Ethnography for Business Studies (and everyone else!)

In this session, Catherine Owen will introduce the techniques and practice of modern ethnography with a candid look at how PhD candidates and early career researchers have navigated the difficulties of fieldwork and of writing-up. Using her own recently-completed ethnographic PhD as a starting-point, Catherine will consider the value that ethnographic techniques can bring to the study of organisations and of organisational phenomena such as strategy but also show how the conduct of ethnographic research can challenge every assumption about the nature of data, of validity, and of the relationship between the researcher and what is being researched. As well as an introduction to recent trends in ethnographic practice, this session offers the kinds of practical and honest advice that is so often missing from accounts of research in the field and from the processes of collating, interpreting, and presenting ethnographic materials in credible ways.