EDITED BY

MALGORZATA CIESIELSKA
DARIUSZ JEMIELNIAK

QUALITATIVE
METHODOLOGIES
IN ORGANIZATION
STUDIES
Volume I: Theories and
New Approaches
Qualitative Methodologies in Organization
Studies
 Qualitative
Methodologies in
Organization Studies
Volume I: Theories and
New Approaches

Foreword by Martyna Śliwa

Editors
Malgorzata Ciesielska Dariusz Jemielniak
Teesside University Business School Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
Teesside University Warszawa, Poland
Middlesbrough, UK

ISBN 978-3-319-65216-0    ISBN 978-3-319-65217-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960769

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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 With love, to my son,
Max Ciesielski-Lattimer
With love, to my daughter, Alicja Jemielniak-Banasik, and wife, Natalia
Banasik-Jemielniak
 Foreword

Qualitative research has a long and rich history in organization studies.

Ultimately, understanding the nature and beauty of qualitative approaches
to organizations comes mainly with practice. This volume presents an
inspiring combination of fresh perspectives on methods traditionally
used in organization studies and insights into contemporary debates
around methodological developments, philosophy, ethics, the role of
emotions and making research accessible to a wide range of participants.
This innovative selection of chapters aims at opening up the space for
qualitative research into new arenas and its development in new direc-
tions. The list of contributors to this edited collection—including David
Boje, Barbara Czarniawska, Yiannis Gabriel, Davydd Greenwood, Nigel
King, Slawomir Magala, Mustafa Öziblin and Tony Watson—promises
an engaging, informative and thought-provoking treatment of the topics
addressed. All of the authors contributing to this volume are practicing
qualitative researchers drawing from their own experience to offer a wide
range of examples and hands-on advice. As such, this collection will be of
interest to both established and early career researchers, who would like
to understand the variety, benefits and practicalities of using specific
qualitative methods approaches in organization studies.

Martyna Śliwa

vii
 Preface

The book is designed with organization studies researchers, including

Ph.D.s and students of Doctorate in Business Management who would
like to understand the current state of art of qualitative research in orga-
nization studies. The book is structured to discuss not only the key meth-
ods but also broader research design considerations and cutting-edge
approaches. All chapters are based on robust and holistic literature reviews
and are prepared by active researchers specializing in the theories and
approaches they are discussing, which also enables for more practical
considerations.
In this first volume, we offer a range of chapters covering key approaches
and theories related to qualitative research. Dariusz Jemielniak and
Malgorzata Ciesielska introduce qualitative research in organization stud-
ies in Chap. 1. In Chap. 2, Bartosz Sławecki discusses the relationship
between sociological paradigms, assumptions about the nature of social
reality (ontologies) and the nature of scientific cognition (epistemolo-
gies), as well as practical ways of conducting social research (methodolo-
gies). In Chap. 3, Przemysław Hensel and Beata Glinka explain the logic
of the grounded theory research strategy. They present the conceptual
roots of the grounded theory approach and provide guidance on the
grounded theory research process. In Chap. 4, Slawomir Magala intro-
duces the concept of visual anthropology and how it can be used to
understand the social world around us. In Chap. 5, Davydd Greenwood
ix
x Preface

discusses an action research strategy that combines the expertise and facil-
itation of a professional social researcher with the knowledge, energy and
commitments of local stakeholders in an organization. In Chap. 6, Tony
Watson discusses organization ethnography as a research method, a
descriptive study of people, a theory-informed and theory-informing
analysis of (intensive) fieldwork, and a humanities-style written account
and analysis of events in which the researcher-writer has participated. In
Chap. 7, David Boje and Nazanin Tourani introduce us to materiality
storytelling research and how to utilize it to enrich our understanding of
various disciplines.
Yiannis Gabriel discusses the importance of interpretation, reflexivity,
and imagination in qualitative research in Chap. 8. This is followed by
Angela Mazzetti’s discussion on emotions and the exploration of some of
the emotional challenges of developing rapport with research participants
in Chap. 9. In Chap. 10, Daniela Rudloff raises questions around the
accessibility of research and discusses how to lower barriers to participa-
tion. Finally, Sylwia Ciuk and Dominika Latusek cover a number of ethi-
cal questions and ethical dilemmas that can arise at different stages of the
research process (Chap. 11).

Middlesbrough, UK Malgorzata Ciesielska


Warsaw, Poland Dariusz Jemielniak
 Contents

1 Qualitative Research in Organization Studies   1

Dariusz Jemielniak and Malgorzata Ciesielska

2 Paradigms in Qualitative Research   7

Bartosz Sławecki

3 Grounded Theory  27
Przemysław Hensel and Beata Glinka

4 Visual Anthropology  49
Slawomir Magala

5 Action Research  75
Davydd J. Greenwood

6 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations  99

Tony Watson

xi
xii Contents

7 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 113

David Boje and Nazanin Tourani

8 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in

Qualitative Research 137
Yiannis Gabriel

9 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 159

Angela Stephanie Mazzetti

10 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 173

Daniela Rudloff

11 Ethics in Qualitative Research 195

Sylwia Ciuk and Dominika Latusek

Index 215
 Notes on Contributors

David Boje is a Regents Professor and Distinguished Achievement Professor in

the Management Department, New Mexico State University. He is an interna-
tional scholar in the areas of storytelling and antenarratives in organizations. He
holds an honorary doctorate from Aalborg University and is considered godfa-
ther of their Material Storytelling Lab founded by Anete Strand. He is the
founder of Tamara—Journal of Critical Organization Inquiry. He has written 21
books and 141 journal articles, many in top-tier journals, such as Management
Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Studies, Human Relations
and Academy of Management Journal. It is said that he is the most cited scholar
in the College of Business at New Mexico State University.
Malgorzata Ciesielska is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies and HRM at
Teesside University. Her research interests focus on the cross-section of organi-
zational behavior and innovation management, on particular areas of hybrid
organizations, and on diversity and cross-professional collaboration in the tech
industry. She specializes in qualitative research and organizational ethnography
and is an associate editor of Tamara—Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry
and Przegląd Europejski (European Review).
Sylwia Ciuk is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Oxford Brookes
University. She has carried out qualitative studies in Poland and the UK. Her
research interests center around discursive perspectives on organizational change.
Recently, she has been exploring the role of language and, in particular, interlin-
gual translation in the processes of change. Ciuk is a member of the European

xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors

Group for Organizational Studies and the Standing Conference on Organizational

Symbolism. Her work has been published both in English and in Polish.
Yiannis Gabriel is Professor of Organizational Theory at Bath University.
Gabriel is known for his work in leadership, management learning, organiza-
tional storytelling and narratives, psychoanalytic studies of work, and the cul-
ture and politics of contemporary consumption. He has used stories as a way of
studying numerous social and organizational phenomena, including leader–fol-
lower relations, group dynamics and fantasies, the management of change, inno-
vation and knowledge transfer. He is the author of ten books and numerous
articles and maintains an active blog in which he discusses music, storytelling,
books, cooking, pedagogy and research outside the constraints of academic pub-
lishing (http://www.yiannisgabriel.com/). He is the senior editor of Organization
Studies. His enduring fascination as a researcher and educator lies in what he
describes as the unpredictability and complexity of organizational life.
Beata Glinka, PhD is a professor at the University of Warsaw (Poland) and
Head of the Department of Organizational Innovations and Entrepreneurship
at the Faculty of Management. Her research interests focus on the cultural con-
text of management, entrepreneurship and the culture of public administration
(and its influence on entrepreneurship). She has authored and co-authored over
50 articles, book chapters, and books. In her research, she applies qualitative
methods. For research, she was awarded several times, for example, by Fulbright
Foundation (2011, Senior Advanced researcher Award) and Polish Science
Foundation (2003). Glinka is also a co-editor of the scientific journal Problemy
Zarządzania (Management Issues).
Davydd Greenwood is Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology Emeritus
(Cornell University, USA). He is a corresponding member of the Spanish
Royal Academy of Moral and Political. His work centers on action research,
political economy, ethnic conflict, community and regional development, and
neo-­liberal reforms of higher education. His ethnographic work has focused on
the Spanish Basque Country, Spain’s La Mancha region and higher education
institutions. Greenwood is the author/co-author of nine books and scores of
articles. Since the early 1980s, he has focused on the relationships between
action research and higher education reform, writing extensively on this sub-
ject. He currently participates in an international network to create democrati-
cally organized public universities. He is the co-author with Morten Levin of
the recent book, Creating a New Public University and Reviving Democracy:
Action Research in Higher Education (2016).
 Notes on Contributors
   xv

Przemyslaw Hensel is a professor at the Faculty of Management, University of

Warsaw (Poland). His research interests focus on organizational isomorphism in
public administration, transfer of managerial templates between different cul-
tures and regions, and methods for organizational diagnosis and assessment. In
2012, he was awarded the Fulbright Advanced Research Award (Senior); earlier,
he received awards from The Rector of the University of Warsaw. He is a co-­
editor of the scholarly journal Problemy Zarządzania (Management Issues).
Dariusz Jemielniak is a full Professor of Management, the Head of the Center
for Research on Organizations and Workplaces (CROW) and a founder of the
New Research on Digital Societies (NeRDS) group at Kozminski University.
His interests revolve around critical management studies, open collaboration
projects (such as Wikipedia or F/LOSS), narrativity, storytelling, knowledge-­
intensive organizations, virtual communities, and organizational archetypes, all
studied by interpretive and qualitative methods.
Dominika Latusek is Professor of Management at Kozminski University,
Poland. Former Fulbright scholar at Stanford University, she has conducted
qualitative field studies in companies in Poland, Germany, Sweden, and Silicon
Valley in the USA. Her fields of interest include high-growth venture creation,
interorganizational relations and trust within and between organizations.
Slawomir Magala is Professor of Cross-Cultural Management at the Rotterdam
School of Management, Erasmus University, and at the Faculty of Management
and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University. He has authored a
range of books including: Cross-Cultural Competence (2005) (Polish translation,
2011), The Management of Meaning in Organizations (2009) and Class Struggle
in Classless Poland (1982) (Polish translation, 2012). He teaches cross-cultural
management and sustainable cultural entrepreneurship.
Angela Stephanie Mazzetti has a passion for qualitative research methods
gained from the different perspectives of a researcher, a research supervisor, and
a lecturer in qualitative techniques. Mazzetti has written a number of papers
focusing specifically on the emotional nature of qualitative research, highlight-
ing some of the challenges for qualitative researchers and on how being in tune
with our emotions can contribute to and enhance our research. Mazzetti’s
research specialism is emotion and stress, and she is keen to explore how qualita-
tive approaches can enhance our knowledge and understanding of how we expe-
rience and cope with stress. Mazzetti is currently researching coping resilience
and resource depletion, adopting a sensory ethnographic approach.
xvi Notes on Contributors

Daniela Rudloff is a lecturer at the School of Business at the University of

Leicester. Her research interests focus on equality and diversity; research meth-
ods; and the intersection of the two. She has taught research methods to stu-
dents at every level, from Certificate to Ph.D. and Doctorate, and has started
integrating accessibility into the research methods curriculum. Rudloff is pub-
lishing a book on quantitative research methods with Palgrave Macmillan and
she is a member of the editorial board of Sociological Research Online.
Bartosz Sławecki is an assistant professor in the Department of Education and
Personnel Development at Poznań University of Economics and Business in
Poland. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an M.A. in Sociology and
Management. His primary interests include theory and the practice of qualita-
tive research, in particular, the biographical and narrative approaches in organi-
zation and labor studies. Currently, his work is focused on identity work and the
professional identity development of social entrepreneurs in Poland.
Nazanin Tourani is an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University at
Fayette. Her research interests cover business strategy, human resource manage-
ment, and organizational behavior. She is specializing in the storytelling
approach in organization studies.
Tony Watson is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Work and Organisation at
Nottingham University Business School. His major organizational ethnographic
study, In Search of Management (originally 1994), is still in print and has sold
11,000 or so copies. His key ‘position papers’ on organizational ethnography (in
the Journal of Management Studies and the Journal of Organizational Ethnography)
are being cited widely. A key organizationally ethnographically study was pub-
lished in Human Relations in 2011.
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 Vision of social change 90

Table 5.2 Approach to participation 91

xvii
 1
Qualitative Research in Organization
Studies
Dariusz Jemielniak and Malgorzata Ciesielska

Qualitative organization studies have never had it easy. Even though they
date back to the beginnings of social studies as a whole, and Bronisław
Malinowski and Elton Mayo are considered to be one of the founders of
anthropology and management and organization studies, the academic
status of qualitative inquiry in management has been unequal for quite a
while. In the 1960s, when academia became obsessed with cybernetics
and the system approach, typically paired with quantitative studies, the
perception of qualitative studies was that they are clearly inferior.

