Autoethnography in the modern workplace: a reflexive journey
Marko Orel
Abstract:PurposeThis conceptual paper seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies that are pivotal for understanding the dynamics of contemporary workspaces. The objective is to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on the value of autoethnography in workplace research and explore how it can shed light on complex organizational phenomena.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a narrative literature review approach, focusing on four main forms of autoethnography: real… Show more
“…The conceptual article of Orel (2024), “Autoethnography in the modern workplace: a reflexive journey,” seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies – particularly realist, impressionistic, expressionistic and conceptualistic autoethnography – that are pivotal for understanding contemporary workspaces. While autoethnography has been around for decades, the paper shows how this method has evolved and differentiated into various approaches – simultaneously reflecting the diversifying societal and workplace relations – each with its merits and limits and of particular worth in certain contexts.…”
Section: Overview Of the Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Beyond providing a critical theoretical review of these autoethnographic approaches, the author also provides a typological framework to show how these approaches can be applied by ethnographers to the workplace, implicating methodological and pragmatic value. Overall, Orel (2024) evidences how autoethnography can be applied to shed light on complex organizational phenomena and to gain nuanced understandings of personal experiences situated in workplace culture, depending on the approach.…”
Section: Overview Of the Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…While practiced for over 40 years (Hayano, 1979), the mounting prominence of autoethnography – accelerated by the COVID-19 lockdowns – is a recent phenomenon. Autoethnography is taken seriously and widely applied, and it has been diversifying into subgenres (as Orel, 2024). Declaring positionality vis-à-vis the field of research has always been part and parcel of the ethnographic endeavor, manifested in writing by way of reflexivity.…”
“…The conceptual article of Orel (2024), “Autoethnography in the modern workplace: a reflexive journey,” seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies – particularly realist, impressionistic, expressionistic and conceptualistic autoethnography – that are pivotal for understanding contemporary workspaces. While autoethnography has been around for decades, the paper shows how this method has evolved and differentiated into various approaches – simultaneously reflecting the diversifying societal and workplace relations – each with its merits and limits and of particular worth in certain contexts.…”
Section: Overview Of the Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Beyond providing a critical theoretical review of these autoethnographic approaches, the author also provides a typological framework to show how these approaches can be applied by ethnographers to the workplace, implicating methodological and pragmatic value. Overall, Orel (2024) evidences how autoethnography can be applied to shed light on complex organizational phenomena and to gain nuanced understandings of personal experiences situated in workplace culture, depending on the approach.…”
Section: Overview Of the Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…While practiced for over 40 years (Hayano, 1979), the mounting prominence of autoethnography – accelerated by the COVID-19 lockdowns – is a recent phenomenon. Autoethnography is taken seriously and widely applied, and it has been diversifying into subgenres (as Orel, 2024). Declaring positionality vis-à-vis the field of research has always been part and parcel of the ethnographic endeavor, manifested in writing by way of reflexivity.…”
PurposeThis paper aims to explore the integration challenges during the early stages of implementation of value streams as team aggregation structures as a novel organizational construct in a modern organization.Design/methodology/approachWe use an immersive ethnographic approach to follow the transition to value streams as team aggregation structures in a large organization during the first three years of implementation. We integrate systematic observations with interviews to get insights into the dynamics of change and the most important challenges faced by the organization during this transition.FindingsWe integrate systematic observations collected during the organizational change with insights from interviews carried out with managers to provide tentative answers to some key questions related to the implementation of multiteam systems. We reflect on their performance, entitativity, autonomy as well as on the satisfaction of their members.Practical implicationsWe discuss some of the most important managerial challenges during the transition to value streams as novel organizational constructs and we derive some actionable insights for team and value stream managers leading such change processes.Originality/valueOur study provides a rich account of the first stages of implementing an organizational design that brings together different teams in organizational structures that are focused on the value provided to customers.
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