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1 – 10 of 18
Article
Publication date: 29 May 2007

Sarah E.A. Dixon and Anne Clifford

The purpose of this paper is to extend research into social and ecological entrepreneurship. It aims to examine how ecopreneurs can create an economically viable business whilst…

13336

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to extend research into social and ecological entrepreneurship. It aims to examine how ecopreneurs can create an economically viable business whilst retaining their core environmental and social values.

Design/methodology/approach

An exploratory approach within the phenomenological research paradigm. Single case study of Green‐Works triangulating data collection – semi structured interviews, micro‐ethnography and document analysis. Inductive approach.

Findings

A strong link is identified between entrepreneurialism and environmentalism. The entrepreneurial flair of the CEO enables the pursuit of environmental, social and economic goals. The success of the Green‐Works business model stems from the business's symbiotic relationships: firstly with large corporate bodies, which are keen to quantify their CSR efforts; secondly, with the community and social partners, who provide employment and training for disadvantaged people and a route to relatively risk free growth; and thirdly, with government and social institutions, which provide special concessions and support. The strong economic foundations of the model provide sustainability for the environmental and social objectives of the organisation.

Research limitations/implications

Research restricted to one UK case study – a model that has evolved in part through policies and business trends specific to the UK. Further research should compare this business model with other social enterprises within the UK and other countries.

Practical implications

Provides a practical framework for social and green entrepreneurship. Of interest to ecopreneurs and social enterprises seeking economic sustainability; to governments, wishing to promote CSR, environmentalism and social enterprise; and to corporate organisations wishing to demonstrate a quantitative contribution to the environment and society.

Originality/value

Demonstration of natural fit between environmentalism and entrepreneurialism. Presentation of business model offering economic sustainability for environmental and social enterprises.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 20 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 May 2012

Clare Rigg and Breda O'Dwyer

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical discussion of a developing epistemology and methodology for a qualitative study of participants of enterprise education in…

2714

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical discussion of a developing epistemology and methodology for a qualitative study of participants of enterprise education in south‐west Ireland, run collaboratively between third level academics, a regional development agency, and entrepreneurs.

Design/methodology/approach

The perspective taken is social constructionist, drawing on ideas from identity theory and social learning theory. A discursive approach to entrepreneurship suggests that an entrepreneurial aspect of human identity (as with other aspects) is emergent and relational, developed through dialogue with family, customers, employees, suppliers, competitors and others. In the education programme, aspiring entrepreneurs’ exposure to and close engagement with a network of national and international mentors, coupled with their engagement in risk taking, can be understood through the notion of becoming, through and in relation to others.

Findings

The mentor network in the education programme is conceptualised as a community of practice that provides induction for nascent entrepreneurs for stimulating their learning of how to be, their acquisition of status and identify, and not simply their development of practical skills.

Practical implications

The immediate practical implication is that greatest insight would be achieved by a longitudinal study that follows nascent entrepreneurs from start to completion of an education intervention and takes an ethnographic approach.

Originality/value

Findings and the proposed methodology will be of value to those designing and researching entrepreneurship education, where outcomes are desired that go beyond knowledge acquisition.

Content available
Article
Publication date: 24 August 2010

Emma Bell

1341

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Article
Publication date: 23 September 2022

Miriam Feuls, Mie Plotnikof and Iben Sandal Stjerne

This paper stimulates methodological debates and advances the research agenda for qualitative research about time and temporality in organizing processes. It develops a framework…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper stimulates methodological debates and advances the research agenda for qualitative research about time and temporality in organizing processes. It develops a framework for studying the temporal in organizing that contributes by: (1) providing an overview to prepare for and navigate various methodological challenges in this regard, (2) offering inspiration for relevant solutions to those challenges and (3) posing timely questions to facilitate temporal reflexivity in scholarly work.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a literature review of studies about temporality in organizing processes, the authors develop a framework of well-acknowledged methodological challenges, dilemmas and paradoxes, and pose timely questions with which to develop potential solutions for research about organization and time.