Dariusz Jemielniak’s work on the publication was possible thanks to a research grant from the
Polish National Science Center (no. UMO-2012/05/E/HS4/01498).

D. Jemielniak (*)
Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland
M. Ciesielska
Teesside University Business School, Middlesbrough, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 1

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_1
2 D. Jemielniak and M. Ciesielska

Fortunately, it soon turned out that there are questions that quantita-
tive studies, in spite of their undisputable usefulness, cannot address well.
As the sensitivity to new cultures has grown, so has the interest in study-
ing different cultures, including the organizational ones, and qualitative
studies have naturally returned to grace. Currently, we often use qualita-
tive approaches not only in regular organization and occupational studies
(Ciesielska 2008; Ciesielska and Petersen 2013; Jemielniak 2002, 2005;
Konecki 1990), but also in the studies of knowledge-intensive environ-
ments (Bowden and Ciesielska 2016; Ciesielska and Petersen 2013;
Latusek-Jurczak and Prystupa 2014) as well as of virtual tribes and the
digital society (Jemielniak 2013, 2015; Przegalinska 2015). Qualitative
studies are even sometimes positioned as a meso-level model for doing
social science in general (Gaggiotti et al. 2016).
What makes qualitative studies “qualitative” though? For some people
the category of qualitative studies encompasses everything that cannot be
quantified. As such, they would have to include also simple literature
reviews or theoretical essays (Jemielniak and Aibar 2016; Jemielniak and
Greenwood 2015). They would also, by definition, have to cover all kinds
of poorly designed research reports that do not even make a serious
attempt at presenting their methodology. On the other side of the spec-
trum there are qualitative researchers for whom only a deep involvement
with the field and saturation of the material can satisfy the rigorous
requirements of a qualitative inquiry. As a result, labeling certain tools
and approaches as “qualitative” may be discipline-dependent. For
instance, some econometrists may consider open questions in a question-
naire as qualitative research, while for anthropologists they could be
intrinsically quantitative, and even a loosely structured interview (Whyte
and Whyte 1984) can be perceived as “not qualitative enough” to allow a
solid interpretation.
Things are further complicated by the fact that research methods are
only secondary to some more fundamental methodological and paradig-
matic choices. Methods are tools that can be used for different purposes:
just like with a hammer one can hit some nails, bring down walls, or
paint the walls—although, admittedly, the latter can be done much easier
and with better results with a brush. Especially in engaged scholarship
 Qualitative Research in Organization Studies 3

and action research (Greenwood and Levin 1998; Strumińska-Kutra

2016), it is relatively common to rely heavily on triangulation of
approaches (Konecki 2008b), and remain quite agnostic to deep
­ideological aversions to particular toolsets. Such aversions are still very
much alive in organization studies among some researchers, and the plu-
ralism of approaches is not always valued (Pfeffer 1995; Van Maanen
1995). Interestingly, the qualitative scholars have returned from their
exile back to the game with new methodological reflexivity (Jemielniak
and Kostera 2010), and seem to be more sensitive to the variety of pos-
sible views and research angles.
Qualitative studies are deeply imbued in serendipity (Konecki 2008a)
and require remaining open to interpretation. This is why they are often
performative, and not ostensive (Czarniawska 2017; Latour 1986): they
draw from models and theories generated in and through research, and
are not preconceptualized before the fieldwork begins. Coming to the
field with preconceptions and a belief that we can understand the studied
world better than the people who live it are commonly linked with the
drive to consult and “be practical”. Sometimes this approach stems from
an assumption that a scholar should always try to give unsolicited advice
to the studied. While we are generally sympathetic to scholars who want
to be useful and wholeheartedly commend engaged scholarship, we also
recognize that practitioners quite often know their lore much better than
the scholars. Throwing ideas from an ivory tower rarely works (Etzkowitz
et al. 2000). Claiming that a discipline can be useful for practitioners is a
typical and old legitimization strategy, used as early as in the ancient
Greece, where philosophy made the promises of solving military prob-
lems. Sociology also made such claims early on, when Durkheim pro-
claimed taking the issue of poverty and crime head on (Czarniawska-Joerges
1999). Instead, we should remain “reflexive practitioners” (Schön 1983)
and observe the social actors’ actual practices (Barley and Kunda 2001;
Czarniawska 2001), without assuming a privileged know-it-all role.
Qualitative methods make it more difficult to assume the role of a con-
sultant also because of their focus on the studied and following their
logic. However, the qualitative approaches can become powerful tools for
an experienced consultant.
4 D. Jemielniak and M. Ciesielska

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 2
Paradigms in Qualitative Research
Bartosz Sławecki

2.1 Introduction
The aim of the chapter is to raise novice researchers’ awareness of the
significance of philosophical assumptions for their practical activity. The
text presents the basic terms connected with the methodology of social
sciences. The entire discussion is centered on the issue of paradigms.
Various approaches within the framework of basic philosophical assump-
tions are discussed—concerning the nature of social reality (ontologies),
the nature of scientific cognition (epistemologies), and practical ways of
conducting social research (methodologies). An important element of the
text is the presentation of two classifications of paradigms in social sci-
ences with particular consideration given to qualitative research.

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Center grant 2013/11/D/HS4/03878

B. Sławecki (*)
Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 7

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_2
8 B. Sławecki

2.2 Paradigms in Social Sciences

The term “paradigm” is usually associated with the figure of Thomas
Kuhn, an American historian and philosopher of science, who died in
1996, and his most famous book, entitled The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. Kuhn’s work concerns a certain synthetic view on the history
of science. Let us add that it is dedicated to natural history, which has
significant implications for the shape of the presented concept of the
development of science. According to Kuhn, the development of science
as a separate field of human activity is discontinuous in nature and,
broadly speaking, consists in the alternate occurrence of periods of so-­
called normal science and scientific revolutions. The term normal sci-
ence refers to “research firmly based upon one or more past scientific
achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community
acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further prac-
tice” (Kuhn 1970, p. 10). Therefore, the period in which normal science
prevails consists in scientists acting in accordance with generally accepted
rules without the need to ponder over them or give consideration to the
correctness of the adopted assumptions. Giddens (1993) believes that in
Kuhn’s perspective, the success of the development of science actually
depends on suspending “critical reasoning”, on accepting the set of basic
philosophical assumptions concerning the manner of getting to know the
world as obvious.
Scientific revolution means breaking with the only generally shared
manner of practicing science; it means moving from one universally
accepted manner of studying reality to another, resulting in the emer-
gence of a new tradition of institutional science. As Kuhn claims (1970,
p. 111), “during revolutions scientists see new and different things when
looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is
rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to
another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are
joined by unfamiliar ones as well. Of course, nothing of quite that sort
does occur: there is no geographical transplantation”.
According to Kuhn, in a period of normal science, scientists func-
tion within a framework of a certain paradigm, that is, within a frame-
work of established and socially accepted views, ways of arriving at
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 9

solutions to scientific problems (scientific methods), cultivated and

validated principles and rules of conducting scientific research. As
stated by Kuhn, the term is supposed to “suggest that some accepted
examples of actual scientific practice – examples which include law,
theory, application, and instrumentation together – provide models
from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research”
(ibid., p. 10). A scientific revolution means a departure from a para-
digm and its replacement with a new one. A revolution leads to a
change of standards and values, a change in the manner of perceiving
the world, resulting in the discerning of new elements of the world, not
previously researched.
The social and psychological origin of a paradigm is an extremely
important issue. A paradigm—as a prevalent manner of practicing sci-
ence—emerges from among various visions, approaches, traditions, ideas,
or concepts, as at a certain time, most scientists consider certain assump-
tions or scientific methods as correct and exemplary. As a particular para-
digm becomes recognized as applicable and valid, it is accompanied by a
social process of its validation, inheritance, and scientific socialization of
the next generation of scientists, which occurs in the course of research
work acquiring education. The period of validity of a specific paradigm is
therefore relatively stable and isolated from external influences. As Kuhn
claims, any external interferences come to the fore only during phases of
revolutionary changes.
And so, in a period of the prevalence of a particular paradigm, there
occurs a more or less conscious internalization of certain rules of conduct
in science, of practicing it in a certain way, in the image and likeness of
shared manners of perceiving and analyzing reality. A researcher can even
be completely unaware of their entanglement in a generally accepted sys-
tem of philosophical and methodological principles. Sometimes, para-
digms remain deeply hidden; they are silently assumed and treated as
obvious by many. Moreover, a researcher may be unaware of the existence
of different ways of perceiving and studying the world, which often causes
their indifference, incomprehension, or even lack of acceptance for other
research orientations—and consequently, hinders and sometimes also
prevents cooperation of scientists within a single scientific discipline
(cf. Kostera 2007).
10 B. Sławecki

A paradigm contains a certain immanent contradiction concerning its

utility. On the one hand, functioning within a framework of a specific
paradigm in a way frees scientists from the need to ponder over the philo-
sophical assumptions concerning the world and the bases of scientific
activity which justify and legitimize their actions. This characteristic
determines the power of a paradigm—it is useful, because it enables
activities and orients the research effort toward the execution and effects
of various scientific projects. As Kuhn puts it (1970, p. 19), “[w]hen the
individual scientist can take a paradigm for granted, he need no longer,
in his major works, attempt to build his field anew, starting from first
principles and justifying the use of each concept introduced. That can be
left to the writer of textbooks. Given a textbook, however, the creative
scientist can begin his research where it leaves off and thus concentrate
exclusively upon the subtlest and most esoteric aspects of the natural phe-
nomena that concern his group”. Yet, on the other hand, the property of
the aforesaid paradigm causes the action to be disconnected from the
motives which determine and explain the shape or course of scientific
activity; the power to judge one’s own conduct remains outside the area
of direct interest of an unreflective researcher executing research projects.
Scientific activity devoid of this critical element is barely different, if at
all, from the work of an advisor or analyst.
As mentioned, a paradigm includes a certain specific set of philosophi-
cal assumptions. The following sections explain which “areas” of scientific
activity these assumptions concern, thus answering the question of what
basic “components” a paradigm is built of.

