Organizational ethnography

In software development, “code decay” refers to the increasing difficulty and intricacy of code modification. Software developers and programmers often report that code that has been modified over a longer period of time becomes “buggy” and finally “decays,” so that each new change re- quires ever more work, a disproportionate amount of time, and the error margin becomes higher. This can finally lead to a stage when the program can no longer be modified. The phenomenon of code decay exemplifies a destructive, organizational, socio-technical dynamic: The decay of code can be seen as a process of performative transformation. This article delineates and analyses the evolution of code decay through ethnographic workplace observations. The destructive processes which emerge are then discussed in relation to destructivity in socio-technical systems and given further contour in comparison with another empirical case study – an oil tanker spill on the Missis- sippi River. Both empirical case studies of destructivity are finally situated within debates on per- formativity and practice taking place in social and cultural studies.

Research on punk culture often falls prey to two main dilemmas. First, using a Marxist economic lens, the underlying implication is fieldwork reveals already known conceptions of class and culture. Second, an ageist bias exists in most popular music research, resulting in the continued equating of music and youth. Given punk is forty years old, researchers are calling for a reexamination of this combination. This ethnography examines punk culture in an inner city non-profit arts establishment. It probes how rituals and cultural narratives pervade and maintain the scene. Concepts such as carnival, jamming as an organizing process in the pit – and as an aesthetic moment – emerged through the research process. Finally, this ethnography engages questions about personal and communal narrative identity, and what it means to be an older fan in the punk rock scene.

In the past two decades, a growing number of researchers have used qualitative methods to study various aspects of organizational communication. Researchers have turned to qualitative methods for a variety of reasons, including the recognition of the limitations of positivist epistemology and quantitative methods, as well as the acceptance of multiple approaches to the study of organizations. The increased use of qualitative methods in organizational communication also has reflected (or, more often, has followed) the trend set by scholars in anthropology, sociology,  management, and other disciplines. We welcome—indeed, we celebrate—the widespread use of qualitative methods by contemporary organizational communication scholars. In this chapter, we consider some of the issues and challenges that continue to confront researchers using these methods. Specifically, we begin the chapter with a discussion of some trends in the evolution of qualitative research in organizational communication. We then focus the majority of the chapter on key methodological issues and challenges confronting qualitative researchers. We conclude with a discussion of future trends in qualitative research.

The article presents an ethnographic account of a debate about lists in UNESCO's Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts that drafted the Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The convention's Representative List is a compromise solution reached after intensive disputes and diplomatic confrontations between those who wanted a merit-based List of Treasures or List of Masterpieces similar to the World Heritage List, those who wanted an inclusive universal inventory of traditional practices, and those who wanted no list at all.

The article analyzes the arguments made for the various positions in this debate on listing—from incentive and promotion value (pros) to divisiveness and hierarchization (cons)—and argues that these go to the heart of heritage practices, which are always and inevitably selective. The system of heritage, in other words, is structured on exclusion. It gives value to certain things rather than others with reference to an assortment of criteria that can only be indeterminate and subject to debate—whether the objects designated for safeguarding are selected based on their excellence, outstanding value, authenticity, or, indeed, representativity. In this respect, heritage and lists are not unlike one another: both depend on selection, both decontextualize their objects from their immediate surroundings and recontextualize them with reference to other things designated or listed. It is hardly surprising, then, that listing seems constantly to accompany heritage-making. In the practical context of finite resources and infinite needs, this exclusionary structure—the selectivity that allots to certain objects and not to others the attention, expertise, and capital necessary to delay their disintegration—means that heritage needs to be understood first and foremost as a term of policy.

I examined what brand new Ph.D.s in Communication experience when they start their first, entry-level, tenure-track assistant professor position at a new university. Through the lens of scocial construction, I review vocational and organizational socialization, individual agency by newcomers, academic socialization processes, and the concept of the academic career in the current climate of university change and transformation. Then, I present the method of research, including the population and sampling method, and rationales for utilizing a narrative approach, interactive interviewing, and autoethnographic writing. After presenting the participants’ narratives, I revisit both within— and between-case issues, beginning with socialization from the “bottom-up” lived experiences of the new faculty.

