Search results

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

The purpose of this paper is to employ a reflection on at-home ethnographic (AHE) practice to unpack the backstage messiness of an account to demonstrate how management students can craft fine-grained accounts of their practice and develop further our understanding of management practices in situ.

The paper reflects upon an example of AHE from an 18-month period at a chemical plant. Through exposure and exploration, the paper outlines how this method was used, the emotion involved and the challenges to conduct “good” research.

The paper does not seek to define “best practice”; it highlights the epistemic and ethical practices used in an account to demonstrate how AHE could enhance management literature through a series of practice accounts. More insider accounts would demonstrate understandings that go beyond distant accounts that purport to show managerial work as rational and scientific. In addition, such accounts would inform teaching of the complexities and messiness of managerial practice.

Ethnographic accounts (products) are often neat and tidy rather than messy, irrational and complex. Reflection on ethnographer (person) and ethnographic methodology (process) is limited. However, ethnographic practices are mostly unreported. By reflecting on ethnographic epistemic and ethical practices, the paper demonstrates how a largely untapped area has much to offer both management students and in making a fundamental contribution to understanding and teaching managerial practice.

RETIRING prime ministers are customarily offered an earldom. Because this often involves a change of name and historical oblivion, some of the greatest among them, men like Pitt and Gladstone and Churchill, have declined the honour. They understood that it is not names which give confidence in things, but things which give confidence in names. What would an Earl Chartwell of Westerham mean to future generations compared with the clarion voice we know as Churchill?

The purpose of this paper is to provide practical recommendations for shadowing as a method of organizational study with a focus on the situated processes and practices of shadowing fieldwork.

This paper reflects on the shadowing experiences of three researchers – in a hospital emergency department, nuclear power plants, and entrepreneur workspaces – to generate recommendations by identifying and synthesizing solutions that emerged during the encounters with the challenges and opportunities in shadowing.

Considering shadowing as an ongoing and emergent research process can be helpful to prepare for particular aspects of shadowing fieldwork. Shadowing presents research challenges that may emerge in the practice of fieldwork, including how to negotiate awkward conversations with participants, what to bring and wear, and how to take notes.

Though the recommendations for shadowing are based on particular experiences and may not generalize to all shadowing engagements, they offer concrete, practical recommendations useful across experience levels. The recommendations should sensitize researchers to the intimate and situational character of shadowing, and offer strategies for coping with the distinctive requirements of shadowing.

By looking across diverse experiences of shadowing, the paper generated guidelines that help to make sense of shadowing processes, manage uncertainty in the field, and build on the emerging work on shadowing. The ten recommendations provide insight into shadowing that are of particular value to graduate students, junior researchers, and those new to shadowing. Moreover, the experienced shadower may find value in the camaraderie of shared experience, the concrete ideas about another's experience of shadowing, and insight in recommendations that capture aspects of fieldwork that they are also exploring.

Purpose – Exploring children's perspectives on participation in social research provides sociologists with new insight into how to include children's voices and perspectives effectively in sociological studies of childhood.

Design/methodology/approach – Child-centered interviews were conducted with 20 children between the ages of 5 and 12 as part of a larger research project.

Findings – Findings from interviews, artwork, and researcher field notes suggest that the children interviewed enjoyed the experience of participating in child-centered social research, maintained serious attitudes toward their inclusion in social research and wish to be active participants in future research involving kids.

Practical implications – Suggestions are offered for future research studies of this population and recommendations are made to encourage American sociologists to consider the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in research endeavors.

Gives a personal opinion on the part that note taking plays in surveying and report writing, referring to a recent judgment critical of a surveyor who had no written site notes to produce to the court, having dictated a report on site. Also comments on defensive note taking, that is, notes not necessary to enable a report to be prepared but which are required to give protection in the event of the surveyor being wrongly accused of negligence.

Reinterprets data from an empirical study conducted in 1987 – the Nick Experiment – concerned with the interaction between technology, team and task. Combines data with anecdotal evidence. Reports gains in meetings quality and effectiveness. Comments on the potential effectiveness of the messaging facility on the electronic workstations and the electronic blackboard. Comments strongly on the value of field experiments and case studies – as opposed to controlled experiments – to obtain realistic data.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how knowledge is constructed and risk is induced within the workgroup environment of a large North American aerospace company.

Based on an epistemological position on knowledge and risk, an initial conceptual framework is proposed. This is then evaluated and re‐constructed across a qualitative and ethnographic case study approach involving direct observations and interviews, whereby empirical results were interpreted and analysed across discourse analysis.

A dialogical model is proposed describing both verbal and non‐verbal interactions between group members leading towards knowledge complexification on the one hand and risk mitigation on the other hand. Factors leading towards dialogical breakdown and subsequent risk induction are also presented.

This single case study prevents generalizing the findings across the entire firm in question, and by extension any manner of external validity outside of the firm's context. Additional workgroups/teams within the firm need to be evaluated, while similar studies in other institutions within the knowledge economy are to be envisaged.

Workgroup managers must nurture an environment conducive towards mutual trust and respect, where individuals are given the time and freedom to express themselves, all the while being open to differing viewpoints and experiences. Coercive dialogue between members should be discouraged. It is proposed that this can be achieved across a parental “safety net” approach.

The paper presents the “how” and “why” of an effective dialogical knowledge constructing process occurring at the interpersonal level, attempts to propose how management can to help achieve this within their organisation, and attempts to bridge the areas of knowledge creation and risk induction at the interpersonal/workgroup level.

The purpose of this paper is to assess student perceptions of their learning during reference transactions and to evaluate a note-taking strategy developed to improve the quality of learning during reference encounters.

Students were surveyed following a reference interaction and were asked, “What did you learn today?”. Based on the authors results, librarians developed a Reference Notes form encouraging librarians and students to take notes during reference transactions, highlighting terms, concepts and strategies. The forms were assessed with a modified version of the initial student survey to determine their effectiveness. Student survey results were analyzed, and librarians also provided feedback via surveys and discussions.

Initial results indicated that students retained concrete concepts like the names of previously unknown databases. With the implementation of Reference Notes, students were more likely to report learning broad-based concepts like narrowing a search, brainstorming keywords and search mechanics. Librarians and students felt the form was an effective reference tool.

This is an indirect method of assessing student learning, relying on students’ self-reports. Without the opportunity to pre-define learning objectives for a reference transaction, the authors were unable to assess student learning directly.

Many librarians write down some information during reference transactions. A more systematic approach to taking notes may improve the learning potential of the reference encounter.

This project demonstrates that student learning assessment is an important tool for evaluating reference services. Through student learning assessment, librarians can develop strategies, such as the authors Reference Notes forms, to increase the quality of learning during reference transactions.