This second seminar is the natural follow up of the previous seminar which was held in May 2011. It is designed to explore the ins and outs of writing papers in organizational ethnography.

Organizational ethnography is useful in a wide range of settings for research questions that seek to explore the meanings to situational actors of particular practices, concepts or processes, often in order to illuminate a wider-ranging or more theoretical issue of concern. These might include studying what executives or managers actually think about the strategic and other decisions they make and how they go about them; how workers shape their work practices and their relationships to managers; and so on.

Participant-observer ethnography is among the many methods that fall under the umbrella of interpretive research methods, but it can also be used in keeping with realist approaches to research.  This course will seek to accommodate both approaches in focusing on how ethnographic writing presents data in ways that are more (or less) likely to convince readers of the trustworthiness of the researcher and of research insights or findings.  The class will proceed inductively, working from published articles to more general observations about how texts convince.  Students who are already writing up their field research will be expected to workshop their papers during class sessions.

For further information, please read the attachment.

Attachment: 

Organizational Ethnography seminar Fall 2011 - official.pdf