Collaborative team ethnography and the paradoxes of interpretation

Gerstl‐Pepin, Cynthia; Gunzenhauser, Michael G.

doi:10.1080/09518390110111884

Cited by 55 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Very few research teams actually share their experience of team-based ethnography and explain how they have produced a shared understanding (exceptions include: Erickson and Stull 1997;Gerstl-Pepin and Gunzenhauser 2002;Wasser and Bresler 1996). Further, most that have discussed their experiences have focused on specific issues such as reflexivity (Barry et al, 1999) or fieldnotes (Creese et al, 2009).…”

Section: Team Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conducting global team-based ethnography: Methodological challenges and practical methods

2014

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Ethnography has often been seen as the province of the lone researcher; however, increasingly management scholars are examining global phenomena, necessitating a shift to global team-based ethnography. This shift presents some fundamental methodological challenges, as well as practical issues of method, that have not been examined in the literature on organizational research methods. That is the focus of this paper. We first outline the methodological implications of a shift from single researcher to team ethnography, and from single case site to the multiple sites that constitute global ethnography. Then we present a detailed explanation of a global, team-based ethnographic research project that we conducted over three years. Our study of the global reinsurance industry involved a team of five ethnographers conducting fieldwork in 25 organizations across 15 countries. We outline three central challenges we encountered; team division of labour, team sharing, and constructing a global ethnographic object. The paper concludes by suggesting that global, team-based, ethnography provides important insights into global phenomena, such as regulation, finance, and climate change among others, that are of interest to management scholars.

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Section: Team Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conducting global team-based ethnography: Methodological challenges and practical methods

2014

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“…Sharing meant an interwoven and fluid practice embedded within the research routine. Digital data and digital tools helped overcome the power-based limitations of traditional notions of dialogue for team ethnographic fieldswork, allowing for meaning to be unveiled from symmetric positions within a team (Gerstl-Pepin and Gunzenhauser, 2002).…”

Section: 'Digital' Fieldnotes: Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Etmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this model, team ethnography is understood as several ethnographers investigating the same issue in different settings in order to access multiple sites (Gerstl-Pepin and Gunzenhauser, 2002;Gillespie, 2007). The approach used in Gillespie's (2007) research project was a sub-category of this model, referred to as collaborative media ethnography, which included ethnographic exploration of the same topic conducted in different places in both the UK and abroad.…”

Section: Team Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This project made use of an e-Discussion group, which enabled ongoing sharing and re-evaluation of emergent findings (Gillespie, 2007). Another common team organisation within this model is that of experienced researchers leading the research project and junior researchers (including graduate students) conducting fieldwork in small teams and adopting different roles throughout the research project (Gerstl-Pepin and Gunzenhauser, 2002). In this type of team ethnography, there is usually a clear and hierarchical division of labour.…”

Section: Team Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Doing digital team ethnography: being there together and digital social data

Beneito-Montagut

Begueria

Cassián

2017

Qualitative Research

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With the digital availability of social data helping reshape ethnographic research and thus broadening the mainstream understanding of ethnography, this research proposes a set of strategies to overcome current limitations in doing ethnography. Based on a two-year online and offline ethnographic project on social media use in later life, insights are provided into how the practices and meanings of ethnography are being reconstructed and negotiated in response to the explosion of digital social data and through team practices. This paper reviews how collaborative and interdisciplinary ethnographic reflection is sustained and extended by digital tools, creating a live source of data that can be analysed within the framework of ethnography. As a contribution to current debates on the 'Social Life of Methods', it also reviews epistemic issues associated with digital data and team ethnography, such as the role of the ethnographer(s), the field(s) and computational data analysis. The article reaches the conclusion that digital team ethnography is a viable option for undertaking thick and descriptive studies about the use of social media, which in turn favours a collaborative, non-hierarchical and dialogue-driven knowledge production process.

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“…Set within an interpretative-constructivist tradition, the research team adopted a qualitative approach and responded to the challenge of investigating the relationship between drama and writing through a naturalistic collaborative inquiry. The team met regularly to watch and analyse video material of drama sessions, to read and review the case study children's writing and to discuss the evolving issues, collaboratively sharing their perspectives (Gerstl-Pepin and Gunzenhauser, 2002). Throughout the pilot and the main study, they worked to honour 'the intuitive and emergent process that informs artistic meaning-making' (Taylor, 1996, p.2) and to identify the substantive and critical elements connecting drama and writing and the features of children's writing which were influenced by these.…”

Section: The Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%