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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contributions that critical realist ethnographies can make to an understanding of the multinational corporation.

This paper draws on a discussion of methodological challenges in researching the multinational corporation and the ways in which critical realist ethnographies can respond to these challenges. The example of research on the transfer of management practices is used to illustrate this.

Taking the example of researching the transfer of management practices within the multinational, the paper argues that the potential of critical realist ethnography including critical realist global ethnography to contribute to the field of International Business and International Management remains relatively untapped.

Adopting the sociological imagination of the critical realist ethnographer has implications for the kinds of questions that are asked by the researcher and the ways in which we seek to address these methodologically. Researching from a critical standpoint fruitful empirical themes for further research relate to the experience of change for example in business systems, internationalization of organizations and “globalization”.

The critical realist ethnographer can contribute insights into the complex social and political processes within the multinational and provide insights into how social structures are both impacting on and impacted by individuals and groups. Ethnographic research located within a critical realist framework has the potential to address questions of how stability and change take place within specific structural, cultural and power relations.

At the methodological level, this paper highlights the potential of critical realist ethnography in researching the multinational, in addressing significant questions facing the critical researcher and in gaining a privileged insight into the lived experience of globalization.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to question the idea of “passing a test” within activist ethnography. Activist ethnography is an ethnographic engagement with social movement organizations as anti-authoritarian, anarchist, feminist and/or anti-racist collectives. It is based on the personal situating of the researcher within the field to avoid a replication of colonialist research dynamics. Addressing these concerns, we explore activist ethnography through feminist standpoint epistemologies and decolonial perspectives.

This paper draws on our two activist ethnographies conducted as PhD research in two distinct European cities with two different starting points. While Léa entered the field through her PhD research, Claire partly withdrew and re-entered as academic.

Even when activist researchers share the political positioning of the social movement they want to study, they still experience tests regarding their research methodology. As activists, they are accountable to their movement and experience – as most other activist – a constant threat of exclusion. In addition, activist networks are fractured along political lines, the test is therefore ongoing.

Our contribution is threefold. First, the understanding of tests within activist ethnography helps decolonizing ethnography. Being both the knower and the known, activist ethnographers reflect on the colonial and heterosexist history of ethnography which offers potentials to use ethnography in non-exploitative ways. Second, we conceive of activist ethnography as a prefigurative methodology, i.e. as an embedded activist practice, that should therefore answer to the same tests as any other practice of prefigurative movements: it should aim to enact here and now the type of society the movement reaches for. Finally, we argue that activist ethnography relies on and contribute to developing consciousness about the researcher’s political subjectivity.

Information systems research methods need to contribute to the scholarly requirements of the field of knowledge but also need to develop the potential to contribute to the practical requirements of practitioners′ knowledge. This leads to possible conflicts in choosing research methods. Argues that the changing world of the IS practitioner is reflected in the changing world of the IS researcher and that qualitative approaches to IS research help to bridge the gap between the two domains of knowledge. Illustrates how this gap may be bridged through discussing the ethnographic research method. Concludes by assessing the contributions and limitations of this method to IS research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for the strength of qualitative work, but more specifically for various kinds of ethnographies.

The authors argue that global neoliberal and audit culture policies have crept into academic research, tertiary education practice, and research culture.

The authors then discuss major tenets of and make the case for the use of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies as caring practices and research method(ologies) that may in fact push back against such hegemonic neoliberal practices in the academy. Finally, the authors link these caring types of ethnographies to the papers within this special issue.

This is an original look at the concepts of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies with relation to caring practices.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the unique artistic approach of film-maker Werner Herzog as an inspiration to rethink ethnographic studies in general and the notion of reflexivity in particular.

This paper reviews the particularities of Werner Herzog’s approach to filmmaking, linking them to the methodological tradition of visual ethnography and especially the debate about the role of reflexivity and performativity in research.

Herzog’s conceptualization of meaning as “ecstatic truth” offers an avenue for visual organizational ethnographers to rethink reflexivity and performativity, reframe research findings and reorganize research activities. The combination of multiple media and the strong authorial involvement exhibited in Herzog’s work, can inspire and guide the development of “meaningful” organizational ethnographies.

The paper argues that practicing visual organizational ethnography “after Herzog” offers researchers an avenue to engage creatively with their research in novel and highly reflexive ways. It offers a different way to think through some of the challenges often associated with ethnographic research.

In this article, I explore how critical realism influenced the methods and methodology as well as the translations of interviews from Japanese into English and the interpretations of teachers’ understanding of the school at the center of this research.

This article investigates the interaction of critical realism within an English-language-based study of a Japanese high school using ethnographic methods and methodology and its influence on translations within the study. Critical realism combines a postpositivist ontological view with an epistemological constructionism. There is a reality to the school, which cannot be completely measured. This reality, the physical dimensions and composition (breadth, height, volume and number of classrooms) of the school, does not change based upon time or viewing location of an observer.

Critical realism provided strategies for and a focus on the translation of participant interviews from Japanese into English within this ethnographic study of a high school in Japan. These helped to provide a better understanding of the teachers' perception of the reality of the school.

This is original research.

The paper aims to look at some of the problems commonly associated with qualitative methodologies, suggesting that there is a need for a more rigorous application in order to develop theory and aid effective decision making.

The paper examines three qualitative methodologies: grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology. It compares and contrasts their approaches to data collection and interpretation and highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses associated with each one.

The paper suggests that, while qualitative methodologies, as opposed to qualitative methods, are now an accepted feature of consumer research, their application in the truest sense is still in its infancy within the broader field of marketing. It proposes a number of possible contexts that may benefit from in‐depth qualitative enquiry.

The paper should be of interest to marketers considering adopting a qualitative perspective, possibly for the first time, as it offers a snap‐shot of three widely‐used methodologies, their associated procedures and potential pitfalls.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the context and the content of the six papers that follow in this special issue on “New Forms of Organizational Ethnography”.

This editorial explains the burgeoning interest in organizational ethnography over the last decade in terms of several favourable conditions that have supported this resurgence. It also offers a general view of the nature and diversity of new forms of organizational ethnography in studies of management and organization.

New forms of organizational ethnography have emerged in response to rapidly changing organizational environments and technological advances as well as the paradigmatic transformation of ethnography and ascendency of discursive and practice-based studies.

The editorial highlights an “ethnographic turn” in management and organization studies that is characterized by a renewal of the discipline through the proliferation of new forms of organizational ethnography. A focus on new organizational phenomena, methodological innovation and novel ways of organizing fieldwork constitute the three main pillars of new forms of organizational ethnography. It encourages researchers to develop forums and platforms designed to exploit these novel forms of organizational ethnography.

This study aims to illustrate how white supremacy culture can be produced within nonprofit organizations with a mandate to serve marginalized communities and provide practical suggestions for preventing oppression.

The site of inquiry was a nonprofit organization in south central Texas that provides social support to queer and trans youth. Through critical ethnography, the researchers evaluated the organization's processes and structure (including hierarchy, decision-making, fundraising and interactions between leaders, partners and affected groups) to explore how the organization perpetuated attributes of white supremacy culture.

Data reveal that the organization alienates the youth, volunteers and employees through defensiveness, fear of open conflict, paternalism, perfectionism and power-hoarding.

A dearth of research focuses on how white supremacy culture manifests in organizations serving marginalized communities. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on a nonprofit organization in central Texas that supports queer and trans youth. The authors offer recommendations for addressing white supremacy culture in organizations and suggest future research opportunities.