Doing Organizational Ethnography ─ A Focus on Polyphonic Ways of Organizing

In the past five years a new organizational studies research field has developed involving organizational ethnographies, which is when organizations are studied using ethnographical methods. This development has shed light on the difficulties of organizational ethnography and yet we argue that confusion remains as to what organizational ethnographical approaches are.

Organizational Ethnography presents a new way of understanding organizational ethnography due to its strong emphasis on the concept of what the word organizational means in organizational ethnography. We define organizational as polyphonic ways of organizing based on the interactions and co-production of the many voices, discourses, practices and narratives in and around organizations, thus providing readers with in-depth reflections on what organizing and organizations become when doing organizational ethnography.

This volume will offer students and scholars a profound understanding of organizational ethnography by presenting concrete examples, reflections and discussions of how to understand and adequately conceptualize the word organizational in organizational ethnography by combining organizational phenomena (e.g. strategy making, policymaking),analytical perspectives (sensemaking, narratives) and ethnographical methods(texts, interactions, shadowing in fieldwork).

Furthermore Organizational Ethnography presents a wide range of organizational ethnographic field studies from both public organizations (e.g. a hospital, a public psychiatric care unit, city planning and day care) and private organizations (e.g. a consultancy firm, a medical company and an NGO). Thus different kinds of organizational contexts are presented, which facilitates a thorough discussion in the concluding chapter of the theoretical, methodological, analytical and contextual challenges associated with different kinds of organizational ethnographies.

Collectively, the chapters provide students and researchers with a systematic, in-depth overview of the advantages and weaknesses of various organizational ethnographies.Organizational Ethnography focus on different organizational and analytical perspectives can provide inspiration for how to study a multiplicity of organizational phenomena (conflicts, strategies and practices). In this wayOrganizational Ethnography offers a contribution comprising a reflexive discussion and an elaboration of the organizational aspect of doing organizational ethnographies for academics, researchers, students and policy makers alike