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1 – 2 of 2The purpose of this paper is to investigate and reflect on mutual relationships between the researcher’s life experiences, encounters and personal learning, and how they can…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate and reflect on mutual relationships between the researcher’s life experiences, encounters and personal learning, and how they can influence the research process of designing and writing research publications as well as their dialectical influences on the emergence and evolution of researcher identities in these processes.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is inspired by auto-ethnography. While the descriptions and analyses of the selected moments from the pre-research period are based on retrospective reflection and memory, the descriptions and analyses of the moments from the research period are in addition to the memories, based on notes and diary entries about my encounters with various people, documents, events and literature.
Findings
The paper shows that researchers’ attempts to understand the Other through studies of certain phenomena are a production between them and their past, their experiences and people encountered, as well as between them and the research literature they use. In these encounters and processes, the researcher’s multiple identities emerge and evolve with significance for how the research is socially produced.
Originality/value
The paper takes a broader perspective than usually seen in studies of researcher identities and is based on a researcher’s life history rather than only on a specific field-situation. As such, it has a longitudinal character, and it implies a broader, multilevel area of reflection, emphasizing dialectical relationships between the researcher, the context(s) and people involved in these, as well as the subject(s) of research, which are characterized by mutuality and continuality.
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Keywords
David Knights and Vedran Omanović
The purpose of this paper is to challenge the dominance of the mainstream discourse and practice of diversity management (DM) by identifying and problematizing three distinct but…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to challenge the dominance of the mainstream discourse and practice of diversity management (DM) by identifying and problematizing three distinct but related issues that it encompasses: first, its tendency to displace all alternative approaches; second, its general neglect of the social-historical context and third, its almost exclusive focus on the business case rationale for supporting diversity.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing ethnographic research methods, the empirical material was collected in an international manufacturing corporation based in Sweden. It consists of three different, but interconnected approaches: archival research, interviews and observations.
Findings
The paper shows that in neglecting power, identity, intersectionality and the changing socio-historical context of diversity, a well-meaning corporate diversity programme tended to obscure ethnic and age-related disadvantages at work.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this research relate largely to its dependence on a single case study and the limited focus on diversity as it affected able-bodied, white male immigrant workers. A broader study of the multiplicity of types of discrimination and ways in which diversity is managed in a range of countries and organizations could facilitate a more in-depth exploration of these issues and arguments.
Originality/value
Although not entirely new, the three arguments that have been drawn upon to discuss, analyse and illustrate DM through our data have rarely been brought together in one theoretical and empirical study.
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