Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
THE PROCESS AND PRODUCT OF ORGANIZATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH
Abstract
The anthropological ethnographic approach is examined and re-interpreted for organizational studies. Origins of anthropological influence in organizational research are traced to the Hawthorne Studies to show that field's contributions to the beginnings of Organizational Behavior. Subsequent waning of anthropological influence is followed by its later reappearance as an influential background to the analysis of organizations as cultural systems. Works of 21 organizational writers are discussed for their contributions to variations in ethnographic approaches to research in organizations, and the scarcity of true organizational ethnographies is noted. Specification of twelve criteria for adequate ethnography forms the basis for examination of methodology (the process of ethnography). Development of the process, and of ethnographic research questions, is illustrated by a study of a city bus system. The product is shown in an abbreviated ethnography of this bus system. Dyadic alliances, one specific focus of the study, are presented as an extended example of how research questions develop and narrow. This example provides a context to discuss differences and similarities in the findings of traditional organizational research and those of this qualitative approach. The results show how additions of this approach in research can add new dimensions to analysis of familiar concepts. This cultural approach to ethnography differs from that of most organizational ethnographies. It focuses on an entire organization. It provides empirical evidence of minimal cultural sharing within this organization. It provides evidence contradicting the assumed primacy of symbol systems in organizational functioning. Lastly, it provides evidence of a previously undefined type of behavioral adaptation within organizational systems. The implications of this evidence are demonstrated. Guidelines are developed for creation of a new organizational ethnography. Examination of three levels of analysis (behavioral description, emic, and etic), shows the potential for ethnographic contributions to the nomothetic goals of science.
Subject Area
Management
Recommended Citation
MOREY, NANCY CRESWICK, "THE PROCESS AND PRODUCT OF ORGANIZATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH" (1986). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8704559.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8704559