The universities socialized these new professors through individual socialization processes. To lessen their uncertainty in their new place of work, the faculty members utilized seven individualized tactics to lessen ambiguity. Collectively, the new assistant professors saw the organizationally provided orientations and mentoring processes as inadequate. The loss of graduate school cohort necessitates the development of a new cohort with peers for new faculty development, despite the modern isolationist definition of the academic “subject.” The new communication faculty generally found teaching to be an activity of stabilization within the new equivocal university environment, despite the supposed unpreparedness of new faculty.

I discuss the interrelated use of strategically ambiguous communication, power, and the disciplining of the self and how they relate to the tenure process. I examine how the discourses of academic capitalism impact the daily lives and decision-making of new faculty, including compromised research agendas and publication production. I interrogate the pursuit of prestige by higher educational institutions and the manner in which this pursuit adds additional pressure and stressors on new professors. Finally, I consider how the short-term narrative of “getting tenure” truncates the canonical narrative of the academic career, and legitimizes the outsider-within category of the new faculty members.

In Making Intangible Heritage, Valdimar Tr. Hafstein—folklorist and official delegate to UNESCO—tells the story of UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Convention. In the ethnographic tradition, Hafstein peers underneath the official account, revealing the context important for understanding UNESCO as an organization, the concept of intangible heritage, and the global impact of both. Looking beyond official narratives of compromise and solidarity, this book invites readers to witness the diplomatic jostling behind the curtains, the making and breaking of alliances, and the confrontation and resistance, all of which marked the path towards agreement and shaped the convention and the concept.

Various stories circulate within UNESCO about the origins of intangible heritage. Bringing the sensibilities of a folklorist to these narratives, Hafstein explores how they help imagine coherence, conjure up contrast, and provide charters for action in the United Nations and on the ground. Examining the international organization of UNESCO through an ethnographic lens, Hafstein demonstrates how concepts that are central to the discipline of folklore gain force and traction outside of the academic field and go to work in the world, ultimately shaping people’s understanding of their own practices and the practices themselves. From the cultural space of the Jemaa el-Fna marketplace in Marrakech to the Ise Shrine in Japan, Making Intangible Heritage considers both the positive and the troubling outcomes of safeguarding intangible heritage, the lists it brings into being, the festivals it animates, the communities it summons into existence, and the way it orchestrates difference in modern societies.

Purpose – This article aims to present current and potential uses of innovative social research methodologies which harness emergent technologies. This article also seeks to note ethical issues surrounding emergent technologies.

Design/methodology/approach – Specifically, the use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook as well as their applications will be explored. The use of iPhones as data gathering devices will also be explored as an example of the utility of ubiquitous technologies to ethnographic work.

Findings – This paper finds that emergent technologically-mediated ethnographic methods are of potential value to organizational ethnographers and that methodological barriers can be overcome to best leverage new media technologies in organizational ethnography.

Research limitations/implications – This article has not been designed as a comprehensive overview of these social research methods nor as a primer to implement them. Rather, the main purpose of it is to begin to explore their potential applications to organizational research and to raise awareness amongst organizational researchers.

Originality/value – This article is original in its review of emergent digital research methods for qualitative organizational research. It reviews newer technologies and presents cases from the literature to highlight the varied methodological approaches implemented by organizational and other researchers in the field.

This article identifies three methodological approaches for ethnography of environmental governance: place-based ethnography, institutional ethnography, and organizational ethnography. These approaches are ideal types distinguished by how they define the ‘field’ where the ethnographer works. Place-based ethnography is well-established methodologically, but institutional and organizational ethnography are frequently conflated, and methodological guidance for ethnography of environmental organizations is scant. Organizational ethnography makes vital contributions to environmental governance scholarship, however, by revealing internal logics and everyday rationalities of powerful environmental actors and processes. The article therefore expands on the methodological foundations for organizational ethnography of environmental governance, using ethnographic research on the tropical forest conservation programs of an international environmental organization to illustrate research practicalities and substantive contributions of an organizational approach.

