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This paper revolves around the central question: is it possible to do “proper ethnography” without complete participant observation? The authors draw upon a student's experiences of negotiating National Health Service (NHS) ethical approval requirements and access into the student's research field, a British NHS hospital and having to adapt data collection methods for the student's doctoral research. The authors examine some of the positional (insider/outsider, native gone academic), methodological (long-term/interrupted, overt/covert) and contextual challenges that threatened the student's ethnographic study.

The paper draws on reflexive vignettes written during the student's doctorate, capturing significant moments and issues within the student's research.

The authors highlight the temporal, practical, ethical and emotional challenges faced in attempting an ethnography of nursing culture within a highly regulated research environment. Having revealed the student's experience of researching this specific culture and finding ways to overcome these challenges, the authors conclude that the contemporary ethnographer needs to be increasingly flexible, opportunistic and somewhat covert.

The authors argue that it is possible to do “proper” and “good” ethnography without complete participant observation – it is not the method, the observation, that is the essence of ethnography, but whether the researcher achieves real understanding through thick descriptions of the culture that explain “what is really going on here”.

The authors hope to assist doctoral students engage in “good” ethnographic research within (potentially) risk-averse host organisations, such as the NHS, whilst being located in neo-liberal performative academic organisations (Foster, 2017; McCann et al., 2020). The authors wish to contribute to the journal to ensure good ethnography is accessible and achievable to (particularly) doctoral researchers who have to navigate complex challenges exacerbated by pressures in both the host and home cultures. The authors wish to see doctoral researchers survive and thrive in producing good organisational ethnographies to ensure such research is published (Watson 2012), cognisant of the pressures and targets to publish in top-ranked journals (Jones et al. 2020).

Having identified key challenges, the authors demonstrate how these can be addressed to ensure ethnography remains accessible to and achievable for, doctoral researchers, particularly in healthcare organisations. The authors conclude that understanding can be attained in what they propose as a hybrid form of “propportune” ethnography that blends the aim of the essence of “proper” anthropological approaches with the “opportunism” of contemporary data collection solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to review and organise the autoethnography literature: to explore the obstacles of and opportunities for autoethnography in organisation research; to support PhD students and supervisors who have chosen this methodological route to more clearly define their autoethnographic positions and choices; and to propose new research directions for organisational autoethnography.

The authors critically summarise autoethnography as a contemporary approach to organisational ethnography by looking back, looking at the present, and looking to the future. The authors briefly consider the historical and disciplinary development – and vehement critique – of autoethnography, trace its shifting epistemological positions and introduce three emergent “possibilities” of organisation autoethnography.

The authors highlight how autoethnography can tell stories otherwise silenced; exploring the mundane, ignored and distorted in current academic life, past and other work experiences, working with others through collaborative or co‐produced autoethnography in exciting new organisational contexts.

This paper is one of the first attempts to review autoethnography as a contemporary approach to organisation autoethnography.

The context of contemporary higher education is changing, with ever-increasing student numbers and escalating demands on academics. In response, developing greater awareness and understanding of doctoral psychological contracts can help mitigate the ‘problem’ of mismatched expectations and their negative consequences. In this chapter, I review literature on doctoral supervisory relationships and highlight the paucity of research on the psychological contract. To address this, I present an autoethnographic, mixed-methods approach exploring expectations and obligations from student and supervisor perspectives. Offering insights into the complexity and diversity of doctoral psychological contracts, I conclude with recommendations for theory and practice.

Human resource development (HRD) is a concept associated with human resource management, and, by this association, one component of the broader concept of management. Much work has examined management practices from a critical stance and this article provides a brief review. However, HRD is a more recent concept, still emerging and finding space in both academic and practitioner spheres. This article begins a critical examination of HRD by applying some of the strands of critical thinking to HRD practices and discourses. It also critically examines the attempt to conceptualise HRD as a social and discursive construction to connect ways of thinking, talking about and practising HRD to help academics and practitioners reflect critically on their occupational activities. By examining discourses associated with “being critical” as well as the emerging and eclectic discourses of “HRD”, this article contributes to a deeper understanding by evaluating whether this is indeed a critical time for HRD.

In this paper the authors seek to argue that doctoral supervision is one type of human resource development relationship in higher education (HE), and that this relationship may be close or distanced, and involve technical and social support. The paper aims to highlight the seldom‐discussed aspects of power and emotion within doctoral supervision, with specific focus on the feedback process, suggesting that students and supervisors may not be adequately developed for their roles.

The authors conducted two small cumulative studies in the UK, involving a small focus group and a national survey of students and supervisors. The focus of the first study is to elucidate potentially influential variables in the supervisory relationship. The second study builds on emergent themes relating to forms of supervision (dimensions, structure and support) with specific focus on manifestations of power and emotion.

The focus group findings exemplify the power and emotion that pervades doctoral research. Key survey findings relating to power within the doctoral relationship suggest that students perceived their supervisors as having less power than themselves. With respect to emotion, the findings suggest a low level of emotion management on the part of students, who are unaware of displaying or even experiencing their emotions. As the most frequent reason for meeting, students and supervisors need to see feedback as being positive for self‐development, but also need to be aware of the power and emotion dimensions of this sensitive aspect of doctoral supervision.

