Ida Schrøder, Emilia Cederberg and Amalie M. Hauge
This paper investigates how different and sometimes conflicting approaches to performance evaluations are hybridized in the day-to-day activities of a disciplined hybrid…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates how different and sometimes conflicting approaches to performance evaluations are hybridized in the day-to-day activities of a disciplined hybrid organization–i.e. a public child protection agency at the intersection between the market and the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a one-year ethnography of how employees achieve to qualify their work as “good work” in situations with several and sometimes conflicting ideals of what “good work” is. Fieldwork material was collected by following casework activities across organizational boundaries. By combining accounting literature on hybridization with literature on practices of valuation, the paper develops a novel theoretical framework which allows for analyses of the various practices of valuation, when and where they clash and how they persist over time in everyday work.
Findings
Throughout the study, four distinct registers of valuation were identified: feeling, theorizing, formalizing and costing. To denote the meticulous efforts of pursuing good work in all four registers of valuation, the authors propose the notion of sequencing. Sequencing is an ongoing process of moving conflicting registers away from each other and bringing them back together again. Correspondingly, at the operational level of a hybrid organization, temporary compartmentalization is a means of avoiding clashes, and in doing so, making it possible for different and sometimes conflicting ways of achieving good results to continuously hybridize and persist together.
Research limitations/implications
The single-case approach allows for analytical depth, but limits the findings to theoretical, rather than empirical, generalizability. The framework the authors propose, however, is well-suited for mobilization and potential elaboration in further empirical contexts.
Originality/value
The paper provides a novel theoretical framework as well as rich empirical material from the highly political field of child protection work, which has seldomly been studied within accounting research.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to offer an overview of contemporary approaches to the challenge of managing positionality and to discuss their applicability to fieldwork in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer an overview of contemporary approaches to the challenge of managing positionality and to discuss their applicability to fieldwork in contested fields.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is driven by the author's experience of disconcertment during her fieldwork for a study of economic prioritization of access to new pharmaceuticals. Here she was pushed to take sides between health economists, clinicians and patients. Based on an iterative literature review, the paper identifies contemporary approaches to side-taking and discusses their practical applicability by constructing counterfactual accounts of a specific situation related to her fieldwork.
Findings
The author provides an overview of three “modes of intervention” characteristic of contemporary ethnography: political activism, organizational development and intervening description. The author presents the research agenda, the methodological principles and the means of intervention of each of the three modes, and discusses their applicability to the fieldwork process.
Practical implications
The overview of contemporary approaches to managing positionality is relevant for researchers doing fieldwork in contested fields. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches, and is intended as a resource for ethnographers who want to clarify their own positionality and prepare or improve their strategies on how to take sides in the process of doing fieldwork.
Originality/value
While the question of how to take sides is a classical challenge for organizational ethnographers, only few studies exist that look across contemporary ethnographic positions on how to manage positionality in the process of doing fieldwork. In addition to providing an overview for the individual ethnographer, this paper aims to participate in a collective academic conversation on the subject of managing positionality in the process of doing fieldwork.
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Amalie Martinus Hauge, Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen, Anne Reff Pedersen and Anja Svejgaard Pors
The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.
Design/methodology/approach
A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.
Findings
The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.
Practical implications
This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.
Originality/value
Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.