Organisational ethnography: a critical investigation of the role of ethnographic methods in organisation studies

Description

This paper focuses on understanding the role of organisational ethnography in organisation and management studies. Organisational ethnography broadly refers to studies relying on sustained observation of naturally-occurring activities in specific organisational settings, and it includes a wide range of epistemological and theoretical approaches and empirical methods. The paper briefly traces the history and development of ethnographic research in the disciplines of organisation and management studies to critically investigate the specific features, contribution and limits of organisational ethnography. It is argued that ethnography is a highly relevant methodology to gain an original understanding of organisations: in particular, the current fast-moving and ever-changing nature of work might make ethnography even more needed in organisation studies. The arguments are based on recent literature and on the author’s own experience of ethnographic research.

Period	28 Jun 2019
Event title	Annual Conference of the European Academy of Management 2019: Exploring the Future of Management
Event type	Conference
Location	Lisbon, Portugal
Degree of Recognition	International