Findings

The framework of this study offers a synthesis of methodological challenges and potential solutions acknowledged in the organization studies literature. It consists of three interrelated dimensions of methodological challenges to studying temporality in organizing processes, namely: empirical, analytical and representational challenges. These manifests in six subcategories: empirical cases, empirical methods, analytical concepts, analytical processes and coding, representing researchers’ temporal embeddedness and representing multiple temporalities.

Originality/value

This paper allows scholars to undertake a more ambitious, collective methodological discussion and sets an agenda for studying the temporal in organizing. The framework developed stimulates researchers’ temporal reflexivity and inspires them to develop solutions to specific methodological challenges that may emerge in their study of the temporal in organizing.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 April 2014

Michael Smets, Gary Burke, Paula Jarzabkowski and Paul Spee

Increasing complexity, fragmentation, mobility, pace, and technological intermediation of organizational life make “being there” increasingly difficult. Where do ethnographers…

1027

Abstract

Purpose

Increasing complexity, fragmentation, mobility, pace, and technological intermediation of organizational life make “being there” increasingly difficult. Where do ethnographers have to be, when, for how long, and with whom to “be there” and grasp the practices, norms, and values that make the situation meaningful to natives? These novel complexities call for new forms of organizational ethnography. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issues.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors respond to these calls for innovative ethnographic methods in two ways. First, the paper reports on the practices and ethnographic experiences of conducting a year-long team-based video ethnography of reinsurance trading in London.

Findings

Second, drawing on these experiences, the paper proposes a framework for systematizing new approaches to organizational ethnography and visualizing the ways in which they are “expanding” ethnography as it was traditionally practiced.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the ethnographic literature in three ways: first, the paper develops a framework for charting new approaches to ethnography and highlight its different dimensions – site, instrument, and fieldworker. Second, the paper outlines the opportunities and challenges associated with these expansions, specifically with regard to research design, analytical rigour, and communication of results. Third, drawing on the previous two contributions, the paper highlights configurations of methodological expansions on the aforementioned dimensions that are more promising than others in leveraging new technologies and approaches to claim new territory for organizational ethnography and enhance its relevance for understanding today's multifarious organizational realities.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2010

Ayman El‐Amir and Steve Burt

This paper aims to shed light on the potential of ethnography to provide a dialectical approach to modeling the process of branding as its focus widens from managerial to social.

2521

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to shed light on the potential of ethnography to provide a dialectical approach to modeling the process of branding as its focus widens from managerial to social.

Design/methodology/approach

A critical approach to ethnography is adopted and implemented in light of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's ethnographic modeling technique of “participant objectification”.

Findings

The paper demonstrates from the customer standpoint, of a case of a grocery retailer, the ability of critical ethnography to dialectically model the branding process as an organic cultural whole, which envelops an intricate set of different, yet interdependent, social and managerial systems, functioning in a coherent and complementary manner.

Research limitations/implications

The empirical evidence is limited to the area of grocery retailing. Thus, widening the application of the technique in other areas would be desirable.

Practical implications

The dialectical nature of the critical approach to modeling yields a rich multi‐faceted view of the branding process that could help remedy the problem of detachment from complex reality, which has often been a criticism of traditional approaches to modeling in marketing.

Originality/value

The suggested dialectical approach to modeling expands the potential use of ethnography within the critical orientation to theory building in marketing generally, and branding in particular through elaborating the process of cultural construction from textual via participant observation to dialectical via participant objectification.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2002

Clare Rigg and Kiran Trehan

Understanding of HRD in SMEs has frequently been based on impoverished research resulting from underdeveloped theory. This article argues for the potential offered to researching…