Rock bands are foundational for modern day music life. These small groups provide well-being and self-fulfillment to its members, as well as fuel for the cultural life and the increasingly highlighted creative industries. Rock bands, however, are particularly difficult to organize. Bands face a range of challenges in keeping together and developing as a group.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to develop knowledge on rock band formation and development over time. Based in the discipline of education, the thesis mainly contributes to the fields of organization studies, social theories of learning, and music and cultural life research.
The thesis uses the theory of situated learning to explore rock band formation and development. The methodology is qualitative and ethnographic, and the research design builds on three studies: an interview study with three rock bands and two case studies. All five bands are Swedish and have found different degrees of success and popularity.
The thesis investigates band activities and courses of events, band members’ identities, and challenges faced. The findings indicate that a rock band’s activities shift between a production mode – i.e. highly productive times associated with public performances, record releases and marketing, and behind the scenes processes of creating, recording and planning – and a contrasting less active hibernation mode without bigger public projects or goals. The amount of time spent in production mode depends on the band’s degree of “membership” in the music industry. Moreover, a band member forms and actualizes identities of colleague, creator, entrepreneur, friend, hobbyist and professional, in differing combinations, situations and modes. Furthermore, the members’ most significant challenges relate to identity dilemmas.
Based on these findings, the thesis formulates a model for a rock band’s learning trajectory and argues that a band may develop as it approaches, or becomes a more central member in, the music industry. This development demands increased public success and organizational ability: the band members’ ability to form business-oriented practices, to participate uniformly in an overarching community of practice, and to be flexible as they must identify with, and ascribe meaning to, a variety of activities in different and sometimes contradictory ways.
The thesis concludes that the challenges of persistence as a rock band or similar group relates chiefly to group member difficulties in identifying with different activities and situations that are necessary to sustain and develop as a collective. Eventually, individual members tend to handle the experience of uncertainty and ambivalence by holding on to one singular identity, which may prevent group development, foster intra- and interpersonal tensions, and ultimately can lead to significant conflicts and/or a band’s breakup.

A partir del enfoque interpretativo de la etnografía organizacional que supone esta investigación, exploramos la forma en que las redes formales e informales se articulan en la dinámica socio-cultural de las organizaciones; tomando como caso de estudio una
línea de transporte público de Caracas: la Unión de Conductores del Oeste (UCO). Desde los conceptos directrices de reciprocidad generalizada de Marshall Sahlins, o la solidaridad mecánica de Émile Durkheim, nos proponemos comprender las interacciones entre los miembros de la organización; y tentativamente, el tejido de relaciones sociales general a todo el sistema de transporte. De esta forma contextualizamos la sobrevivencia de las organizaciones en las circunstancias decadentes en las que se encuentra el sistema; y finalmente consideramos el emprendimiento de otras investigaciones que puedan dar cuenta de la correspondencia (o no) de las representaciones sociales y la vivencia, en este y otros contextos.

The paper discusses kitsch as the discourse of depriving experience of beauty and surprise. It argues that people often construct kitsch when they organize. Three different Kitsch-Organizations are depicted: the Polish communist youth organization from the 1950-ties, a foreign enterprise operating currently in Poland, and a school of organizational behavior. Kitsch, not being equivalent to "low" or "popular" culture is a degrading construct. Adopted as a second level metaphor to the studies of organizations, it can be of use for critical social constructivist analysis.

Situés au carrefour des industries de la médiatisation, les spécialistes du « conseil en communication » occupent une place d’intermédiaire stratégique et disputée. Ils évoluent au sein d’un espace professionnel aux contours instables, dans lequel des acteurs divers – et parfois éloignés du marketing et des relations publiques – interviennent pour faire valoir une définition singulière de ce que peut et de ce que doit faire le communicant. Réalisée sous convention CIFRE au sein d’une agence internationale de relations publiques qui fournit le terrain d’une enquête ethnographique, cette recherche documente le travail quotidien des consultants et met à l’épreuve d’une épistémologie pratique le modèle heuristique des prétentions communicationnelles. Les trois premiers chapitres discutent les enjeux d’une approche ethnosémiotique dans le champ de la communication organisationnelle. La thèse saisit l’expertise communicationnelle comme un lieu d’actualisation et de mise en circulation de conceptions de la communication (« influence », « engagement », « viralité »…) et l’entreprise comme un espace où s’élabore et se discute une théorie de la communication, traduite en un discours organisationnel (chapitre 4), investie dans des pratiques (chapitre 5), incarnée dans les équipements qui l’encadrent (chapitre 6) et l’instrumentent (chapitre 7). En considérant la variété des médiations qui interviennent dans la genèse des prétentions, la thèse rend compte des interactions entre les modèles explicites discutés à l’échelle de la profession, les modèles théoriques élaborés par la recherche, les modèles implicites qui informent la démarche expertale et ceux qui sont encapsulés dans ses instruments.

