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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the unique artistic approach of film-maker Werner Herzog as an inspiration to rethink ethnographic studies in general and the notion of reflexivity in particular.

This paper reviews the particularities of Werner Herzog’s approach to filmmaking, linking them to the methodological tradition of visual ethnography and especially the debate about the role of reflexivity and performativity in research.

Herzog’s conceptualization of meaning as “ecstatic truth” offers an avenue for visual organizational ethnographers to rethink reflexivity and performativity, reframe research findings and reorganize research activities. The combination of multiple media and the strong authorial involvement exhibited in Herzog’s work, can inspire and guide the development of “meaningful” organizational ethnographies.

The paper argues that practicing visual organizational ethnography “after Herzog” offers researchers an avenue to engage creatively with their research in novel and highly reflexive ways. It offers a different way to think through some of the challenges often associated with ethnographic research.

The use of visual templates has proven instrumental in supporting group meetings. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether visual templates enable culturally diverse groups to achieve greater task precision in face-to-face meetings.

Building on Adaptive Structuration Theory, it is argued that visual templates provide structuration for face-to-face meetings, even more so when they are embedded in computer-supported collaborative systems. In particular, it is hypothesized that the higher the degree of structuration imposed by visual templates, the higher the degree of task precision will be. It is also hypothesized that this relationship is positively moderated by group cultural diversity: higher cultural diversity will further sustain the positive effects of visual templates that provide higher structuration.

Results of an experiment with 229 managers from 49 countries confirm that facilitating groups with visual templates embedded in a computer-supported collaborative system significantly increases task precision at high levels of cultural diversity.

This study contributes to Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) by investigating the use of visual templates as a contingency factor that increases performance – specifically task precision – of co-located, culturally diverse groups.

Results indicate that visual templates embedded in a computer-supported collaborative system are an effective method for increasing task precision in face-to-face meetings of culturally diverse groups.

Theories from information systems and visualization are integrated into cross-cultural management with a view to sustaining the effectiveness of culturally diverse groups. The study sample is characterized by highly culturally diverse groups interacting in face-to-face meetings.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how annual reports of public housing and commercial real estate companies contribute in “doing gender” of the real estate industry in Sweden. How the issue of gender is dealt with in photographs, in two different types of organizations, with different corporate and business strategies, is important as they play a significant role in constructing the industry itself. Are there any differences in how they perceive gender, and what constitutes gender of the industry?

Analysis of photographs in annual reports, 14 public housing companies and eight commercial real estate companies, in the year of 2011.

The paper provides empirical insights about how “gender is done” in annual reports, men alone are shown more often as employees and both women and men are portrayed in stereotypical positions. Women are depicted more often as young and also presented in “token positions”.

Because of the chosen research approach, in studying only one year, a longitudinal study would be recommended for future studies.

The paper includes implications for the development of gender symbols and images representing the industry, in how gender is done in public situations as in annual reports. This is not only important for the industry itself but also to stakeholders involved with the industry.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how photographs shown in annual reports reveal gender structure.