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We examine dominant identity requirements of cross-cultural management (CCM) in complex organizational settings. In particular, we highlight how the norm of “being mobile” as an expression of “being committed” advantages male and single individuals, the holders of a “favourable” passport, and those expressing “individualist” cultural orientations. Out of this follows the need for a power-sensitive CCM.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of the different relations of power embedded in social structures on the construction of nomadic identities at the individual level.

The authors use a qualitative approach. The authors interview expatriates adjusting to an international audit firm in Luxembourg and young in geographical itinerancy. A multilevel analysis based on intersectionality let emerge macro- and meso-level influences on the construction of nomadic identities.

The authors differentiate three types of expression of nomadic identities thanks to the concept of intersectionality. The authors showed that power relations at the macro level of the society leads to cultural imperialism at the meso level of organizations thus shaping the identity construction of the individual.

The qualitative approach remains very specific and future research may focus on different contexts to generalize the results. The influence of gender on the construction of nomadic identities needs to be further investigated.

Diversity policies should be revisited to avoid cultural imperialism.

The authors go beyond the monolithic approach, explaining the development of nomadic identities through the lens of national culture only. The authors point out that the individual develops different social identities intersecting in his or her identity development.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the researcher can critically reflect on his/her own identities when interacting with participants who hold nomadic identities and analyses the dynamic discourses of power unfolding at different levels.

Autobiographical narrative data derived from a research study on highly educated refugees in the UK are analysed in order to highlight the multi-level dynamic discourses of power unfolding between researcher, participants, the community context and the broader socio-cultural context.

The findings shed light not only on the power relations unfolding at different levels but also on inequalities which arise – particularly in organisational settings - and put at a disadvantage certain groups of highly educated refugees.

The thorough analysis demonstrates how a researcher can be critically reflexive – that is, challenges his/her own authority and gives “voice” to the participants – when studying groups with nomadic identities.

The originality of the paper lies in revealing through a critical reflexive analysis how and why certain migrant groups may be disadvantaged and/or marginalised in organisational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate insights into the identity construction and development of a selected single male individual in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims at increasing the in-depth understanding of the complexities of identity construction in a transcultural setting and provides emic perspectives on a micro-individual level over a period of ten years.

This research study is based on the post-modernist premise by considering phenomenological and interpretative paradigms most relevant. It is a longitudinal study, conducted with a single individual over a period of ten years by using various research methods as well as triangulation of methods, theories and data. Data were analysed through content analysis.

This research provides in-depth information on the struggle of a single person to construct and re-construct his identity and find answers to the question “Who am I?” in the multifaceted and hypercomplex transcultural environment of Cape Town. It shows the attempts to developing a coherent multiple identity over a period of ten years, reconstructing the past, creating the present and envisioning the future.

This research has practical implications for practitioners working with identity (development) in transcultural settings. It provides important in-depth information on “nomadic identities” for coaching, counselling or therapies in transcultural settings.

This paper provides new and original insights into long-term identity development of an individual in a transcultural urban space.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the new journal, its history, scope and ambitions.

The paper reviews the current growth in interest in ethnographic research in organizational and management studies, reflected not least in the success of the Liverpool‐Keele Ethnography Symposium.

Surveying the state of the field, this paper has identified a need for a natural home for organizational ethnographers. The continuing growth and development of the Symposium is also a reflection of the shared experience among would‐be ethnographers who find that, when presenting ethnographic work at other conferences, their choice of methodology is more often subject to contrarian rather than constructive discussion. It is only by debating the merits of the empirical and theoretical themes and perspectives that inform the subject in a constructive way with others, who are genuinely appreciative of the tradition, that it will develop.

The paper presents the case for a platform for the publishing of quality organizational ethnographies and for a forum in which to debate and develop the methodology and methods associated with them. It argues for a “collective manifesto” embracing and encouraging the diversity of approaches and introduces the first contributions.