2.3 The Structure of Paradigms

2.3.1 O
 ntological Assumptions, that is Assumptions
Concerning the Nature of Social Reality

Ontology is the basic field of philosophy concentrated around the prob-

lem of existence. As Ted Benton and Ian Craib (2010) put it, “ontology”
is the answer given to the question of what kinds of things exist in the
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 11

world. The authors point out that in the history of philosophy, four pri-
mary traditions in settling this question can be distinguished: material-
ism, idealism, dualism, and agnosticism. Materialists claim that the
world is made entirely of matter and the diversity of the features of mate-
rial objects, living beings—including people, societies, and other beings
may be explained in the categories of lower or higher structural complex-
ity of matter. Idealists believe that the ultimate reality is of mental or
spiritual nature—all beings are the creations of our own internal thought
processes. Dualism recognizes the separation of the spirit and body,
assuming that two interpenetrating worlds exist. And so human beings
appear as combinations of a mechanical body and a spiritual mind or
soul. Finally, the agnostic tradition assumes that it is impossible to dis-
cover the nature of the world existing independently of subjective experi-
ence (dualism).
As we can see from the descriptions presented above, the essence of the
discussion concerns the issue of the reality of beings. In reference to
ontological assumptions, according to realism, something exists “objec-
tively”, that is, independently of the human mind. Therefore, ontological
realism recognizes that something real exists, that this something actually
does exist. In science, this position assumes that the beings and structures
referred to in scientific theories exist in some external space, which makes
it possible to study, analyze, and learn about them (Heller 2011). From
an extreme perspective, sometimes described as “naive realism”, it is
assumed that in reality, only beings recognized by science exist; only sci-
ence presents the objective truth about the world (cf. Heller 2011).
Extreme realism toward certain universal beings considers them as inde-
pendent of individuals (e.g. in agnosticism), while moderate realism—as
dependent on them. The opposite of realism is the assumption that there
is no external, objectively observable and distinguishable structure of a
social world. This world consists only of names, concepts, meanings, and
terms created and used by people to describe reality. This is why the only
thing we can study is the ideas and creations of our minds, not some
independent external beings governed by specific laws. It is not difficult
to notice that these assumptions are close to idealists, hence this type of
view is called idealism.
12 B. Sławecki

2.3.2 E
 pistemological Assumptions, that is
Assumptions Concerning the Nature
of Scientific Cognition

Epistemology is the field of philosophy dealing with cognition and

knowledge. Its name comes from Greek ēpistemē, which means “knowl-
edge”. In literature, one may also encounter the name theory of knowl-
edge (Benton and Craib 2010). The fundamental issues of epistemology
include the question of the sources of human cognition, the question
about the role of experience in the creation of knowledge, the participa-
tion of reason in this phenomenon, the problem of the relationship
between knowledge and certainty, and other detailed problems concen-
trated around the issue of the nature of truth, the nature of experience,
and the nature of meaning (Woleński 2004).
In seventeenth-century discussions of philosophy and science, there
were two main alternative and mutually exclusive views on the nature of
cognition. The first one was characterized by a “rationalist” approach,
recognizing the primacy of human reason. Its supporters were under the
strong influence of mathematics, in which absolutely certain conclusions
were reached by way of formal reasoning. The famous Cartesian “Cogito
ergo sum” is an example of a statement which, as a result of pure work of
the mind—systematically doubting everything—led its author to a
reconstruction of the entire edifice of knowledge. The alternative (so-­
called auxiliary) model was “empiricism”. Representatives of this current
saw the only source of knowledge about the world in sensory experience.
At the moment of birth, the human mind is a blank slate which is filled
with experiences during life. This “filling” consists in recognizing and
accepting repeatable patterns to which some general ideas are attached.
Knowledge is nothing other than isolating these patterns in human expe-
rience, and the conclusions drawn from them (Benton and Craib 2010).
As eminent experts on the subject claim, currently, a turn in epistemol-
ogy toward empiricism, that is, a departure from its purely rational ver-
sion, can be observed (cf.; Hetmański 2008; Sintonen et al. 2004). It is
the most intuitive approach to cognition, closest to the common sense of
most people. To see, to touch, to smell—means to believe.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 13

It can be concluded that the essence of the debate at the level of epis-
temological assumptions lies in invoking a certain opposition concerning
orientation toward explaining and predicting events in the social world
by searching for regularities, laws, and permanent relationships between
its elements (variables) (Burrell and Morgan 1985). One of the views is
the adoption of a traditional approach of natural sciences in the domain
of the social sciences. Making this choice, it should be assumed that
knowledge grows in a cumulative manner, and the process consists in
adding successive portions of certain and reliable knowledge by way of
verification or falsification of new scientific hypotheses. From an
extremely opposite point of view, there is no such thing as generally
applicable laws regulating the course of social events. Social reality is in
its essence relativist and may be explored only in a limited way by attempt-
ing to understand it from the point of view of the individuals who experi-
ence it. In accordance with this assumption, one should reject the
possibility of objective cognition of the social world and adopt the thesis
about the multitude of social realities (cf. Schütz 1972), which may be
understood only by stepping into the shoes of a participant of the events
under analysis. Science is not able to generate any objective knowledge
and it is naturally subjectivist.
One of the more interesting ideas making it possible to understand
and show the practical application of epistemological assumptions is the
concept of epistemological metaphor used by the recognized theoreti-
cian of organization and management, Gareth Morgan (1980, 1981,
1983, 2006). As Monika Kostera (1996) puts it, Morgan treats research
as a kind of involvement in the world, and this is why he proposes setting
scientific methods in a broader philosophical context. Metaphor is the
expression of the epistemological position of a person designing and con-
ducting research, according to which the ways of perceiving, explaining,
and understanding the world recognized by them are more appropriate
and valid than others. According to Morgan (2006), we use metaphor
whenever we attempt to understand one element of an experience in
terms of another. Thanks to metaphors, people “read” reality, express
what would otherwise be difficult or impossible to express. “A memorable
metaphor has the power to bring two separate domains into cognitive
14 B. Sławecki

and emotional relation by using language directly appropriate to the one

as a lens for seeing the other” (Black 1962, p. 236, as cited in: McCloskey
1983, p. 503).
If we examine metaphor only on the linguistic level, it is nothing
other than an analogy, a figure of speech, based on the association of
two phenomena and transferring the name of one phenomenon to the
other. However, this aspect of metaphor has little value from the point
of view of its use in social research. Much more important consequences
emerge when metaphor is understood as an internalized form belong-
ing to the sphere of the human psyche, when it is recognized as the
basic structural form of experiencing the world. According to Morgan,
it is this aspect of metaphor that is of the greatest significance, as it
makes it an instrument with which people experience reality, function
in it, try to understand, and describe it. The author clearly points it
out, among others in the introduction to his book, Images of
Organisation. In Morgan’s opinion, our theories and explanations of
organizational life are based on metaphors that lead us to see and
understand organizations in distinctive yet partial ways. Metaphor is
often just regarded as a device for embellishing discourse, but its sig-
nificance is much greater than this. The use of metaphor implies a “way
of thinking” and a “way of seeing” that pervade how we understand our
world generally.

2.3.3 Methodologies

Methodology is treated here as a set of certain choices concerning the

way in which a given phenomenon can be studied. David Silverman
(2005) thinks that methodologies may be defined broadly and sche-
matically (e.g. methodologies of qualitative and quantitative research)
or narrowly and precisely (e.g. the methodology of grounded theory,
case analysis, ethnography). In his opinion, a methodology refers to
the choices we make about cases to study, methods of data gathering,
forms of data analysis, and so on, in planning and executing a research
study. So our methodology defines how one goes about studying any
phenomenon.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 15

Methodologies are therefore practical ways of learning about the world

using various methods of collecting and analyzing quantitative and/or
qualitative data. They result from the assumptions, adopted by the
researcher more or less consciously, on the nature of the social world and
the concept of exploring it. They are therefore a derivative of philosophi-
cal assumptions—ontological and epistemological. If, for example, we
assume that social reality is of objective nature and can be explored by
way of isolating structures and interrelationships between observable
manifestations of the phenomenon under study existing outside, then, in
conducting research, we will strive to specify the measures of the given
phenomenon (variables), the manner of collecting data about the vari-
ables (e.g. in the form of a questionnaire of a postal survey), the scale and
scope of our activities (selection of the sampling frame and research sam-
ple), and the ways of analyzing the collected quantitative material.
Burrell and Morgan (1985) believe that debates conducted in the area
of the methodology of social research oscillate around two alternative
models of scientific conduct, being a consequence of the choices made at
earlier levels of philosophical assumptions—that is, ontological and epis-
temological. The authors also point out the relationship between meth-
odology and the objectives of social research, and treating as science
either ideographic or nomothetic. The first approach—close to the
humanist orientation in social research—is based on the conviction that
one can only understand the social world by obtaining first-hand infor-
mation which the participants of events have. Hence the need to come as
close as possible to the subject under investigation, analyze the back-
ground, context, and history is emphasized here. In ideographic models,
it is important to capture the nature of the given phenomenon and create
the most complete possible description of that phenomenon by concen-
trating on details, properties, characteristics, and an in-depth case analy-
sis. The essence of the nomothetic approach is to capture the properties
of the phenomenon under research which are common, repeatable, and
significant for all the cases analyzed. In this type of explanation, the need
to control the research process by following established procedures and
techniques is emphasized. It is important to maintain the scientific rigor
adapted from the natural sciences, which is intended to guarantee objec-
tivity of judgment. Methodologies used to execute tasks of this type use
16 B. Sławecki

all kinds of standardized methods and instruments of data collection and

analysis (e.g. surveys, interview questionnaires, tests).
What are the methodologies of qualitative research characterized
by? Monika Kostera (2007) writes that qualitative research strives to
achieve as accurate a description as possible of a fragment of social
reality undisturbed by the researcher. It is aimed at understanding,
enlightening, and potentially extrapolating the results to similar situ-
ations. Research of this type makes it possible to build comprehensive
knowledge—that is, presenting phenomena in their natural context.
Knowledge, resulting from qualitative researchers’ investigations, is
close to the perspective of social actors, it is an attempt at represent-
ing the way in which social actors understand reality, what the motives
and manners of their actions are. Qualitative methodologies are
inductive by nature; they primarily use an idiographic style of
explanation.
Matthew Miles and A. Michael Huberman (1994) created a list of
qualitative research characteristics recurring in the literature. Among
them, the authors name the following:

• Qualitative research is characterized by intense and long-lasting con-

tact with a “field” or life situation which is usually normal; that is, it is
a reflection of people’s everyday life.
• Researchers try to present the data on the observations of local social
actors in a holistic manner, in a way “from the inside”, by understand-
ing and suspending (leaving aside) predetermined opinions and
judgments.
• From the very beginning of the research process, researchers use
research tools which are not overly standardized, taking the active role
of formulating questions or the scope of observations, interviews, and
analyses upon themselves.

