Charting the future of business and organizational ethnography

Bibliographic Data

ID2247058
AuthorsMelissa S Fisher (0000-0001-6109-5080, New York University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume10
Issue3
Pages369-380
Publication date2021-12-14
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Organizational Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2046-6749 • E-ISSN: 2046-6757
PublisherEmerald (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1108/joe-10-2021-088
OpenAlexW4200019260
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited15

Charting the future of business and organizational ethnographyCollaboration between researchers and their "informants" in business and organizational ethnography has become an increasingly important dimension of both anthropological and organizational studies inquiry [1].However, although both disciplines have explored pushing theoretically and methodologically beyond the norms of solo research, there has been relatively little dialog between the two.Given these parallel, but siloed, developments, I suggest that discussions about para-ethnography and feminist para-ethnography, emanating out of cultural anthropology, are of relevance to thinking about the nature of collaborative research not only within anthropology but also in the broader scholarship on organizations, society and change emanating from business schools.More specifically, the concepts of para-ethnography and feminist para-ethnography provide interesting avenues into thinking through the relationship between academia and the realms of corporate, and other organizations, and more broadly the cultures of expertise.This includes the positionality of ethnographers and their interlocutors, and how the incorporation of participants as more than informants provides the potential for new intermediary forms of knowledge making and intervention in the world.As such, this essay marks the beginning of thinking about ways to bridge a divide between (1) a recent surge of interest among anthropologists in creating new kinds of ethnographic and theoretical partnerships that are expanding the boundaries of disciplinary practice and impact (Boyer and Marcus, 2021a, b; Davis and Craven, 2016; Holmes and Marcus, 2021); and (2) recent work in business schools on the role of critical academics in working with wider networks and allies to bring about change (Contu, 2019; Hoffman, 2021) [2].About a decade ago, I published my ethnography Wall Street Women and an article entitled, Towards a Feminist Para-Ethnography on Gender Equality Policy Making in Business (Fisher, 2012a, b).In the article, drawing on nearly two decades of researchfieldwork with women on Wall Street, consulting work as a business anthropologist and a new project on global gender equity initiatives based in the United Nations -I discussed the challenges of studying ethnographically the global gender policy movement.Working in new assemblages of institutions, persons and practices, I wrote, had altered my understanding of the purpose of anthropology.It had entailed a shift away from following, analyzing and describing, in my case, the first generation of Wall Street women from the fifties to 2010, several years after the financial crisis.Attending UN gender equality conferences, composed of state, corporate, and academic actors coming together, for example, I suggested, entailed the recognition that I was navigating a field in which others were already conducting research, taking action, and Charting the future of business

Ethnography · Knowledge management · Sociology · Anthropology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Computer Science · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Management and Organizational Studies

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