Search results

This chapter focuses on the ethnographic research approach that I employed in a service marketing study. The first part briefly describes ethnography’s key characteristics, that is, emergent research logic, prolonged fieldwork, and multiple modes of data collection, where the main method is observation. The second part discusses the data collection methods: participant observation, informal discussion, interview, and document analysis. This section describes in detail how these techniques were used in practice and highlights the key challenges I faced, especially related to the observations, and how I managed these challenges. The third part describes the case, field setting, informants, and field relationships. The development project that I studied concerned a bank’s website and project members from the bank and different consultant agencies represent the study’s informants. The fieldwork lasted for about one year and covered the entire development process from the initial stages to the launch, and some time after. The chapter ends with a thorough discussion about the research criteria of validity, reliability, and generality, and the coping tactics that I used in this study to enhance these. Prolonged fieldwork, multiple modes of data collection, reflexivity, and specification of the research are among those important tactics that this last section discusses in detail.

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.

This chapter considers the values and challenges of a highly embedded participant ethnographic methodology that has evolved over the last four years in the course of two formal ethnographic studies in higher education. The method has been developed by a practitioner-researcher in tandem with the learning design of a new programme. As such, the roots of the method lie very much within the paradigms of heuristics and action research but lend themselves equally well to more formal, extended ethnographic work. The nature of this method raises several interesting, messy and difficult issues that are further explored. The first is the nature of practitioner research and the purpose of participant ethnography in this context. What does it mean for the teacher to concurrently and contemporaneously inhabit the role of researcher? This leads neatly into an exploration of the attendant ethical considerations. Issues of power and positionality must be tackled, and the ability of the researcher to engage in fully reflexive practice and research is key to unpacking this. Who or what is being observed, and from what perspective? Whose experience is really being interrogated – that of the teacher or the student? Finally, as this method has evolved from, and shares much in common with, action research, consideration will be given to the nexus of action research, observation and formal ethnography – both in terms of the participation and contributions of the teacher-researcher to the process and the students, who in effect become auto-action researchers, investigating themselves as learners and their experiences with their peers.

Improvements to supportive services targeting pregnant and parenting adolescents can enhance maternal and child outcomes (e.g., repeat pregnancy and child well-being). The purpose of this chapter is to advance the medical sociological literature by implementing multifaceted approaches including developing evidence-based media messaging device modalities as a forum to engage pregnant and parenting adolescents in social normative communication, self-reflection, and self-expression so that they can develop a tailored health prototype service model to accommodate their health and social needs.

We utilized a purposeful sample of pregnant adolescents or parenting adolescents (of an infant or toddler) ages 15–19 in a large Metropolitan Area in the Midwest. We employed a qualitative research design using two focus groups (n = 15) and participant observation (n = 8) to identify themes. Content analysis was performed to better understand the study participants’ experiences and perceptions.

Based on the focus group results, the custom journal was found to be the most popular outlet to offer self-expression and social support. Four main themes emerged from the data, including teen pregnancy overall is a problem, but having their own baby was not; strong desire for more health information and health education; perceived stigma from their teachers and parents; and frustration with the existing service programs.

The implications of the chapter are that the teen pregnancy norms fostered stigma and “social disgrace” that the pregnant and parenting adolescents experienced and ultimately thwarted their perceived and actual receipt of services. Future research should better understand the potential influences of internal and external pressures brought on by stigmatization as a contributing barrier to communicating social and health needs by pregnant and parenting adolescents.

This chapter developed, implemented, and evaluated media communication and found that it could structure social relations between pregnant and parenting adolescents and service providers. This chapter also extends development communication techniques, with its intellectual roots in rural sociology, by focusing on communication-oriented solutions and the development of new technologies to provide medical information with greater social equality and integrated support services for pregnant and parenting adolescents.

In the field of behavioral disabilities, systematic direct observation (SDO) has been an integral tool for describing and explaining relationships between student and teacher behavior in authentic classroom settings. However, this method of measurement can be resource-intensive and presents a series of complex decisions for investigators. The purpose of this chapter is to review a series of critical decisions investigators must make when developing SDO protocols to address their research questions. After describing each decision point and its relevance to the measurement system, we identify trends and special considerations in the field of behavioral disabilities with respect to each decision. We organize content according to deciding what to measure, deciding how to measure it, and critical steps to prevent system breakdowns. Finally, we identify avenues for research to further the impact of SDO in the field of behavioral disabilities.

This chapter discusses the differences between face-to-face and online ethnographies of Scottish Country Dancing. It draws on fieldwork conducted firstly in Lyon in 2017 and subsequently in Edinburgh in 2017–2018, with further fieldwork in Edinburgh, due to the global pandemic, now taking place online. Online Scottish Country Dancing is challenging, especially given that this social dancing requires a partner and space. Due to the pandemic, how and why individuals do online dancing has shifted because people can now link in and across different locations. As a researcher as well as a dancer, my current project utilises blended ethnography, including textual analysis, fieldnotes, participant observations, interviews and surveys. Conducting online ethnographic practices raises specific ethical considerations and challenges, most notably concerning who is being observed and whether the participants are aware of being observed. This chapter addresses how the research aims to adapt ethnography from face-to-face fieldwork to online situations, in response to the impact of COVID-19 and associated ethical challenges.

Conducting research with children and youth has become increasingly challenging in recent years. At times these difficulties come in the form of restrictions by Institutional Review Boards, funding agencies, and parents. Additionally, changes in youth culture and behavior, specifically regarding online activities and digitally mediated communications, impact the access that researchers have to children and youth communities in significant ways. In this chapter, I propose that the use of an emerging methodological technique, digital ethnography, may provide researchers with new data sources on children and youth culture. Digital ethnography combines ethnographic techniques of observation, participation, and interview with content analysis to collect rich data about online behavior, norms, expectations, and interactions. This technique not only provides researchers with sources of data that allow insight into youth culture by acknowledging the increasing importance of online and digital interactions in youth culture but may also address some of the concerns raised by IRBs and other interested parties about conducting research with children and teens. This chapter provides practical and ethical considerations of this method, as well as a discussion of limitations of data collection and access as it highlights new ways of studying youth culture, using emerging data collection techniques in innovative research projects.

The contributions of qualitative research to the study of behavioral–emotional disabilities, mild intellectual disabilities, and learning disabilities (the three types of high-incidence disabilities) are relatively recent and far from abundant. This chapter discusses qualitative, or “naturalistic” research by briefly examining the methodology used in such inquiry, reviewing many of the available studies concerning those with high-incidence disabilities, and providing implications from the existing empirical literature. It is not recommended that qualitative research takes the place of quantitative research in special education, but well-designed and executed naturalistic studies can contribute additional knowledge that is worthwhile to the field.