Although both studies were small, the authors' findings do contribute to developing a more sophisticated understanding of the forms, power and emotion of doctoral supervision. However, further research is required to identify whether these issues are pertinent to UK students and supervisors alone, or whether they transcend national cultures and higher education systems.

The research finds that supervisors appear to learn about supervision through reflecting upon how they were supervised as students. This raises important issues for HRD in higher education for staff development. It also brings into focus how both students and supervisors are developed in recognising and dealing with their emotions, identifying and controlling shifting power dynamics, giving and receiving feedback and managing their evolving relationship.

Few studies have explored the power and emotion of doctoral supervision, yet dealing with these requires academic staff and student development.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a discourse approach to theorising human resource development (HRD) can open a “discursive space” to challenge dominant discourses within the field; enabling a more critical discourse to emerge.

Discusses two approaches to discourse analysis, a “practice” and a “critical” approach, and illuminates how both approaches can contribute to theorising HRD.

The notion of what constitutes HRD is being constantly renegotiated both in theory and in practice. While contemporary HRD discourses are many and there is fluidity in the field a dominant discourse can be identified. The authors argue that a focus on the discourses which construct and constitute HRD need to consider both the “practice” and “the order of discourse” enabling the emergence of alternative discourses within the field.

Due to word restrictions an empirical example has not been included. However, future work will address this limitation.

The two approaches to discourse analysis discussed provide a useful framework; enabling an analysis of the dominant and competing discourses within the field of HRD.

Discourse analysis is rarely discussed in business settings despite the evidence that applied discourse analysis focuses on questions that are of relevance to the field. This paper contributes to a perceived gap and demonstrates how discourse analysis can contribute to researching alternative notions of HRD in order to encourage a variety of conceptual developments.

The purpose of this paper is to provide clarification of critical human resource development (CHRD), an emerging concept that is complex, ambiguous and lacks clarity.

To address this problem, the technique of concept analysis is employed to help clarify the understanding of CHRD. Concept analysis presents theoretical definitions and defining characteristics of CHRD, drawing upon an extensive review of research literature. Benefits and limitations of the technique are also explored.

The concept analysis identifies antecedents, attributes and consequences of critical HRD. These include: personal and organizational factors; challenging contemporary practices, exposing assumptions, and emancipation; and more democratic work production, improved (working/learning) relationships; and improved creativity and productivity.

This paper presents an initial concept analysis of the emerging concept of critical HRD. This is not without difficulty given the complexity and ambiguity associated with the concept. It has been beyond the scope of this paper to present model and contrary cases of CHRD. Providing clearer operational definitions can assist researchers to investigate and evaluate critical approaches to HRD.

Defining characteristics of CHRD can help provide clearer operational definitions to assist practitioners enact and evaluate critical approaches to HRD.

The paper provides the first ever concept analysis of critical human resource development. The use of this method itself makes a new contribution to the study of HRD. This concept analysis provides other researchers, teachers and practitioners insight into what CHRD might be, through the identification of its attributes, what antecedents and actions it requires, and the possible positive consequences it might realise, thus contributing to new knowledge.

The aims is to consider the political and ethical challenges involved in conducting ethnographic managerial/organisational behaviour research within the highly regulated health and social care context, in light of the emergence of more stringent “ethical approval” policies and requirements set by Local Research Ethics Committees in the United Kingdom. In the attempt and requirement to protect “vulnerable” employees, this paper aims to present an unintended paradox of consequences when participants voluntarily revealed themselves.

The authors briefly review literature on research ethics and present an understanding of the ethical regulations currently existing within the British National Health Service. Within an ethnographic case study exploring the psychological contract, the authors consider the issues that arose during one stage of data collection: a qualitative questionnaire survey with 13 participants, including members of the lead author's team. Incorporating excerpts from the researcher's reflexive journal, the paper exposes the struggles of being an “insider” researcher and the tensions this raises for data analysis when participants voluntarily revealed themselves.

Ethnography is at “risk” within health and social care and ethnographic “managerial” research is likely to be unduly restricted and potentially threatened. The evidence suggests that some employees either did not wish to be protected or, conversely, felt compelled to reveal their identities, raising questions of their motivation and creating a paradox of unintended consequences.

This paper offers an insight into the challenges of conducting nurse‐managerial ethnography in compliance with ethical guidelines, yet disrupted by participants. The findings will be useful to other nurse‐researchers attempting to conduct insider research.

This paper focuses on the existing and potential role of electronic learning in small and medium‐sized organisations (SMEs). Innovations in information and communication technologies (ICTs) could create new forms of learning, particularly appealing to small organisations, to overcome traditional barriers such as lack of financial resources, time, expertise and facilities. The paper draws upon research, conducted in North Wales, exploring employee perceptions of and employer attitudes towards e‐learning. Small organisations in rural, peripheral regions such as North Wales can benefit from ICTs, not only to support e‐commerce, but also to access new opportunities for learning and development, beyond the often‐restricted local market. However, key findings from this research suggest that there are significant barriers to electronic learning, including the lack of hardware and software, and employer attitudes. A model is presented that identifies dimensions of, and factors influencing, e‐learning from employer and employee perspectives.