Among the most common, and at the same time the best described
methodologies of qualitative research, the following are listed: various
versions of grounded theory, ethnographic research, case analysis, focus
studies, action research, discourse analysis, critical studies, feminist stud-
ies, and the narrative approach.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 17

2.4 Types of Paradigms in Social Sciences

2.4.1 T
 wo Dimensions and Four Paradigms:
The Classification of Gibson Burrell and Gareth
Morgan (1985)

One of the better-known classifications of paradigms in social sciences

was developed over 30 years ago by Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan
(1985). Using two dimensions from the analysis of the assumptions
underlying various social theories, the authors created a matrix of four
key paradigms. The first dimension—subjectivism-objectivism—refers
to the discussion on the nature of social sciences. The second one—
regulation-­radical change—concerns the dispute on the nature of
society.
The subjectivism-objectivism dimension was distinguished as a result
of an analysis of the bases of the main debates conducted in the area of
ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. The
authors of the discussed concept assumed that the approach to practicing
science presented by scientists is a sequence of consistent and internally
coherent choices within the indicated levels of philosophical assump-
tions. Adopting specific assumptions about the social reality leads to
favoring an adequate form of the theory of cognition, the concept of
man, and the practical path of conducting research.
According to the authors, two alternative approaches are possible in
social sciences. The first one—objectivist—in its purest form assumes
that the nature of reality is hard, verifiable, external, and objective (real-
ism). Scientific cognition consists in the analysis of repeatable patterns
and relationships between elements of the phenomena under study
(nomothetic science), which are primal in relation to the actions of indi-
viduals, groups, and communities (social determinism). In order to dis-
cover the universal laws governing the social world, one needs to isolate
and measure specific variables and the interrelationships between them,
using quantitative (statistical) methods.
The second approach—subjectivist—emphasizes the primacy of indi-
vidual experience in the creation of social reality (idealism). In order to
18 B. Sławecki

understand people and the way in which they act, one needs to come as
close as possible to the subject under study, capture and describe how
people create their unique worlds while remaining free and, in principle,
the primary creators of social reality. Research here is based on an accep-
tance of the relativist nature of the world and strives to provide the most
complete possible description of the analyzed phenomena in order to
explore them in depth (ideographic studies; analytic induction).
The regulation-radical change dimension, as we mentioned earlier,
refers to the issue of the nature of society. Based on an analysis of socio-
logical theories, Burrell and Morgan introduce their own categories, dis-
tinguishing the sociology of radical change and the sociology of regulation.
The former is created on the basis of a conviction that man strives to free
himself from structures which limit his development potential. Focusing
on the conflict-generating nature of interrelationships in society, its rep-
resentatives aim to point out and explain the existing differences, divi-
sions, and dominances of certain social layers or classes over others. The
sociology of regulation on the other hand includes the works of those
theoreticians who, first and foremost, strive to present society in catego-
ries of unity and coherence. This branch of sociology aims to answer the
question of why societies last as single beings.
Burrell and Morgan claim that their distinction of regulation-radical
change may serve as an outline of the analysis of social theories. In
their opinion, in connection with the subjectivism-objectivism dimen-
sion, it constitutes a powerful tool for the identification and analysis of
the assumptions underlying all scientific theories. Juxtaposing both
dimensions, the authors distinguished four basic paradigms in social
sciences: functionalism, interpretivism, radical structuralism, and radi-
cal humanism.
The authors of the concept claim that individual paradigms—in spite
of the fact that they come into contact with each other—should be per-
ceived as completely distinct from each other. The basis for this distinct-
ness is the irreconcilable assumptions which underlie them. Burrell and
Morgan assume that all theoreticians dealing with social analysis may be
placed within the presented paradigms. At the same time, they believe
that, as with any map, this one also is a tool which shows the current loca-
tion of the researcher, but also their previous and future locations.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 19

Moreover, it is possible to take various positions within a single para-

digm. Below, we present a short description of the paradigms distin-
guished by Burrell and Morgan.
Functionalism is an approach which dominated the social sciences for
a long time. Its representatives perceive society in categories of integrity,
invariability, unity, order, status quo, searching for universal laws and the
reasons for the coherent nature of social reality. The functionalist para-
digm is deeply embedded in positivist literature, recognizing the reality
and the objective nature of the social world. Functionalists are pragma-
tists searching for knowledge which is useful and which may serve the
purpose of predicting and controlling social processes by providing prac-
tical solutions in response to practical problems. This approach assumes
that the social world consists of relatively permanent and concrete,
empirically available elements, as well as relationships and structures
which may be identified, analyzed, and measured using methods bor-
rowed from the natural sciences. In many functionalist theories, com-
parisons straight from mechanics or biology are used to describe the
phenomena under research. Functionalism is based above all on quantita-
tive methods and analyses.
The interpretive paradigm in its essence corresponds to the under-
standing or humanist approach described above. It is deeply embedded in
the subjectivist vision of social nature and the theory of cognition. This
perspective is oriented toward understanding reality in the form in which
it is perceived by its participants (social actors). It searches for explana-
tions by referring to the consciousness, experience, beliefs, and ideas of
people who constantly construct and reconstruct their actions. The social
world is treated as a continuously emerging and changing social process
created by individuals; it is a creation of human minds, a network of
assumptions and intersubjectively shared meanings. Researchers from
this current focus on everyday life, trying to understand reality, interpret-
ing the social phenomena which occur around them. The interpretive
paradigm draws on the assumptions of the sociology of regulation—con-
trary to appearances, the issues of conflict, domination, and change are
not in the center of interest of the researchers of this trend. Rather, they
search for explanations concerning the way in which the world is con-
structed in the everyday activities of social actors.
20 B. Sławecki

Radical structuralism at the level of basic philosophical assumptions

refers to objectivism and the sociology of radical change. Representatives
of this orientation focus on structural relationships within the objectively
available reality. They stress that radical change is an inherent part of the
nature and structure of the contemporary world. Hence in the center of
interest of radical structuralists lie the issues of power, domination, and
deeply embedded internal contradictions and disputes. Researchers’
activity is not only oriented toward pure description and cognition of
these phenomena, but also plays the role of raising society’s awareness of
the not always fair interrelationships between various individuals and
groups. Therefore, science strives to propose ways for unprivileged indi-
viduals and groups to free themselves from the domination of others.
Postmodernism, similar to the interpretive paradigm, is based on the
conviction that the social world is not a material and objectively available
reality, but a product of human minds. A distinctive feature of this
approach is perceiving the world in the categories of invalidating social
limitations and moving beyond them. One of the fundamental assump-
tions underlying this orientation is the view that human consciousness is
dominated by an ideological superstructure with which man is constantly
interacting, and which constitutes a kind of cognitive wedge placed
between him and his true consciousness. The existence of this wedge
brings alienation; it causes us to deal with “false consciousness”, which
makes it impossible for us to find fulfilment. The task of this science is to
raise awareness of the existence of these cognitive limitations by exposing
the false traps of the collective consciousness and freeing the human mind
from them, which is intended to lead to self-fulfilment and development
of individuals. Society is therefore seen as oriented against man, and radi-
cal humanists aim at searching and communicating the ways in which
various limitations are imposed on people.

2.4.2 F ive Basic Paradigms: The Concept of Egon

Guba and Yvonna Lincoln (2005)

Another example of a classification of paradigms in social sciences, with

particular consideration given to qualitative research, is the study of Egon
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 21

Guba and Yvonna Lincoln (2005) published in The SAGE Handbook of

Qualitative Research. It presents the authors’ proposal for five basic
research orientations—updated compared to the first one dating back to
1994. While strongly encouraging everyone to read the above-mentioned
publication, only a short and concise description shall be presented here.
The authors analyzed the axiomatic nature of paradigms, referring to
three fundamental levels of philosophical assumptions—ontology, episte-
mology, and methodology. As a result, they distinguished the following
paradigms: positivism, postpositivism, critical theory, constructivism,
and the participatory paradigm, added in 2000.

Positivism, which we mentioned before, at the ontological level refers

to the realistic concept of social reality. It therefore assumes the exis-
tence of an objective world, external to the person conducting research;
in it, that person searches for laws, rules, and repeatable patterns of
activity isolated from a non-significant context. With reference to epis-
temological assumptions, positivism assumes dualism and objectivism.
It is possible to maintain the attitude of an external observer and thus
eliminate the influence of values, opinions, and subjective beliefs. The
aim of the research is to explain, predict, and control the social phe-
nomena under study. Knowledge, which grows in a cumulative manner,
is gathered by way of verification of hypotheses, establishing facts and
laws. The methodology is characterized by an experimental approach,
with the use of quantitative methods in order to verify the truth of the
judgments given.

Postpositivism is a slightly “weaker” version of positivism. In the

area of ontological assumptions, it is characterized by critical real-
ism—recognizing the objective nature of reality while assuming that
due to the limitations of human senses, it can only be understood in
an imperfect way and somewhat approximately. Postpositivists con-
sider the aim of their inquiries to be prediction and control, yet in the
area of epistemology, they use a modified version of dualism/objectivism.
They find, above all, that it is impossible to completely eliminate the
influence of the researcher on the phenomenon under study, but one
should aim to reduce it as much as possible. Conducting research, one
22 B. Sławecki

should also—in reference to the “critical tradition” of scientific

research—realize as accurately as possible in what way the research was
conducted by subjecting its results and the manner of arriving at these
results to the critical evaluation of the scientific community. In the
methodological layer, postpositivism assumes critical pluralism, which
says that since the human mind has limitations (critical realism), one
should aim to diversify the sources and types of data, using various
theories, methods, and researchers. So the point is to make active use
of the so-called triangulation. Hence in the methodological layer, it is
also acceptable to use qualitative methods, even though the quantita-
tive approach is predominant.

Critical theory also borrows the acceptance of the objectivist vision of

the world from the natural sciences, yet in the area of epistemology, it
presents a subjectivist position, definitely closer to the reality under
study. Historical realism—as this is how the authors call it—is charac-
terized by the assumption that reality is shaped by social, political, cul-
tural, economic, ethnic, and other values. The aim of research here is to
explain, but also to raise people’s awareness of a certain ideological
grounding from which one may free oneself in the direction of “true,
non-falsified consciousness”. Therefore in this case, the reality of beings
and the existence of some objective truth is assumed, while at the same
time it is recognized that the sociocultural grounding of human actions
plays an important role and, in order to explore it, one should refer to
people’s experience. While in the case of previous paradigms, the
researcher took on the role of an uninvolved person focused on provid-
ing information to those responsible for introducing changes, in the area
of critical theory the researcher is perceived as a spokesperson and activ-
ist transforming data so that it becomes comprehensible to the recipient
and presenting the position and context of events of the community
under study. The methodology is therefore described as dialogic or dia-
lectical, oriented toward debunking false beliefs by reaching them with
the use of qualitative and quantitative research, the knowledge of his-
tory, the meaning of values, and knowledge of what incapacitation is
and what direction the emancipation, liberation, or rehabilitation of
individuals should take.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 23

Constructivism in the ontological layer shares the subjectivist attitude

toward reality, accepting relativism, that is, the existence of many locally
constructed and reconstructed realities. It assumes the existence of vari-
ous social worlds, functioning above all in human minds, and not as
objectively available, common external structures. Some scholars empha-
size, however, that constructivism has many variations, and some of them
also function in the realist “camp”. It is sufficient to assume that certain
reconstructions are of a collective nature and assume the shape of an
agreement or consensus, thanks to which something becomes something
by virtue of shared meanings and ways of understanding the given phe-
nomenon. At the level of epistemological assumptions, constructivists
accept subjectivism. In their opinion, it is impossible to separate the
researcher from their beliefs and values. Moreover, as realities exist only
in human minds and social worlds keep being constructed and recon-
structed, the only way of learning about them is to refer to the subjective
experience, opinions, beliefs, and values of their creators. And so the
researcher assumes the role of “participant”, whom Guba and Lincoln call
the “facilitator of multi-­voice reconstruction”. Methodologies are ori-
ented at interpreting meanings, so they are hermeneutical and dialectical
in nature. The point is, on the one hand, to bring out certain individual
constructs and subject them to interpretation, and on the other, to com-
pare and contrast individual meanings in order to generate one or more
shared constructs. Various data sources are used—mainly qualitative, but
also quantitative methods and data. The context of events is important.