Since at least the time of Malinowski, anthropologists have argued for the indispensability of ethnography by pointing to the vital social and cultural insights derived from ‘being there’ to observe and participate in the lives of one’s research subjects. In their recent edited volume, Organisational Anthropology, Christina Garsten and Anette Nyqvist have skillfully curated a thought-provoking collection of chapters which leave no doubt that similarly powerful, if wholly novel, perspectives are to be gleaned from ‘being inside’. Anthropologists are of course no strangers to organisations – with an impressive tradition extending back to at least the famous Hawthorne factory studies of the 1920s and 1930s – but the organised world has arguably never been so diverse and dynamic as it is today. Exploring forms as different as the multinational corporation and the secret society, the pieces gathered in Organisational Anthropology repeatedly reveal the unique analytic opportunities opened up by moving beyond staid formal models, typologies and
organograms to observe and participate in everyday life as it unfolds in meetings, behind the store counter, in the office and elsewhere.

'The empire in a certain sense still existed, although it now clung on only in a twilit afterlife that carried an eerie echo of its original character. '-Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World. The silence of Empire in organization The epigraph above may seem an odd beginning to a project centred on a bank technology centre in the North of England; a sprawling site housing the latest innovations in banking technology and brand images, where the entrepreneurial spirit of technology start-ups that have become the behemoth corporations of the noughties (Google, Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, et al.) can be seen transforming the speed and content of financial products and services in the UK. The oddity-or out of place-ness to paraphrase Said (1999)-may in fact come from the complete exclusion of explicit discussion of Empire, colonialism and the legacies of imperial European rule over formerly colonised peoples and places, in almost the entirety of mainstream organisation, business and management studies, particularly in regard to empirical studies of financial services and institutions. In the most highly rated academic journals for such debates-Journal of the Academy of Management, Organisation Science, Journal of Management to name but a few-there is a resounding silence on the legacies of Empire and colonial regimes for organisation past and present. Instead what scholars and global practitioners who read these journals find are polite, functionalist side-steps of race, inequality and colonial legacy in organisations. For instance, normative models of leadership to explain bias against black leaders in organisations (Carton and Rosette, 2012), and narratives from a human resource management perspective of increasing corporate 'diversity' in order to help boost efficiencies and productivity of firm performance (Peng and Luo, 2000; Richard, 2000; Jayne and Dipboye, 2004; Andrevski et al.,

This thesis makes the case for postcolony in contemporary organization. To put it differently, this work seeks to tell the stories of legacies of Empire, colonial rule and the othering of experiences that did not conform to static images of the technology entrepreneur (white, masculinised, flexible) – at one organization. This research is based on an ethnographic study from 2014-2016 of a global Bank Technology Centre in the North of England (the ‘BTC’). This thesis works with Achille Mbembe’s concept of postcolony (2001), in order to help explain the ethnographic encounters at this fieldsite, including the drive towards ‘appification’ and de-materialisation of work at the BTC, and the metaphors of war and practices of violence that were normalised at this organization, in particular in relations between British staff working at the BTC and their counterparts in developing countries - or ‘global hubs’ - such as India and Lithuania. This bank’s colonial history (as the ‘Colonial Bank’) is also examined in terms of the impacts on its modes of organising (Lury, 2004, 2013) today. A temporal phenomenology of postcolony is argued to exist at the BTC, as colonising modes of organizing time and material experience continue to dominate the working lives of staff at this site in post-colonial times. This thesis seeks to explore these themes via an attention to brands at the BTC (chapter 2), the work methodology of Agile at the BTC (chapter 3), and by exploring how language, spaces and the future of the organization were structured by practices of war and violence, salient features of the postcolony according to Mbembe (1992, 2001, 2017). This is a research project that endeavours to do ethnography ‘against the grain’, in the spirit of Harrison (1993), Stoler (2010) and Prasad (2015), with a concern for doing ethnographic research with an awareness of the historical dominance of Western-centric epistemologies and neo-colonial methods, which can still cause harm in organisations, including the academie, today (Todd, 2009, 2017).  It was Walter Benjamin who first coined this term “against the grain”, referring to the Marxist historical materialist belief that the horrors of the past do not possess the last word (to paraphrase Horkheimer), that there is a Messianic Redemption to the future that breaks history. For Benjamin, breaking with a homogenous past of suffering and believing in the future ‘permits one to utter a confident No to the existent order’ (1983, p.635). It is in such a spirit (if not with quite such commitment to historical materialism) that this work seeks to engage with postcolonial questions of organization, by specifically addressing the complete side-stepping of Achille Mbembe’s work in almost the entirety of business, management and organization scholarship. This thesis aims to begin a dialogue with a post-colonial organization studies community on Mbembe’s significance as a 21st century thinker with transformational ideas for organizations today.