1497

Abstract

Understanding of HRD in SMEs has frequently been based on impoverished research resulting from underdeveloped theory. This article argues for the potential offered to researching, understanding and practising HRD in small organisations, of taking a discourse perspective on organisation, learning and development. Through a comparative interpretation, from a traditional and a discourse perspective on HRD, of research material collected ethnographically in three small companies, the article aims to contribute to an approach which can deepen understanding of HRD in SMEs by combining three strands that have not generally been integrated: ideas from recent debates on what HRD comprises, perspectives on learning, and a discourse perspective on organisation. The implications for research indicate a need for methods that enable the study of HRD in action – the micro‐processes of development.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 44 no. 8/9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 May 2014

Simone Guercini

– The purpose of this paper is to deliver an introduction to the Special Issue on new qualitative research methodologies in management.

12061

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to deliver an introduction to the Special Issue on new qualitative research methodologies in management.

Design/methodology/approach

The reasons of interest for the object of this Special Issue are explained through the discussion of a selected literature. Technological and sociological changes are considered as a source of new problem and new opportunities for management and management research. The traditional methods are put under strain by these changes and epistemological implications are considered.

Findings

New qualitative methodologies analyzed in the Special Issue are characterized by drivers including hybridization with others methods, both qualitative and quantitative. New methods can contribute to reduce distance between researcher's and practitioner's context.

Originality/value

A frame to analyze the new qualitative management research through the papers published in the Special Issue.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 52 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Sherry Liyanage, J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak and Raymond Powell

Dark tourism and, more specifically, visitor experiences at Nazi concentration camp memorials are emerging fields of research in tourism studies and destination management. The…

1539

Abstract

Purpose

Dark tourism and, more specifically, visitor experiences at Nazi concentration camp memorials are emerging fields of research in tourism studies and destination management. The purpose of this paper is to build on this growing body of knowledge and it aims to focus on the Second World War Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in Germany to explore the psychological impact of the site on its visitors as well as critical self-reflection processes triggered by this experience.

Design/methodology/approach

This micro-netnography resulted in 15 online semi-structured interviews carried out with people who visited Dachau between 2003 and 2015. The interviews involved participants from 11 different nationalities and a range of age groups.

Findings

This study has shown that emotions that surface during a tourist’s visit to a concentration camp destination can linger well after they have left the site. In fact, feelings of sadness, depression, anger and existential questions can haunt visitors for a considerable amount of time after their visit. Further reflections by visitors also included a more critical appreciation of world affairs. This is of particular significance when considering the behaviour of tourists in an urban setting.

Originality/value

This research builds on previous dark tourism studies related to the on-site emotions experienced by visitors to concentration camp memorial sites and their travel motivation but takes this knowledge further by exploring the hitherto uncharted longer-term post-experience impacts of these sites on their visitors. Recommendations for dark tourism destination practitioners and academics are also provided based in a critical discussion of the research.

Details

International Journal of Tourism Cities, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-5607

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2012

Martin Wood and Sally Brown

Inspired by an exciting revival of interest in the working methods and processes of the creative arts, the purpose of this paper is to make use of the auteur approach to film…

Abstract

Purpose

Inspired by an exciting revival of interest in the working methods and processes of the creative arts, the purpose of this paper is to make use of the auteur approach to film production, to further develop knowledge about sensuous methodologies in qualitative research.

Design/methodology/approach

An exegesis of the authors’ particular experiences in producing and disseminating a short documentary film is used to construct a framework from which to analyse affective modes of engagement within the parameters of qualitative research.

Findings

Qualitative researchers are characterised as creative artists who bring their precise aesthetic choice to bear on an audience through a mix of technical competence, distinguishable personality and interior meaning.

Practical implications

One way for qualitative research to have affective impact is to use the working methods and procedures of the creative arts.

Social implications

A research culture is required where risk is permissible and engagement with the creative arts is given greater recognition in future qualitative projects.

Originality/value

As a mode of creative arts enquiry, film making can allow a degree of the emotional meaning and feeling within a study to come through into the analysis and the viewer's/reader's affective experience. This is often difficult to come by in more scientifically‐driven research approaches.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

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