The participatory paradigm, or the paradigm based on cooperation, at

the ontological level recognizes the subjective-objective nature of reality.
As explained by John Heron (1996, p. 11), one of the authors of the
approach discussed here, reality is subjective, because it is available only
in the form in which the human mind presents it. At the same time, it is
objective, because a certain given reality, or as Heron puts it, cosmos, that
is, a specific harmonious whole, is available to the human mind. Reality
is therefore co-created by the mind and the given cosmos. Epistemology
assumes interaction, participation in the exchanges between the knower
and the known. The roles are interchangeable—the known is also a
knower, for we should remember that we are dealing with the social
24 B. Sławecki

world, not nature. The nature of knowing is practical, participative.

Mutual cognition is partial and open to change. At the methodological
level, forms of research which fit in the given reality in the practical, con-
ceptual, empathic, and imaginal sense are adopted. Inquiring requires the
ability to recognize and build an intersubjective space grounded in a
given cultural context. Research based on cooperation is founded on the
use of language located in shared experience. The researcher has to have
(and they are educated accordingly) emotional competence and a demo-
cratic personality, and be actively involved in the given reality.

2.5  onclusions: Who Needs Knowledge

C
About Paradigms in Social Sciences?
As Normal Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (2005) claim, the contemporary
researcher cannot afford not to know any of the paradigms and perspec-
tives currently practiced in the social sciences. In their opinion, scholars
need to understand the basic ethical, ontological, epistemological, and
methodological assumptions of paradigms and be able to enter into a
dialogue with them. According to the authors, the differences between
paradigms have significant and important implications at the practical,
everyday, empirical level. To know the basics of the philosophy of social
sciences is therefore a duty of every well-educated person dealing with
social research. But is it solely a duty? The authors mention the translat-
ability of theoretical perspectives into practical actions. How should we
interpret this?
The answer to this question is given, among others, by Ted Benton and
Ian Craib (2010), who discuss the “auxiliary” role of philosophy in social
sciences. In their opinion, in the auxiliary model, philosophy should pro-
vide guidelines and support to the researchers who study the reality
around them. This support may be provided in at least three ways:

• Assuming that in our thinking there is bias, prejudice, and indiscrimi-

nate assumptions which constitute an obstacle to the progress of sci-
ence, the role of philosophy may consist in exposing and criticizing
them.
 Paradigms in Qualitative Research 25

• Philosophy may also outline a map presenting the state of scientific

knowledge which will make it possible for specialists in individual
domains to work out their position in the field of knowledge.
• Finally, philosophers may use their abilities—above all their expertise
in logic and argumentation—to perfect research methodologies and
methods.

Philosophy is not just an academic discipline. Every person experi-

ences difficult moments in life, when they ponder over fundamental val-
ues and principles that guide their actions. At the same time, each of us
deals with philosophy in a sense also when we settle the basic problems of
everyday life, for example, analyzing our relationships with people and
our influence on others, choosing how we spend our free time, or decid-
ing on a job or other activities.

References
Benton, T., & Craib, I. (2010). Philosophy of Social Science: The Philosophical
Foundations of Social Thought (2nd ed.). Houndsmill/Basingstoke/New York:
Palgrave.
Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1985). Sociological Paradigms and Organisational
Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life. Farnham: Routledge.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2005). The SAGE Handbook of
Qualitative Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Giddens, A. (1993). New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of
Interpretative Sociologies. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic Controversies,
Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed., pp. 191–215).
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Heller, M. (2011). Philosophy in Science. Berlin: Springer.
Heron, J. (1996). Co-Operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition.
London: Sage.
Hetmański, M. (2008). Epistemology—Old Dilemmas and New Perspectives.
Dialogue and Universalism, 18(7/8), 11–28.
26 B. Sławecki

Kostera, M. (1996). Postmodernizm w zarządzaniu [Postmodernism in

Management]. Warsaw: PWE.
Kostera, M. (2007). Organisational Ethnography: Methods and Inspirations.
Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed., enl). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
McCloskey, D. (1983). The Rhetoric of Economics. Journal of Economic
Literature, 21(2), 481–517.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An
Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Morgan, G. (1980). Paradigms, Metaphors, and Puzzle Solving in Organization
Theory. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(4), 605–622.
Morgan, G. (1981). The Schismatic Metaphor and Its Implications for
Organizational Analysis. Organization Studies, 2(1), 23–44.
Morgan, G. (1983). More on Metaphor: Why We Cannot Control Tropes in
Administrative Science. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(4), 601–607.
Morgan, G. (2006). Images of Organization (Updated ed.). Thousand Oaks:
Sage.
Schutz, A. (1972). Collected Papers I. M. Natanson (Ed.) (T. 11). Dordrecht:
Springer Netherlands.
Silverman, D. (2005). Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook.
London: Sage.
Sintonen, M., Wolenski, J., & Niiniluoto, I. (2004). Handbook of Epistemology.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Woleński, J. (2004). The History of   Epistemology. In I. Niiniluoto, M. Sintonen, &
J. Woleński (Eds.), Handbook of Epistemology (pp. 3–54). Dordrecht: Springer
Netherlands.
 3
Grounded Theory
Przemysław Hensel and Beata Glinka

3.1 Introduction1
Grounded theory is a strategy for conducting qualitative research; its ori-
gins in social sciences date back to the 1960s. It is founded on three
principles: First, researchers should embark on fieldwork without having
formulated any hypotheses. By doing so, they ensure that existing theo-
ries do not affect their perception of phenomena encountered during
fieldwork. Second, the method requires that researchers continuously
compare and contrast pieces of collected empirical material. Through
such comparison, a set of codes is developed and used subsequently for
organizing and interpreting the empirical material, and for singling out
the most important categories that will serve in formulating a theory
about the studied phenomenon. Third, the research process is governed
by the principle of theoretical sampling. Researchers select individuals

P. Hensel (*) • B. Glinka

University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 27

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_3
28 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

and groups participating in the study in order to expand the researcher’s

understanding of the problem rather than to form a representative sam-
ple, which is common for more traditional methodologies.
In this chapter, we shall present the genesis of grounded theory, its
major principles and areas of application. It shall allow the reader to grasp
the essential elements of grounded theory, understand basic differences
between grounded theory and other research concepts, understand basic
principles of research and become familiar with the most common meth-
ods and their application in procedures typical of grounded theory, and
finally identify cases that best lend themselves to grounded theory
methods.

3.2 Origins of Grounded Theory

Grounded theory dates back to the 1960s, when Barney G. Glaser and
Anselm L. Strauss published The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies
for Qualitative Research (1967). Since then, it has become one of the most
influential methodological perspectives in social sciences. Grounded the-
ory was created in opposition to the paradigm of deduction-based
research process that had prevailed for decades. The deductive process
begins with formulating hypotheses based on the existing theories; the
collection of data follows; the process culminates in the verification of
hypotheses as they are juxtaposed with the data. This deductive proce-
dure has always had as many advocates as critics. Its proponents claim,
inter alia, that more general and broader theories can be developed on the
basis of logical arguments formulated on a number of a priori assump-
tions. Deductive procedures simplify the verification of the theory and its
potential modification. Critics argue that this approach inhibits the
emergence of new concepts; what is more, in the process of verifying the
theory, we adjust the reality and the data to the theory’s convention, even
if its fundamental role is to reflect the reality, not the other way around.
Glaser and Strauss (1967) proposed a method that was alternative to the
deductive approach and called it “grounded theory.” Grounded theory
employs inductive methods that have a long tradition in social sciences:
as Glaser, one of the originators of grounded theory, recently stated, “GT
 Grounded Theory 29

is simply the discovery of emerging patterns in data” (Walsh et al. 2015,

p. 593). Glaser and Strauss’s approach is strongly related to symbolic
interactionism, an approach to social reality that can be traced back to
the work of George Herbert Mead. According to Blumer, it is based on
the following three premises (Blumer 1969/2007, pp. 5–9). Firstly,
human beings act toward objects2 on the basis of the meaning that these
objects have for them. Secondly, the meaning of objects is derived from
the social interaction between the individual and its environment.
Thirdly, the meaning assigned to objects is subject to changes in the pro-
cesses of interpretation and interaction—not only do individuals con-
form to the existing meanings, but they also change them.
Given the above premises, grounded theory seems suitable for the
exploration of problems related to the perception of social phenomena
rather than for the study of the “objective” reality (Suddaby 2006). The
qualitative nature of this method renders it particularly suitable for
research projects based on case studies (Eisenhardt 1989).
Glaser and Strauss (1967) emphasize that their strategy of comparative
analysis focuses on the generation of theory understood as a process: in
this sense, a theory is not a finite, complete product, but evolves and
grows (just as its “objects,” i.e. social phenomena on which the theory is
based, change over time).
Comparative analysis proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) may
result in the emergence of two types of theories: substantive and formal.
Substantive theory means a theory that pertains to a specific empirical
area of sociological research, such as race relations, managerial education
or managers’ professional role. Formal theory deals with a formal, con-
ceptual area of interest, for example, the phenomenon of socialization,
the process of succession, deviation, and so on. Both types of theories can
be considered mid-range theories. Substantive and formal theories oper-
ate at a certain level of generalization and differ in terms of their degree
of generalization: they may intertwine within a single study. Numerous
theories may apply to a single area which, according to Glaser and Strauss
(1967), is a positive phenomenon (unlike in the deductive approach). It
is sometimes recommended that unexperienced researchers who carry
out projects on the basis of grounded theory for the first time should
formulate substantive rather than formal theories (Tan 2010).
30 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

Grounded theory proves useful to investigators exploring a wide vari-

ety of topics. Its methodology should be particularly valuable to the fol-
lowing groups (Martin and Turner 1986): researchers who carry out pilot
studies that precede further research on a larger scale; researchers who
carry out a case study, which is expected to provide more than just an
impression on the examined object; researchers who enquire into these
areas in organization that lend themselves best to exploration using quali-
tative methods, such as institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006)
and the emergence of proto-institutions (Hensel 2018); and researchers
who are interested in a systematic and precise collection of facts for the
purposes of high quality organizational research.
It should be noted that in recent years, grounded theory has begun to
open up to new possibilities afforded by quantitative methods and several
interesting mixed-method studies have been published (Walsh et al.
2015). The outline of grounded theory presented in this chapter may
therefore be considered an introduction and a description of one among
the numerous trends of grounded theory. We encourage readers to explore
its varieties and schools of thought (see References).