The term “ethnography” designates a particular methodological tradition in social and cultural research. Historically, it is associated with documentary and analytic practices developed by agents of the European powers between the 18th and 20th centuries, which supported their projects of imperial expansion and colonial administration. Methodologically speaking, ethnography is categorized as “qualitative,” in that it seeks to record, interpret, and explain human communication in the unique contexts of participants' local activities and their subjective meanings. Because organizations constitute both a principal agency and object of (post‐)modernity, they have proven to be rich and enduring contexts for ethnographic research. Nonetheless, the formal use of ethnographic methods to explain human organization has waxed and waned in popularity over the past hundred years. Organizational ethnography in the 21st century faces turbulence that will stimulate redefinition of the enterprise

In this paper, an observation of how silence, as well as some sound, is performed and utilized in a work setting of computer programmers provides us with an opportunity to reflect more generally upon the issues of silence and communication, as well as upon some aspects of spirituality and socially constructed spaces. Our study is also an attempt to highlight benefits that the shadowing method provides for researching concepts that resist easy verbalization.

Educational scholars often use survey-based and statistical analysis to investigate how individuals are socialized into academe. This discursive and narrative project focused on intricate, detailed and lived aspects of academic socialization. Using narrative interviewing, this project reveals new faculty negotiating strategically ambiguous situations, self-disciplining to become “good” academics, and the consequences of the pursuit of prestige by universities on new faculty agendas.

El archivo es una reseña de mi libro realizada por la Dra. Olga Larre y publicada en Revista Cultura Economica, Año XXXIV,  n° 92, Diciembre 2016, UCA.

Abstract del libro:
Este libro está dirigido a investigadores interesados en la influencia que ejerce la cultura de una empresa sobre el comportamiento ético de sus integrantes y en la conformación de la empresa como un agente moral. El fenómeno de la mentalidad compartida en una organización es estudiado bajo diversas disciplinas, partiendo de una larga experiencia de “entrenamiento ético” llevada a cabo por la autora en empresas multinacionales. Esta investigación presenta a la comunidad académica un método de intervención organizacional orientado a desarrollar una conciencia ética compartida. El método heurístico propuesto busca revelar a los propios integrantes de la organización la trama de significados que ordena sus interacciones. Mediante dibujos y metáforas colectivas explora la construcción de sentido que los grupos sostienen de forma compartida a un nivel pre-racional y que influye en el carácter ético de sus decisiones personales. Este estudio aborda a la empresa como un ente causado por la convergencia de valores y reglas en el que sus integrantes pueden realizar cambios personales y aprendizajes colectivos.

L’objectif de cet article est de fournir des pistes méthodologiques à l’approche naturaliste de la décision (Naturalistic Decision Making - NDM) lui permettant de se situer au plus près des individus-experts afin de saisir la fabrication instantanée de la décision comme un processus multisitué. Pour ce faire, nous discutons les apports de l’ethnographie organisationnelle (EO) en tant que démarche in vivo et in situ qui rend mouvants le temps et l’espace d’observation afin de traquer la décision en situation et de prendre en compte les actions antérieurement expérimentées et ultérieurement construites par les individus dans leurs environnements naturalistes. Cet article propose ainsi d’étudier la décision, à la fois comme un acte local et comme un processus multisitué.

