Ethnographic Research Flashcards
- Ethnographic research 6 points -2015
a. Elaborate upon the advantages and disadvantages with covert observation
One way to ease the access problem is to assume a covert role—in other words, not to disclose the fact that you are a researcher. This strategy obviates the need to negotiate access to organizations or to explain why you want to intrude into people’s lives and make them objects of study. As we have seen, seeking access is a highly fraught business, and the adoption of a covert role removes some of these diffi culties. An outline of the advantages and disadvantages of covert ethnography is given in Key concept 17.5.
Covert Role
Advantages
• There is no problem of access.
• Reactivity
Disadvantages
• The problem of taking notes.
• The problem of not being able to use other methods.
• Anxiety.
• Ethical problems
‘informed consent’ principle of privacy, damaging to research participants,
b. What is meant by the concept “key informant”? How can this concept apply to research within a master thesis and how can it be managed?
One aspect of having sponsors or gatekeepers who smooth access for the ethnographer is that they may become key informants in the course of the subsequent field work. The ethnographer relies a lot on informants, but certain informants may become particularly important to the research. They often develop an appreciation of the research and direct the ethnographer to situations, events, or people likely to be helpful to the progress of the investigation.
Their accounts may be solicited or unsolicited (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995). Some researchers prefer the latter, because of its greater spontaneity and naturalism
by casual questioning during conversations (though in ethnographic research the boundary between an interview and a conversation is by no means clear-cut, as Burgess (1984) makes clear).
a. Describe the feeling or reaction of a typical subject of observation (the person who is being observed).
What is the reactive effect?
Webb et al. (1966) wrote about the ‘reactive measurement effect’, by which they meant that ‘the research subject’s knowledge that he is participating in a scholarly search may confound the investigator’s data’ (1966: 13).
They distinguished four components of this effect.
• The guinea pig effect—awareness of being tested. Examples of the kind of concern that Webb et al. were
writing about are such effects as the research participant wanting to create a good impression or feeling prompted to behave in ways (or express attitudes) that would not normally be exhibited.
• Role selection. Webb et al. argue that participants are often tempted to adopt a particular kind of role in
research. An example is that there is a well-known effect in experimental research (but which may have a
broader applicability) whereby some individuals seek out cues about the aims of the research and adjust what
they say and do in line with their perceptions (which may, of course, be false) of those aims (this is also known
as the Hawthorne effect—see Research in focus 2.8).
• Measurement as a change agent. The very fact of a researcher being in a context in which no researcher is
normally present may itself cause things to be different. For example, the fact that there is an observer sitting
in on a management meeting means that there is space and a chair being used that otherwise would be
unoccupied. This very fact may infl uence behaviour.
• Response sets. This is an issue that primarily relates to questionnaire and interview research and occurs when the respondent replies to a set of questions in a consistent but clearly inappropriate manner. Examples of this kind of effect are measurement problems such as the social desirability effect and yeasaying and naysaying (consistently answering yes or no to questions or consistently agreeing or disagreeing with items regardless of the meaning of the question or item).
Reactive effects are likely to occur in any research in which participants know they are the focus of investigation. Webb et al. called for greater use of what they call unobtrusive measures or non-reactive methods, which do not entail participants’ knowledge of their involvement in research (see Key concept 13.12 for a more complete
explanation). The Hawthorne effect, mentioned in Chapter 2,
c. Based on your master thesis (real or imagined), what ways are possible to gain access to the organization or atmosphere where your research will take place
Organizational researchers have developed a range of tactics, many of which may seem rather unsystematic in tone, but they are worth drawing attention to.
• Use friends, contacts, colleagues, academics to help
you gain access; provided the organization is relevant
to your research question, the route should not matter.
• Try to get the support of someone within the organizationwho will act as your champion. This person may be prepared to vouch for you and the value of your research. Such people are placed in the role of ‘sponsors’.
• Usually you will need to get access through top
management/senior executives. Even though you may
secure a certain level of agreement lower down the
hierarchy, you will usually need clearance from them.
Such senior people act as ‘gatekeepers’.
• Offer something in return (for example, a report).
This helps to create a sense of being trustworthy.
However, this strategy also carries risks, in that it may
turn you into a cheap consultant and may invite
restrictions on your activities,
Ongoing access
Negotiation of access does not fi nish when you have
made contact and gained an entrée to the organization.
You still need access to people. Simply because you have gained access to an organization does not mean that you will have an easy passage through it. Securing access is in many ways an ongoing activity, which takes considerable effort and time. This is likely to prove a particular problem in closed contexts like organizations, as Delbridge (1998) so effectively illustrates when describing his attempts to become integrated as a worker on the shopfloor of a factory sited in a small Welsh valley community.
