global South context of Nigeria.

Data were collected using a multi-method, multi-stream research design. The study used alternative methods allowing a critical perspective to be taken.

Contradictions between upstream discourses and the lived experiences of trafficked individuals emerged. Specifically, moral and rational agency ideology, which conflates human trafficking with prostitution, unintentionally promotes human trafficking and underrepresents other forms of trafficking was evident. Experiences of socioeconomic oppression, traditional practices and an aspirational culture fuels positive attitudes towards human trafficking. The lived experience of human trafficking survivors while varied was underpinned by the common theme of job seeking. Participants perceived human traffickers as benevolent users rather than oppressors, and their rescue as oppressive and disempowering.

Application of a multi-stream approach is limited by research context, sample size, time and cost constraints. Future research extending the multi-stream research approach to other research contexts and groups is recommended.

Multi-stream formative research design assisted to yield wider insights, which informed the design of a multilevel pilot intervention to combat human trafficking in Nigeria.

Extending understanding beyond individual, myopic approaches that have dominated social marketing formative research.