3.3 Research Strategy

Grounded theory requires the researcher to observe a set of rules of con-
duct. First of all, in line with the method, the researcher should approach
the subject with an open mind (the approach aptly described by
Czarniawska-Joerges (1992) as the anthropologic frame of mind), with-
out attempting to formulate hypotheses during the initial stages of
research.
Although the concept of grounded theory is based on the absence of
any a priori assumptions about the examined issue, it is evident that no
researcher, even a novice, is a tabula rasa and always brings to the research
process his or her own viewpoint, beliefs and suppositions, which have
been collected throughout his or her life (Suddaby 2006). It is important
to be aware of these inescapable determinants that influence the cognitive
process and to consider them in order to “put them in brackets” (Ashworth
1996; Fischer 2009). In other words, a researcher should try to under-
 Grounded Theory 31

stand, on the one hand, the extent to which his or her interpretation
reflects the analyzed reality and, on the other hand, the influence of his
or her preconceptions, preferences and beliefs.
Research carried out in accordance with the rules of grounded theory
comprises the following three stages: data collection, coding and identifi-
cation of ideas, and formulation of theories. It must, however, be empha-
sized that the above steps are intertwined. Therefore, already at the stage
of data collection relevant codes and ideas may be identified, while at the
stage of coding and the identification of ideas, the collection of additional
data may prove necessary (see Sect. 3.3.1).

3.3.1 T
 heoretical Sampling and Theoretical
Saturation

In the process of collecting data in accordance with the tenets of grounded

theory, the principle of theoretical sampling should be applied. In tradi-
tional research strategies, the process is based on a representative sample,
that is, one constructed in a manner allowing every member of a given
population to be represented in the analyzed group. In grounded theory,
the logic behind the selection of objects for study is different, as the goal
is not to “provide a perfect description of an area, but to develop a theory
that accounts for much of the relevant behavior” (Glaser and Strauss
1967, pp. 30). The sample must, therefore, provide maximum diversity
in terms of research material; when selecting groups and individuals that
will form part of the sample, the researcher must try to “generate, to the
fullest extent, as many properties of the categories as possible” (Glaser
and Strauss 1967, p. 49). The sequence of steps is also different. In studies
carried out in accordance with the deductive strategy the definition of the
population is followed by random sampling, and the process is concluded
with the examination of the objects from the sample. When grounded
theory is applied, the size and makeup of the sample are initially unknown;
it is subsequently supplemented with new objects added during the
research process. It is based on the following premise: we are only capable
of deciding whether more observations are necessary after a certain num-
ber of observations and interviews have already been carried out.
32 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

Data is collected until the point of theoretical saturation is reached,

which means that further data collection would not expand our knowl-
edge of the examined phenomenon or contribute to the development of
the theory. Some authors specify when theoretical saturation is likely to
be reached (i.e. upon having carried out a certain numbers of interviews),
but such statements should be regarded with caution. In each case, it is
the researcher’s task to decide whether theoretical saturation has been
reached. This may prove problematic to novice researchers and is, there-
fore, a matter of concern for many of them. It turns out, however, that in
the majority of research projects, the theoretical saturation point is rela-
tively easy to identify. Some researchers decide to carry out a few inter-
views or observations after the theoretical saturation point has been
reached; gathering seemingly redundant evidence provides a specific safe-
guard for their research.

3.3.2 Data Collection and Taking Notes

The first stage, which comprises the collection of data, observations and
taking notes, is laborious and time-consuming. Glaser, one of the founders
of grounded theory, claims that “all is data” (1998, p. 8). Data collection
usually involves numerous observations and interviews3 (with note-tak-
ing). Observations carried out within the framework of grounded theory
can take many forms: from simple non-participant observation to partici-
pant observation to shadowing (understood as being the “shadow” of the
research subject and accompanying him/her in daily activities, for instance
following a member of the board at work over a period of several days)
(Czarniawska 2007). Each of these methods has its advantages and limita-
tions, and the researcher should be aware of them (they are described in
detail in other chapters of this textbook3). When conducting interviews,
researchers usually have recourse to open anthropological interviews,
which are not standardized and do not have any strictly defined or homog-
enous structure. These types of interviews are helpful, because the researcher
does not seek to verify previously formulated hypotheses; on the contrary,
the purpose is to learn something, identify new and interesting threads.
Interviews ought to be recorded, because the researcher should not have to
 Grounded Theory 33

rely solely on his/her memory and notes. In addition, recording allows the
researcher to focus on the conversation and take notes that do not relate
directly to the content of the interview (which is being recorded), but, for
example, describe the circumstances, the environment, facial expressions
of the interlocutor and other factors or elements that may be relevant at
the stage of coding and interpretation. Before proceeding to the subse-
quent stage (coding), interviews are transcribed—manually or with the use
of computer applications. Transcription should be as accurate as possible,
that is, comprise all statements in their original wording along with pauses,
hesitations, laughter and other non-verbal elements.
Data obtained through interviews and observations is complementary;
it allows the researcher to depict the researched phenomenon more com-
prehensively. Furthermore, observations often allow researchers to inter-
pret data collected through interviews, or infuse it with a different
meaning. It should be noted, however, that the collection of data may go
well beyond those traditional areas and include, for example, visual data.
As pointed out by Konecki (2008), visual data can be regarded as a valid
and valuable empirical material for the formulation of theories or theo-
retical proposals.
The basic principle is the triangulation of data; its purpose is to guar-
antee greater credibility of the collected evidence and its interpretation.
Denzin (1970/2006) distinguishes four basic types of triangulation:

• methodological triangulation—combination of different research

methods
• data triangulation—using various data (e.g. comparing research car-
ried out among different groups, at different times and in different
places)
• investigator triangulation—involving multiple researchers (at the
stage of collecting material and/or its interpretation)
• theory triangulation—use of different theoretical concepts to explain
social phenomena

Taking notes is crucial: they are the starting point for the identification
of categories, or ideas, that will serve as a basis of theory. Martin and
Turner (1986, p. 145) define good notes as follows:
34 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

1. They provide complete descriptions of the studied situations, are full

of details and tell “stories” about the events.
2. They are more than a chronological record of the situation: they shed
light on the context of the events described.
3. Good notes contain as few comments as possible; if comments are
necessary, they should be clearly marked as such.

Good notes should remain useful for a long time after the research and
they can serve as a source of inspiration for future research projects. In
grounded theory, data is collected until the theoretical saturation point is
reached, which often entails a long research process, especially in the case
of complex problems (see the subsection on Sect. 3.3.1). Grounded the-
ory is therefore not a good option when time is limited. If a student
decides to rely on grounded theory to prepare his/her MA thesis with
only a few months left before the deadline, it is probably not a good idea.
Even if the thesis is submitted on time, it is likely to be incomplete,
unfinished or based on insufficient data.

3.3.3 Coding and Identification of Ideas/Concepts

Coding is a phase in the research process during which the researcher’s

attention shifts from data to abstract categories. Coding is one of the
most important stages of a research project carried out in accordance
with the principles of grounded theory, as it is during this very phase of
the study that specific categories emerge; in the final phase, they will form
the basis for the mid-range theory.
Codes should be adjusted to the empirical material and reflect the
events observed or the narratives provided by the respondents. Any
­references to theoretical concepts should be avoided to minimize the risk
of data being analyzed through a theoretical lens—after all, the aim of the
grounded theory is to proceed in the opposite direction: empirical evi-
dence should lead to development of new theory.
It should be emphasized that qualitative coding used in grounded the-
ory rests on a completely different premise than quantitative coding. In
the latter, codes and categories exist prior to the coding process, and they
 Grounded Theory 35

typically originate in existing theories. In qualitative coding, codes

“emerge from the field,” which means that they are generated during the
coding process and derive from it (Charmaz 1983).
We also need to remember that the term “code” is used in a variety of
contexts even by the precursors of grounded theory (Locke 2001). Coding
can be construed as the process of naming individual fragments of obser-
vation, but also as assigning observations to specific categories and the
theoretical analysis of the created codes.
Regardless of the adopted coding strategy, the crux of this phase is the
constant comparison of the various elements that form part of the col-
lected empirical material. It results in the creation of interesting codes
that, in turn, allow the researcher to formulate compelling conceptualiza-
tions and captivating theories.
Clearly, the meaning of codes is determined by the context of com-
parisons. A quote becomes meaningful only after it is juxtaposed with
other statements on a similar topic. Codes and categories are created as a
result of comparing statements; it also provides them with a specific
meaning.
A variety of coding strategies are applied to empirical material
(Charmaz 2006, pp. 42–71): word-by-word coding, line-by-line coding
or incident-to-incident coding. The three coding strategies have the same
goal, namely, they let the researcher look at the empirical evidence with
the anthropologic frame of mind, in order to perceive new phenomena
within well-known and seemingly trivial behaviors and descriptions of
the world. Through word-by-word coding, the researcher focuses on
nuances, on the manner in which respondents express their thoughts and
on details that might elude him/her if other methods of coding were
applied. Line-by-line coding lets us look at the coded material through
the prism of the division imposed by the width of a column of text,
which rarely coincides with the logic of the analyzed material. In the case
of incident-to-incident coding, text analysis echoes to the greatest extent
our natural perception of the narrative. This type of coding emphasizes
the chronological order and reveals the sequence of events, along with the
broader context in which they occur. This coding method is also closest
to the original proposal advanced by Glaser and Strauss.
36 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

The choice of the coding strategy depends on many factors, including

the length of the text itself. Word-by-word coding is exceptionally well
suited to the analysis of short documents from the studied organization;
nevertheless, applying this method of coding to several hours of inter-
views would be too time-consuming. Hence, any potential benefits would
be lost given the effort expanded.
A distinct coding strategy is the so-called in vivo coding (i.e. “live cod-
ing”) (Charmaz 2006, pp. 55–57). This approach involves the creation of
codes based on terms commonly employed within the examined organi-
zation: terms that all members of the organization are familiar with. In
other words, instead of being developed in the language of the researcher,
codes are based on the language of respondents.
When specific phrases used within the organization are used as codes,
the researcher can detect different meanings attributed to these phrases;
this, in turn, may reveal certain interesting dimensions of the organiza-
tional reality. In vivo codes are, in general, specific terms used to denote
human types, objects, organizational and technological solutions.
Researchers should be aware of in vivo coding already at the stage of
interviews and observations. They must not assume that the respondent
and the researcher understand commonly used terms in the same
manner.
Coded descriptions are grouped into categories and labelled/named as
specific phenomena. The aim of this stage is not to organize the notes, but
to replace thinking about specific incidents with a more abstract analysis.
Grouping can be done, for example, on the margins of notes (transcripts of
interviews) or—as proposed by Martin and Turner—using the so-called
concepts cards. A particular description can be assigned to different catego-
ries, labels (or written on different cards), especially during initial research
phases. Nowadays, coding is usually conducted with the use of dedicated
software packages, such as Atlast.ti or NViVo. The ­longer the coding pro-
cess, the less emphasis is placed on comparing new data with other data
within the same category. The focus is shifted onto comparing new data with
the idea represented by this category. In other words, we become less inter-
ested in comparing a new citation—concerning, for instance, the perception
of organizational structures—to previously analyzed citations; instead, we
strive to understand how it contributes to our understanding of the category
that has been labelled the “perception of organizational structure.”
 Grounded Theory 37

We present below an example of the use of in vivo coding and the

creation of concept cards in the study of the language employed by CEOs
of large Polish companies operating in the FMCG sector in the context
of discussing organizational changes.