At fi rst, ‘I stood out like a sore thumb, I was even
noticed and looked at in the street’. However, ‘my actual participation in the tasks which faced the workers helped to break down the barriers and several people approached me over the weeks and told me that when they actually saw me sitting there alongside them day after day they began to have some respect for what I was doing’ (1998: 19).
Even so, there are various concerns that group members may have, and these will affect the level of ongoing access that you are able to achieve.
POSSIBLE OBSTACLES
- PEOPLE WILL HAVE SUSPICIONS ABOUt YOU
- PEOPLE WILL WORRY THAT WHAT THEY SAY OR DO MAY GET BACK TO BOSSES OR TO COLLEAGUES
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT
• Play up your credentials—past work and experience
•Pass tests—be non-judgemental when things are said
to you about informal activities or about the organization
•You may need a role
• Be prepared for changes in circumstances that may affect your access, such as changes of senior
m anagement.
• People will have suspicions about you, perhaps seeing you as an instrument of top management (it is very common for members of organizations to believe that researchers are placed there to check up on them or even to mistake them for other people). For example,
Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) describe how one
of the interviewers in the Hawthorne studies was mistaken for a rate setter.
There was a buzz of conversation and the men seemed to be working at great speed. Suddenly there was a sharp hissing sound. The conversation died away, and there was a noticeable slowing up in the work pace. The interviewer later discovered from an acquaintance in the department that he had been mistaken for a rate setter.
One of the workmen, who acted as a lookout, had stepped on a valve releasing compressed air, a prearranged signal for slowing down. (Roethlisberger
and Dickson 1939: 386)
Another example is provided by Freeman (2000), who
found that her research access was halted because of
fears that she was a corporate spy, sent by a competitor organization to poach members of the workforce.
• People will worry that what they say or do may get
back to bosses or to colleagues. Van Maanen (1991a)
notes from his research on the police that, when conducting ethnographic research among offi cers,
you are likely to observe activities that may be deeply
discrediting and even illegal. Your credibility among
police offi cers will be determined by your reactions
to situations and events that are known to be diffi cult
for individuals.
• If they have these worries, they may go along with
your research, but in fact sabotage it, engaging in
deceptions, misinformation, and not allowing access
to ‘back regions’ (Goffman 1959).
There are four things you can do to smooth the path of
ongoing access.
• Play up your credentials—past work and experience;
your knowledge of the organization and/or its sector;
understanding of their problems—and be prepared
for tests of either competence or credibility. An example of this is provided by Perlow (1997), who claims that a critical factor in gaining the support of engineers at the Ditto corporation was that she came from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as ‘there is no institution that the engineers we studied
hold in higher regard’ (1997: 142).
• Pass tests—be non-judgemental when things are said
to you about informal activities or about the organization; make sure information given to you does not get back to others, whether bosses or peers. M. Parker (2000) describes how, when at the end of his fi eldwork he submitted his report to management, an
uncomplimentary comment about the Managing Director was traced back to an insuffi ciently anonymized source. Parker subsequently came in for a humiliating grilling from three of the company directors. He claims that this event probably damaged the manager’s reputation in the organization, and his trust in him
• You may need a role—if your research involves quite a
lot of participant observation, the role will be related
to your position within the organization (see Research
in focus 17.2). Otherwise, you will need to construct
a ‘front’, as Ditton (1977; see Research in focus 17.6)
did when referring to ‘his studies’. This will involve
thinking about your dress and your explanations
about what you are doing there, and possibly helping
out occasionally with work or offering advice. Make
sure you have thought about ways in which people’s
suspicions can be allayed and be consistent and do
not behave ambiguously or inconsistently.
• Be prepared for changes in circumstances that may affect your access, such as changes of senior
m anagement.
b. What are the ethical issues that you need to be aware of and take care of when you use observation?
- Harm to the Participants
- Deception (The reality as it is)
-Lack of informed consent
The issue of informed consent is in many respects the area within business research ethics that is most hotly
debated. The bulk of the discussion tends to focus on what is variously called disguised or covert observation. Such observation can involve covert participant observation (see Key concept 17.5), or simple or contrived observation (see, for example, Thinking deeply 11.9 and Research in focus 11.10), in which the researcher’s true identity is unknown. The principle means that prospective research participants should be given as much information as might be needed to make an informed decision about whether or not they wish to participate in a study. Covert observation transgresses that principle, because participants are not given the opportunity to refuse to cooperate. They are involved whether they like it or not.
-Invasion of Privacy
Visual Research and recorded films and recordings. Visual Ethnography and Ethical issues such as Copyright, Publishing, Invasion of the privacy.
