Reflexive guidelines for writing organizational culture

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for reflexive ethnographic writing that transports the researcher's claims of having conducted participatory reflexive research to her audience.Design/methodology/approachAuto‐ethnographic vignettes from the author's own ethnographic research are used to establish five levels of reflexivity for writing organizational ethnography.FindingsThe author argues that the audience needs to be able to judge a researcher's claims to reflexivity through his/her writing. Yet, due to the participation mode of reflexivity while doing ethnographic research, the researcher is not in control over his/her own reflexive writing. Therefore, processes between three groups of stakeholders, namely researcher, field and audience, and their power relations need to be considered in reflexive writing. The author calls this process ethnographic triangulating and derives a five‐tiered model of reflexive writing from it.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper offers a perspective on how to write organizational ethnography. Others will have to put this perspective into practice.Originality/valueThe paper moves the participation mode of reflexivity to the level of writing, thereby offering a fully conceived view on reflexivity that acknowledges the influence of field and audience on ethnographic writing.

Caste, purity, and female dress in IT India: Embodied norm violation as reflexive ethnographic practice

“…Ellis and Bochner 2006;Mahadevan 2011), and virtually all recent ethnographic books include at least a chapter on the researcher. Reflexive auto-ethnography has been critiqued for losing sight of the field and for overstating the ethnographer's influence (overview in Mahadevan 2011). To overcome these limitations, reflexivity should not be employed just for the sake of it (Ellis and Bochner 2006).…”

“…Auto-ethnography is the most prominent means of increasing researcher reflexivity (e.g. Ellis and Bochner 2006;Mahadevan 2011), and virtually all recent ethnographic books include at least a chapter on the researcher. Reflexive auto-ethnography has been critiqued for losing sight of the field and for overstating the ethnographer's influence (overview in Mahadevan 2011).…”

“…Research perspective Doing ethnography is a personal experience which necessarily involves the researcher (Mahadevan 2011). Generally speaking, ethnographers study how cultural meanings and social identities -a sense of 'who I am (not) in relation to others' (e.g.…”

“…Both aspects -doing ethnography as a research practice and the theoretical demands for reflexive writing -have been discussed in management and organization studies (Van Maanen 2006). Additionally, there is a considerable body of literature on reflexivity (overview in Hibbert, Coupland, and MacIntosch 2010;Mahadevan 2011).…”

“…Ethnography as writing is based on the social-constructivist understanding that no field can be represented 'as such' (Van Maanen 1988). Rather, researchers need to reflect upon themselves and their interrelations in the field and to make plausible and conscious choices of writing (Van Maanen 1988), for example, through auto-ethnography (overview in Mahadevan 2011). Both aspects -doing ethnography as a research practice and the theoretical demands for reflexive writing -have been discussed in management and organization studies (Van Maanen 2006).…”