Example 3.1 Examples of Results Obtained with Grounded Theory

Methods. Source: Authors’ Own
Czarniawska-Joerges (1988) identifies four main linguistic tools that are
applied to construct the organizational reality: labels, metaphors, clichés
and irony. Labels serve primarily the purpose of classification. For a phrase
or expression to become a label, it must be repeated time and time again. It
is through repetition and dissemination that a phrase gains its categorizing
power. Labels are essential in the process of constructing reality, primarily
because prior to measuring up with a problem, we have to name it. Naming
the problem presents multiple advantages: first and foremost, what is
named becomes familiar. Once a phenomenon is named, we feel more
assured. The same mechanism is observed, for instance, when members of
aboriginal tribes name meteorological phenomena after deities, in an
attempt to “tame” them. Labelling allows us to structure the world around
us: through naming specific phenomena, we define relationships between
them.
Czarniawska-Joerges believes that labelling is a powerful tool of influ-
ence within the organization. More often than not, the name we attribute
to a phenomenon contains a value-laden element and indications about the
future (i.e. what should be done with this phenomenon). Those who are
able to convince others to adopt their labels hold a mighty tool with which
they can exercise power. Weick (1985) points to the role of labels in organi-
zational life:

Labels carry their own implications for action, and that is why they
are so successful in the management of ambiguity. Consider these
labels: that is a cost (minimize it), that is a spoilage (reduce it) ... this is
a stupidity (exploit it), and so forth. In each of these instances a label
consolidates bits and pieces of data, gives the meaning, suggests
appropriate action, implies a diagnosis, and removes ambiguity.
(Weick 1985, p. 128, quoted in Czarniawska-Joerges 1988, p. 15)

Types of labels depend on the particular situation of a given organization.

Labels in times of change differ from those that are used when the organi-
zation does not go through any spectacular transformation. What is more,
a label may denote different phenomena and its value is contingent on the
current situation of the organization.
(...)
38 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

Through coding and analysis of the material, a number of labels used by

the managers of the analyzed company have been distinguished. By far, the
strongest label is “structure.”

Extracts from the concept card for the “structure” code

“I have been convinced from the very beginning that these prob-
lems are due to the organizational structure.”
“This new structure is completely different from the previous one.
You never step into the same river twice.”
“I have had here my fair share of failures, and this is due to the
structure of the company: it is not open to outsiders.”

The label was mentioned several times during each interview with mem-
bers of the Board. Different meanings were assigned to the “structure”
label: some defined it as the division of tasks and responsibilities within the
organization, others understood it as a hierarchy or nomenclature that
does not accept outsiders.
It is linked to a number of secondary labels: centralization, decentraliza-
tion and divisionalization.

Extracts from the “centralization” code concept card

“Prior to these changes, the company was managed in a rather cen-
tralist manner.”
“The abolition of centralism meant that the staff very quickly felt
there was no one supervising them, which immediately brought disas-
trous effects.”
“In Communist times, the enterprise was centralized to the same
extent everything was centralized during that period.”
“Later, during the transformation period, some things could not be
centrally controlled and certain decisions were made, granting a high
degree of autonomy to these entities.”

Extracts from the “decentralization” code concept card

“A decision was made to maximize decentralization.”
“To this day, this maximum decentralization is in progress.”
“After a period of overall decentralization, we went back to central-
ization and the process of renewed, reasonable centralization is still
ongoing.”
“I tried to get what I could out of that decentralized structure.”

Extracts from the “divisionalization” code concept card

“The new divisional structure will allow us to organize everything.”
“Due to the resistance of factory floor staff, the process of division-
alisation is not, in fact, what we would like it to be.”
“We are now starting to create a divisional structure.”
 Grounded Theory 39

In order to explain the importance attached by respondents to the struc-

ture label, we must look back into the company's history. In recent years,
the company has undergone a thorough restructuring process with three
distinct stages. At the beginning, it was managed centrally, from its head-
quarters in Warsaw. In 1989, the company initiated a far-reaching decen-
tralization process, only to eventually revert to the centralization of
management several years later.
The consequence of the above is a certain confusion related to the valu-
ation of labels. Labels that once were considered positive (e.g. decentraliza-
tion), now have a negative status, because the management believes that
the majority of the company’s problems have their roots in excessive decen-
tralization. The opposite has been observed in the case of the centralization
label: once a symbol of mismanagement and poor structure, it is now pro-
moted as a remedy.
Managers do their best to make sure that labels are understood in the
way they “should” be understood at a given point in time. Thus, they are
almost always qualified with adjectives that help distinguish the old mean-
ing from the new.

Table 1 Adjectives affecting the valuation of labels

Label Positive qualification Negative qualification
Structure New Old
Centralization Reasonable, certain, new, Communist-style
similar to the centralization
of international
corporations
Decentralization Reasonable Maximum,
wide-ranging
Divisionalization Allowing to organize
everything

Divisionalization is a particular example, as this label has replaced the

previous centralization label. Therefore, instead of saying, “we revert to
centralization,” the company refers to “divisionalization” which, in the
case of this entity, is synonymous with centralization.

Codes and categories are not rated as more or less true, but as more or
less useful. Over time, irrelevant codes cease to be used, whereas useful con-
cepts remain helpful. Through the analysis of relations between the most
useful categories, the core category is formulated. It then becomes the most
40 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

important axis of the theory that is being created. The analysis that allows
the researcher to explore the relationship between codes and concepts is
called axial coding. When selecting categories, our primary goal should be
to ensure that the level of abstraction is high enough to avoid creating a
separate category for each incident, yet sufficiently low to ensure that each
concept relates to a specific phenomenon. It should be emphasized that
little is irreversible in grounded theory: if categories prove excessively
detailed or abstract, they can be subsequently modified. The process is, by
definition, non-linear and iterative, and therefore nothing prevents the
researcher from going back to the previous phase and, for instance, creating
a new category at any stage of the research process. The primary and over-
arching methodological requirement is fidelity toward the empirical data.
Glaser (1978) distinguishes two types of coding: substantive and theo-
retical. In his view, substantive codes conceptualize the empirical substance
of the researched area, while theoretical codes conceptualize the manner in
which substantive codes may relate to each other. In other words, theoreti-
cal coding allows us to integrate substantive codes (Hernandez 2009;
Holton 2010). Glaser also proposes “a list of ‘coding families’ that contain
codes unified through logical and formal relationships (e.g. elements, divi-
sions, characteristics, sectors, segments etc.) or the dimension of relation-
ships (e.g. strategies, tactics, achievements, manipulation, maneuvering,
intrigues, meaning, goals, etc.)” (Konecki 2008, pp. 91).
He proposes a total of 18 coding families (which are not mutually
exclusive), including, for example, the “The Six Cs” family (causes, con-
texts, contingencies, consequences, covariances and conditions), the
“Process” family (including stages, phases, transitions, passages, careers,
chains and sequences), or the “Degree” family (comprising, inter alia,
extent, level, intensity, range and critical points) (Konecki 2008,
pp. 91–92). Other approaches to coding can also be found in the extant
literature (e.g. Strauss and Corbin 1990).

3.3.4 Generating Theory

It is, by definition, impossible to formulate a single recipe for developing

a valid scientific theory. This creative process is complex and the applica-
 Grounded Theory 41

tion of an imposed algorithm does not guarantee good results (Strauss

and Corbin 1990; Suddaby 2006).
The crux of this concept—understood as a formula for developing a
theory—lies in the integration of the three phases of data collection men-
tioned above. As the authors of the concept argue, “Joint collection, cod-
ing, and analysis of data is the underlying operation. The generation of
theory, coupled with the notion of theory as process, requires that all
three operations be done together as much as possible” (Glaser and
Strauss 1967, p. 43).
As the research process unfolds, the investigator better understands
the studied phenomena; the codes, categories and hypotheses formu-
lated begin to reflect reality to a greater extent, creating a grid of mean-
ings around the core category. The core category should play a central
role and explain to a great extent the described behavior, refer to many
observations and be significantly correlated with other categories
­
(Goulding 2002).
It must, however, be emphasized that theory does not emerge from the
data itself; data does not “choose” the manner in which it wishes to be
recounted (Locke 2001, p. 53). In fact, the researcher keeps making deci-
sions that shape to a great extent the theory that will be formulated at the
end of the research process. The researcher decides which data will be
taken into account and which will be discarded, what seems interesting
and what is banal, and so on.
According to Glaser and Strauss, a theory consists of categories and
properties, as well as the relationships between them. Both derive from
the data that has been collected and analyzed. What is the difference
between them? An example of a category is the “perception of modern
management techniques,” while a property is the justification of the use
of such techniques. Relations between categories are discovered through
comparison. At this stage, it is recommended to take notes and draw
diagrams to visualize such comparisons (Locke 2001, p. 52).
One of the stages of generating a theory is the formulation of hypoth-
eses that emerge as a result of comparing the empirical evidence collected
in different places or derived from interviews with various interlocutors.
Glaser and Strauss emphasize that what we deal with throughout the
process is the logic of exploring the theory, and therefore we do not need
42 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

to concern ourselves with the number of cases on the basis of which we

hypothesize: the aim is not to verify on the basis of a representative sam-
ple, but to develop a theory.
In the following step, hypotheses are integrated: thus, the theory is
developed. An integrated theory emerges from the data, and therefore the
researcher should not be tempted to try and match the theory with other
concepts derived from the extant literature. Literature research can only
supplement the collected data and it should not have any substantial
impact on the final theory.
At this stage, the researcher can also note references to literature and
existing theories (both Glaser (1978) and Turner (1981) object to refer-
ring to literature at earlier stages in order to minimize the impact of exist-
ing theories on the process of formulating one’s own concepts related to
the subject of research; nevertheless, Strauss and Corbin recommend
­tapping into the existing sources during the early stages of the research4).
The process of in-depth defining of categories is non-linear and iterative:
certain common threads may start to appear at an early stage of research,
and one often goes back to previously described phenomena.

3.4  isconceptions Related to Grounded

M
Theory
The grounded theory method is based on premises that strongly differ
from those typical of traditional, deductive research (see Sect. 3.1). At the
same time, it is an iterative method, which requires the investigator to
repeatedly go back to earlier stages of the research. Conflicts around the
“right” understanding of grounded theory are all the more understand-
able when we take into account that even the authors of the original
concept eventually “fell out” and each of them advanced his own, distinct
version of the theory. In his later studies, Glaser emphasizes the emer-
gence of theory from data, while Strauss (in cooperation with Corbin)
advocates the use of strict coding rules (Goulding 2002, pp. 158–160).
Glaser argues that Strauss’s suggestion contradicts the very premise of
grounded theory (Glaser 1992). Glaser’s approach seems to put a greater
emphasis on creativity, potentially at the expense of theoretical cohesion,
 Grounded Theory 43

while the approach represented by Strauss and Corbin poses the risk of
excessive formalism and inflexibility (Fendt and Sachs 2008). The
researcher must decide on one of the two versions of the theory prior to
the commencement of research, as striving to combine them may prove
unsuccessful.
Given the above, scholars who decide to use the method for the first
time may feel confused. Let us, therefore, clarify what grounded theory is
not (Suddaby 2006):

