Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Volume 4, Issue 1
ISBN: 978-1-84855-688-1
E-ISBN - 978-1-84855-689-8
Guest editors: Ann L. Cunliffe, Stephen Linstead & Karen Locke
This e-book emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference held at the University of New Mexico. The conference was organized to recognize and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of John Van Maanen’s seminal Tales of the Field – a book that had, and continues to have, a profound impact on qualitative organizational scholarship. The theme of the conference was appropriately ‘Telling Tales’, because Van Maanen brought to our attention the idea that our research accounts are as much about our own stories as researchers, as they are truths about the lives of organizational members. He highlighted the possibilities for doing and writing ethnography differently, and asked us to think more reflexively about our work.
Accordingly, the conference brought together scholars from organization studies, communication studies, anthropology, psychology, health sciences and public administration, from across Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, each with interesting tales to tell. The tales spanned a range of qualitative research methodologies, a variety of contexts and topics. Five of the tales are offered in this e-book, and represent the range of methodologies and issues covered.
Contents:
- Guest Editorial
Ann L. Cunliffe, Stephen Linstead & Karen Locke
- The indirect approach of semi-focused groups: Expanding focus group research through role-playing
Frederic Bill & Lena Olaison
The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative way of using focus groups in research – a role-play-enhanced focus group method - in which participants are presented with the challenge of dealing with a specific task while playing a familiar but nevertheless fictive role.
- Ethical confessions of the “I” of autoethnography: the student’s dilemma
Clair Doloriert & Sally Sambrook
This paper draws attention to a unique paradox concerning doing an autoethnography as a PhD. On the one hand, a student may feel a pull towards revealing a vulnerable, intimate, autoethnographic self, yet on the other hand she may be pushed away from this because the oral/ viva voce examination process may deny the student anonymity. Through the telling of this tale the complexities concerning self-disclosure and student autoethnography reveal are explored.
- Strong emotions at work
Gail Whiteman, Thaddeus Muller & John M. Johnson
This paper examines whether our emotional experiences from qualitative research can enrich organization and management studies.
- Career stories of women professional accountants: examining the personal narratives of career using Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist existentialist philosophy as a theoretical ramework
Peggy Wallace
This paper describes the use of Simone de Beauvoir’s (1976; 1989) feminist existentialist philosophy in an empirical research study concerned with the career choices of women professional accountants.
- Reflexivity in the co-production of academic-practitioner research
Kevin Orr & Mike Bennet
This paper offers a reflexive account of the co-production of a qualitative research project with the aim of illuminating the relationships between research participants.
About Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
Traditionally the management and organization field has been dominated by research studies based on quantitative techniques of data collection and analysis. Yet increasingly there is an interest in the 'in-depth' studies that are produced from qualitative work. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management is an international journal committed to encouraging and publishing qualitative work from researchers and practitioners within the management and organizational field throughout the world.
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