Current financialization marks a broad cultural shift in the economy. It also marks a cultural shift within organizations. Primarily, it seems to challenge the status of profit as an ultimate measure that no logic transcends, sanctifying in its place the concept of 'shareholder value'. This article discusses this transformation and argues that it has two major implications for organizational ethnographers. First, it holds the potential for overcoming the traditional suspicion towards ethnography in the fields of business and management, and the accompanying wariness towards the type of social reflexivity that ethnography entails. Second, it raises new questions to be asked of the ethnographic method and how new cultural issues might be examined.

Liminality is the state betwixt and between more stable states and realities. In anthropology authors such as Arnold von Gennep (1909/1960), Erving Goffman (1959), and Victor Turner (1974) have described liminality as a transitory stage in rituals, especially in rites of passage (Turner, 1969). It is conceived of as a state of blurred boundaries, a mode where the usual constraints of normality, common sense, and cultural definitions do not apply, where norms are relaxed and there is a particular openness to experimentation and the creation of a sense of community. During the liminal phase there develops a special bond between those who go through it together, known as communitas – based on humanity and disregarding of structures and hierarchies of the outside culture.

PurposeDrawing on an ethnographic research study, developed in three different food assistance initiatives (FAIs) operating in Portugal, this article seeks to explore the elements that characterize them and the main organizational challenges they face.Design/methodology/approachParticipant observation was carried out in a surplus food redistribution charity, a soup kitchen and a social supermarket, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with supervisors of these FAIs. The study followed an inductive coding strategy, and a thematic analysis was developed.FindingsThe main results point to an appreciation of the initiatives and the role they play, but they also highlight the existence of several challenges, mainly related to: 1) difficulties in accessing sources of funding, 2) the absence of an intervening state and 3) a scarcity of resources that allow a thorough assessment of their activities and services provided, which weakens the public image of these responses.Originality/...

Purpose – This paper explores the consequences of researching temporary protest organizations through embodied ethnography, paying attention to how, when and why a researcher takes sides. Methodology The authors employed embodied walking ethnography to study Lyra’s Walk, a three-day, 68-mile protest walk held in May 2019 to advocate for peace in Northern Ireland. Data was primarily ethnographic, complemented by an analysis of social media, photos, video, and media coverage. Findings – First we argue that embodied walking ethnography can provide an inhabited understanding of organizing. The social, physical and emotional experiences of walking encourage researchers to identify more closely with participants and obtain a greater understanding of the phenomena studied. Second, we identify that methodological choice can have a greater impact on side-taking than either the conflict setting or organization researched. Research implications This paper demonstrates the promise and consequen...

Sustainability professionals believe their work has positive social and environmental impacts in the "real world, " but they recognize that their impactful-ness is contingent on a number of other factors, especially the willingness of other, typically more powerful actors to consider their fi ndings and implement their recommendations. In this article, I develop the notion of "impact pathways" to think about the relationship between paths, maps, travelers, terrains, and ethics in the context of what my informants regularly refer to as the sustainability "landscape. " I show how the interpretation of a map and the choice between diff erent possible paths can be partially explained by an actor's particular ethical framework, in this case something I identify as the sustainability ethic.

Purpose – 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”. Design/methodology/approach – 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. Findings – 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. Originality/value – 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 o...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the unique artistic approach of filmmaker Werner Herzog as an inspiration to rethink ethnographic studies in general and the notion of reflexivity in particular. Approach – This paper reviews the particularities of Werner Herzog's approach to film making, linking them to the methodological tradition of visual ethnography and especially the debate about the role of reflexivity and performativity in research. Findings – 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. Originality/value – The paper argues that practicing visual organizational ethnography '...

