Doing Organizational Ethnography

This book presents a new way of understanding organizational ethnography due to its strong emphasis on what the word organizational means in organizational ethnography. 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 methods and difficulties of organizational ethnography, and yet we argue that confusion still remains as to what organizational ethnographical approaches are. This edited volume offers 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. All the chapters illustrate the work of analytically combining different organizational phenomena (e.g. strategy making, policymaking), analytical perspectives (e.g. sensemaking, narratives) and ethnographical methods (e.g. texts, observations, shadowing, interviews) and demonstrate different ways of doing organizational ethnography. At the end of each chapter, an experienced researcher in the field offers comments and discussion on the contributions of the chapter, providing reflections on the implications for research in the field to which they ascribe. In Doing Organizational Ethnography, organizational is defined as polyphonic ways of organizing based on the interactions of the many voices, discourses, practices and narratives in and around organizations and the book provides readers with in-depth reflections on what organizing and organizations become when doing organizational ethnography.

Anne Reff Pedersen is Associate Professor in the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Didde Maria Humle is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Copenhagen Business School and University College UCC, Denmark.

1. Doing Organizational Ethnography Anne Reff Pedersen and Didde Maria Humle Part 1: Studies of Strategy, Conflict, and Branding in Nonprofit and Private Organizations 2. Everyday Conflict at Work: An Organizational Sensemaking Ethnography Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen and discussant Barbara Gray 3. Doing Strategy: A Performative Organizational Ethnography Marie Mathiesen and discussant Chahrazad Abdallah 4. Examining Branding in Organizations by Using Critical Organizational Ethnography Sanne Frandsen and discussant Dan Kärreman Part 2: Knowledge Organizations and Studies of Everyday Work 5. A Web of Work-life Stories: A Narrative Organizational Ethnography Didde Maria Humle and discussant David M. Boje 6. The Logic of Nursing Work: An Organizational Ethnography of Practice Jette Ernst and discussant Davide Nicolini 7. Contexting the Patient: A Meeting Ethnography of Patient Involvement in Quality Development Mette Brehm Johansen and discussant Anne Reff Pedersen Part 3: Public Organization Studies of Management and Collaborative Innovation 8. Meaning Negotiations of Collaborative Governance: A Discourse-Based Ethnography Mie Plotnikov and discussant Danielle Zandee 9. Leadership of Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector: An Engaged-Scholarship Ethnography Jesper Rohr Hansen and discussant Steven Griggs 10. Montage Ethnography: Editing and Co-Analyzing Voices from the Field Morten Arnfred and discussant Mike Rowe