|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Field Methods, Vol. 18, No. 4,
359-381 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1525822X06292976
Persuasive Encounters: Ethnography in the Corporation
Brigitte Jordan
Brinda Dalal
Palo Alto Research Center
In corporate settings, ethnographic methods are challenged routinely by managers who confront ethnographers with a set of typical objections that question the validity and effectiveness of ethnographic methods, findings, and recommendations. This article offers a series of steps toward overcoming this impasse by laying out a set of arguments for legitimizing ethnographic work. We discuss ways of responding to a variety of problematic encounters, involving some relatively quick answers to challenges of that sort but also acknowledging that the different worldviews of managers and ethnographers can be reconciled only in a long-term educational effort. In the last analysis, embedding ethnography in corporations is an exercise in culture change that almost always relies on rephrasing questions and reformulating metaphors to resituate our practice.
Key Words: workscapes • ethnographic methods • work-practice analysis • corporate anthropology
References
- Aronson, M., L. Bishop, M. Cefkin, B. Jordan, N. Lawrence, L. Sullivan, C. Preston, and J. Oesterle. 1995. Reflections on a journey of transformation: Learning, growth, and change at Xerox Business Services. IRL/XBS Systemic Assessment Project, Final Report. Palo Alto, CA: Institute for Research on Learning.
- Bernard, H. R., P. Killworth, D. Kronenfeld, and L. Sailer. 1984. The problem of informant accuracy: The validity of retrospective data. Annual Review of Anthropology 13:495–517.[CrossRef]
- Bishop, L., M. Cefkin, W. Clancey, B. Jordan, J. Oesterle, and B. Tudor. 1994. A learning organization in the making: A report on the workpractice and design project at the Xerox CAC in Dallas. Project report. Palo Alto, CA: Institute for Research on Learning.
- Button, G., and P. Dourish. 1996. Technomethodology: Paradoxes and possibilities. Proceedings of CHI 1996:19–26.
- Cefkin, M., and B. Jordan. 1994. Video-based interaction analysis in the workplace: A tool for workers' appropriation of their own practice. Proceedings of PDC'94, the Participatory Design Conference. Chapel Hill, NC: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR).
- Forsythe, D. 2001. Studying those who study us: An anthropologist in the world of artificial intelligence. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Gilmore, D. 2002. Understanding and overcoming resistance to ethnographic design research. Interactions IX (3): 29–35.
- Heath, C., and P. Luff. 1991. Collaborative activity and technological design: Task coordination in London underground control rooms. Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Amsterdam: Kluwer.
- Jordan, B. 1996a. Ethnographic workplace studies and computer supported cooperative work. In The design of computer-supported cooperative work and groupware systems, edited by D. Shapiro, M. Tauber, and R. Traunmüller, 17–42. Amsterdam: North Holland/Elsevier Science.Accessed July 10, 2006, at www.lifescapes.org/Papers/ethnographic_workplace_studies.htm.
- Jordan, B. 1996b. From training to learning in the new economy. Symposium on Education and Employability, organized by RHODIA (Rhone Poulenc) and the Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil. Itu, Brazil, August 7–9. Accessed July 10, 2006, at www.lifescapes.org/Papers/0212_from_training_to_learning.htm.
- Kiley, D. 2005. Shoot the focus group. Business Week, November 14, pp. 120–121.
- Maxwell, J. A. 2004. Using qualitative methods for causal explanation. Field Methods 16 (3): 243–264.[Abstract]
- McCracken, G. 2005. http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/, accessed May 4 and 5, 2006.
- Rogers, Y., and V. Bellotti. 1997. Grounding blue-sky research: How can ethnography help? Interactions 4 (3): 58–63.[CrossRef]
- Ruhleder, K., and B. Jordan. 1998. Video-Based Interaction Analysis (VBIA) in distributed settings: A tool for analyzing multiple-site, technology-supported interactions. Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference, edited by R. Chatfield, S. Kuhn, M. Muller, 195–196. Seattle, Washington, November 12–14.
- Ruhleder, K., and B. Jordan. 2001. Co-constructing non-mutual realities: Delay-generated trouble in distributed interaction. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work 10 (1): 113–138. Accessed July 10, 2006, at www.lifescapes.org/Papers/delay_for_jcscw_2001.htm.[CrossRef]
- Salomon, G. 1991. Transcending the qualitative-quantitative debate: The analytic and systemic approaches to educational research. Educational Researcher 20 (6): 10–18.
- Senge, Peter. 1990. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.
- Star, S. L., and A. Strauss. 1999. Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work. Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work 8 (9): 9–30.
- Suchman, L. 1995. Making work visible. Communications of the ACM 38 (9): 56–64.[CrossRef]
- Whalen, M., J. Whalen, R. Moore, G. Raymond, M. Szymanski, and E. Vinkhuyzen. 2004. Studying workscapes. In Discourse and technology: Multimodal discourse analysis, edited by P. LeVine and R. Scollon, 208–229. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
- Whyte, W. F. 1993. Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum. 4th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati What's this?
|