Wraz z popularyzacją metod wizualnych w naukach społecznych, zwłaszcza w antropologii i socjologii jakościowej, wielu naukowców zaczęło używać aparatów fotograficznych jako narzędzi badawczych. W odróżnieniu jednak od języka pisanego i mówionego, wykorzystywanie obrazów w komunikacji naukowej okazuje się znacznie bardziej problematyczne. O ile bowiem jest oczywiste, że prezentowany lub publikowany tekst powinien być wolny od błędów gramatycznych i stylistycznych, to często można zaobserwować niskiej jakości dokumentację fotograficzną towarzyszącą np. pracom etnograficznym. W dużej mierze jest to spowodowane powszechnym przekonaniem, że zdjęcia mogą wykonywać wszyscy, przy jednoczesnym zaniedbywaniu kompetencji wizualnych. Ponadto, fenomenologiczne i interpretatywne podstawy metod jakościowych pozwalają na głęboką subiektywność przekazu. Taki stan rzeczy prowa dzi do sytuacji, w której błędy techniczne popełniane przez etnografa wizualnego są albo ignorowane, albo przypisywane jego unikalnemu stylowi. W opinii autora takie podejście może prowadzić do wielu problemów metodologicznych. Doświadczenia płynące z pracy fotografów i fotoreporterów jasno wskazują, jak wiele czynników może wpływać na odbiór przekazu wizualnego. Jednym z podstawowych pytań jest kwestia, na ile techniki używane jako środek wyrazu artystycznego mogą być przeniesione to praktyki naukowej. Nawet jeżeli przyjmiemy, że metody jakościowe są subiektywne i nie mogą być oceniane z punktu widzenia restrykcyjnego podejścia do norm, reprezentatywności, czy tradycyjnie rozumianej rzetelności, to nadal muszą one spełniać kryteria wiarygodności, jakości i rygoru naukowego. Dlatego też, badacze wizualni powinni przykładać szczególną wagę do jakości i przejrzystości materiału ilustracyjnego. Nie tylko dlatego, że źle oświetlone, czy skomponowane zdjęcie może spowodować problemy w jego odbiorze. Poważniejszym problemem jest bezrefleksyjne wykorzystanie sprzętu fotograficznego lub wybór nietypowej kompozycji, który może prowadzić do zaburzonego odbior u prezentowanych treści. Przykładowo, jeżeli badacz chce zilustrować relacje przestrzenne w danej lokalizacji, to musi być świadomy wpływu dystorsji spowodowanych użyciem obiektywu szerokokątnego lub przyjętej perspektywy. Podobnie kompozycja, użycie koloru, bądź zdjęć czarno-białych, światła zastanego lub sztucznego może istotnie wpłynąć na odbiór osób, miejsc i sytuacji pokazanych na zdjęciu. Problemy w badaniach wizualnych nie ograniczają się zresztą do umiejętności warsztatowych i dotyczą też takich kwestii, jak: jakość późniejszej publikacji i ograniczenia w technologiach druku stosowanych przez czasopisma naukowe (które w oczywisty sposób odbiegają od standardów wystawienniczych), problemy związane z prawem autorskim, ochrona wizerunku osób fotografowanych, czy zachowanie tajemnicy handlowej dokumentowanych organizacji (zamazywanie twarzy lub spornych fragmentów rzeczywistości organizacyjnej też może przysporzyć problemów w odbiorze). W dużej mierze problemy związane z indywidualnym wpływem badacza na materiał wizualny oraz z jego podejściem do materiału badawczego i unikalnym stylem są podobne do tych spotykanych w tekstach naukowych, które wywodzą się z podejścia jakościowego. Tak jak etnografowie różnią się w swoim podejściu do rzeczywistości (realistycznym, narracyjnym lub refleksyjnym), tak badacze wizualni mają prawo do określonego punktu widzenia. Świadomość warsztatu fotograficznego bynajmniej nie ogranicza badacza do podejścia realistycznego. Badacz wizualny może wybrać podejście narracyjne (używając chociażby opowieści lub wywiadów opartych na fotografiach), a nawet podejście refleksyjne (auto-etnograficzne). Wybór ten musi być jednak świadomy. O ile jednak taka świadomość wydaje się powszechna w pracach pisanych (co odzwierciedla dobór słów, styl pisania i forma narracji), to w przypadku prac wizualnych, przyjęty styl dokumentacji często wydaje się n iespójny lub wręcz przypadkowy. Powoduje to, że kompetencje wizualne, czy swoisty alfabetyzm wizualny, może mieć szczególne znaczenia dla rozwoju takich podejść, jak wizualna teoria ugruntowana, czy estetyka organizacji.