(a) Grounded theory is not an excuse to ignore literature. As noted in

the Introduction, a researcher is not a tabula rasa, has his/her own
thoughts, opinions and at least partial knowledge of literature. No
researcher embarks on fieldwork without having formulated the
problem he/she intends to examine. A general idea about the topic of
the study is necessary: without it, the researcher is likely to collect a
wealth of empirical evidence that will prove impossible to organize
and will yield no conclusions. Literature can be instrumental in
defining crucial categories that will help analyze the researched real-
ity. Detachment from the existing research, suggested by Glaser and
Strauss, means first and foremost that one should not regard the find-
ings of other researchers as absolute and unquestionable, but instead
look for new categories, concepts and codes where it is possible and
justified.
(b) Grounded theory is not presentation of the raw data. According to
Suddaby, many reports from studies carried out in accordance with
the methodology of grounded theory do not have any substantial
cognitive value because, in fact, they do not present a theory, but
only a description of events that took place within the observed social
reality. In other words, some authors fail to move up to a higher level
of abstraction: instead of exposing relationship between categories
and their properties, they present incidents organized in categories.
(c) Grounded theory is not theory testing, content analysis, or word
counts. As noted earlier, the method in question is expected to result
in the development of a new theory and not in verifying existing
hypotheses. For that reason alone, it makes no sense to use grounded
theory to test hypotheses. In addition, there is a great risk that in the
44 P. Hensel and B. Glinka

process of testing hypotheses, the researcher will identify within the

collected evidence only the categories that are related to the previ-
ously formulated hypothesis, and not those stemming from the
empirical data.
(d) Grounded theory is not simply routine application of formulaic
technique to data. As mentioned in the section on theory genera-
tion, this approach cannot be understood as a simple recipe for good
research results. Although a number of general recommendations
about methods of conducting research in accordance with the tenets
of grounded theory can be formulated, in no way does their obser-
vance guarantee the development of a new and valid theory. Neither
a strict application of coding guidelines nor the use of modern soft-
ware packages (e.g. Atlas.ti or NVivo) to analyze the empirical mate-
rial can replace the researcher’s skills of reading and interpreting the
collected evidence.
(e) Grounded theory is not perfect. According to Suddaby, the great
popularity of this method has attracted a number of scholars who
focus only on its theoretical aspects, without ever undertaking any
empirical studies. They are responsible for promoting the dogmatic
version of grounded theory and recommend to future researchers
strict adherence to their guidelines that are supposed to facilitate
research (e.g. one of these tips is that theoretical saturation is usually
reached after 25–30 interviews). Tensions between theorists and
practitioners are a natural phenomenon, yet we need to keep in mind
that the techniques of grounded theory are inherently a little “messy”
(Suddaby 2006, p. 638); the primary goal should always be the devel-
opment of a valid theory.
(f ) Grounded theory is not easy. Contrary to what one might think
after having read the best reports presenting the results of research
conducted in accordance with the tenets of grounded theory, it is not
an easy research strategy. Not only does it require the understanding
of the method itself, but also the ability to discern the impact of
researchers’ beliefs and experiences on the research process (see Sect.
3.3). What is more, not all scholars possess the same interpretation
skills and the same ability to discern patterns within the collected
material.
 Grounded Theory 45

Notes
1. The chapter contains extracts from Przemysław Hensel’s unpublished MA
thesis entitled Język podczas zmiany kulturowej (Language in the process
of cultural change), Faculty of Management, University of Warsaw, 1997.
2. For Blumer, the word “object” has a broad meaning: it encompasses physi-
cal artifacts, abstract concepts and institutions.
3. Both interviews and observations have been extensively discussed in
another chapter of this textbook.
4. For a discussion on the pros and cons of the two approaches to literature
review, see McGhee et al. (2007).

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 4
Visual Anthropology
Slawomir Magala

4.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to explain what visual anthropology is and to
demonstrate her (and her sister’s, visual sociology’s) uses in understand-
ing the increasingly sophisticated competition for our (un)divided atten-
tion. This fierce, mostly visual and iconic, competition underpins
systematically mobilized and individualized interactions and communi-
cations. These intense, passionate, individualized, mobile communica-
tions happen under our very eyes—otherwise known as processes, ebbs
and flows of social life, they accelerate with the mobile multimedia
connectivity.
Navigating our increasingly complex social worlds (real, fictitious and
virtual), comprehending these increasingly sophisticated cultural realities
(real, virtual and interactive), requires skills, access to sociocultural c­ apital

S. Magala (*)
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 49

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_4
50 S. Magala

and empowerment to employ the above-mentioned resources. Hence the

growth of interest in visual communications, which facilitate (what do
they facilitate?—learning outside of the range of control status gatekeep-
ers), accelerate (what do they accelerate?—response, which can be indi-
vidually articulated outside of institutional frames) and equalize (what do
they equalize?—with the spread of higher education and mobile phone
access to individualized information, knowledge and competence have
been driven down the social ladders). Growth of research interest, but
also growth of ideological and political hopes (“emancipation begins
when we challenge the opposition between viewing and acting” Ranciere
2009, p. 13), are among the most obvious results. Icons are not innocent,
nor is a tracing eye impartial (Goffman 1988).

4.2 What Is “Visual Anthropology”?

Visual anthropology and sociology of visual culture are the closest out-
posts of academically legitimized research community in these newly
developing, emergent, contingent territories, marked as “white spots”,
“black holes” or “terra incognita” of visual communications on our
“knowledge” maps produced through the academic division of labor.
Matters of visual communications challenge our cognitive, academically
trained talents—most of us had been raised, brought up and trained in
and on books (i.e. on records, on written documents produced either as
renderings of oral lectures or already from the very beginning designed
and composed as written reports from earlier research activities). These
books have mostly been written by older white males, whose dominant
position is nowadays being questioned, not in the least by younger, more
female and less white experts in visual communications. Visual anthro-
pology and visual sociology are not brand new appearances on an aca-
demic stage. Many researchers had signaled interest in how to draw and
maintain attention in “global villages” (cf. McLuhan 1964), how to resist
hidden persuaders working through “all consuming images” (Ewen
1988), how to explain skills in attracting audiences and spectators within
a postulated political economy of attention (Franck 1998, 2005), how to
view images as a new “alphabet” of communication (Mitchell 2005) and
 Visual Anthropology 51

how to develop competence in communicatively hyperactive “network

society” (Castells 1996, 2009). All these studies increase our knowledge
of visual communications, improve our competence in negotiating
through interactions and communications and empower us as individu-
als and citizens to implement our newly won knowledge and competence
in “making our way through the world” (Archer 2007, Hindletter et al.
2009). These efforts are slowly maturing and the latest developments in
visual anthropology/sociology and sociocultural mobilization (even if
only as “flash mobs” in shopping malls) are the case in point.
The terms “visual anthropology” and “visual sociology” are used inter-
changeably—with “visual anthropology” in the lead—due to the fact that
cultural anthropologists investigating distant, “exotic” cultures and com-
munities had started to use photographic reports before sociologists fol-
lowed them in asking photographers to document visually “how the other
half lives” (Jacob Riis in New York City) or how the impoverished tenant
farmers leave the dust bowl of Midwest, trekking toward California (Roy
Stryker and Dorothea Lange for Farm Security Administration under the
New Deal policies implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt). At pres-
ent, the anthropology of a visual image is a fast-growing domain of knowl-
edge, but so is the sociology of visual representation, of multimedia and of
visual culture (cf. Worth 1981; Levin 1993; Anker and Nelkin 2003; Sikora
2004; Olechnicki 2003a, b; Dikovitskaya 2005; Drozdowski and Krajewski
2010). The reason for this overlap is to be found in a profoundly hybrid
composition of major theoretical inputs, which generated a theoretical
frame for both visual anthropology and sociology of visual culture. These
inputs include the semiology, sociology, aesthetics, ethics and politics of
photography and of the arts inspired or influenced by photography and
mechanical reproduction of images (this line of research and criticism has
been kindled by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, cf. Barthes 1980;
Sontag 1977, 2001, 2003; Crimp 1997, Butler 2006), answering the ques-
tions: “every picture tells a story: or doesn’t it?” or “Photography is not an
opinion. Or is it?” (Sontag 2001; Hariman and Lucaites 2007). Further,
these inputs include the aesthetics of multimediated artistic communica-
tion (Panofsky 1982; Duve 1998; Belting 2003; Foster 2004; Mitchell
2005) and from media lab studies of the MIT critics and researchers often
associated with Rosalind Kraus and the “October” quarterly, which she had
52 S. Magala

co-founded with Anette Michelson (the editorial board includes Yve-Alain

Bois, Benjamin Buchloh and Hal Foster, household names in contempo-
rary art and multimedia criticism).
The emergent, though mostly tacit, consensus among researchers in
visual studies, no matter whether they tend to label themselves as “visual
anthropologists” or “visual sociologists”, is that anthropology/sociology
of images should be an interdisciplinary domain per se and that its loca-
tion on the “map” of human knowledge should situate it in a triangle
between:

• social sciences and the humanities trying to increase our understand-

ing of sociocultural flows of interactions, communications and sophis-
ticated feedbacks between them (a deliverable product of visual
anthropological/sociological research should be a body of collectively
accessible scientific/scholarly knowledge—Pauwels or Castells are
cases in point; cf. Pauwels 2006, 2009; Castells 2001, 2009).
• contemporary art and artistic practices underlying/undermining
communications and trying to improve our sensemaking practices
through the expansion of cultural resources (a deliverable product of
visual anthropological/sociological explanation and interpretation
should be an improved array of skills at selective, sophisticated, com-
petent sensemaking—e.g. Wells 1997; Manovich 2001; Elkins 2007).
• “daily life” as an increasingly complex and unpredictable flow of
interactions and communications (a deliverable product of visual
anthropology/sociology should be the “added value” of individually
acquired, critically examined, meaningful experience—e.g. Turkle
1995; Harriman and Lucaites 2007; Costello and Willsdon 2008;
Wasik 2009).

4.3  hotography: The Founding Mother

P
of Visual Anthropology/Sociology
Let us begin with the respectable, legitimate knowledge, as it is built by
visual communications of research—very early on it has been noted that
a photograph can be viewed as a “record” about culture (i.e. as a visual
 Visual Anthropology 53

document reporting on a cultural reality under consideration) or as a

record “of ” culture (i.e. as a visual artifact created within a framework of
a meaningful activity typical for a given community—for instance, when
a proud father takes a picture of his son or daughter receiving the first
holy communion, or a moved mother photographs her son getting mar-
ried or when both produce images of their offspring graduating from a
school in order to frame them and hang them in their sitting rooms). Sol
Worth spoke of a photograph “about” culture taken from the outside,
and a photograph symbolically representing this culture, taken by the
“insider”. Sikora speaks of a photograph functioning as a document
(“about”) and as a symbol (“of ”). Barthes spoke of the “stadium” of obvi-
ous topic of an image and of the “punctum” of a photograph, which
“pierces” the viewer with an illumination of a symbolic “message” (in his
brilliant essay “Camera Lucida”, whose title is an obvious pun on “Camera
Obscura”).
Roughly speaking, the documentary function, while still very signifi-
cant, slowly and gradually fades away as more sophisticated, skillfully
composed and culturally “tainted” uses of photograph and other forms of
communicated image are filling our communicative spaces. The classical
approach is well represented by Piotr Sztompka, former president of the
International Sociological Association, who acknowledges the “visual
turn” in contemporary social sciences in general, and in visual anthropol-
ogy and sociology in particular (his latest book is even entitled—quite
simply—Visual Sociology, cf. Sztompka 2005). Sztompka sees photo-
graphs as documentary evidence, on a par with the less visual, more ana-
lytical and verbally executed research procedures and methodologies. He
mentions the late Polish photographer, Zofia Rydet, who had become
famous with a huge project entitled “Sociological Record”, executed in
the years 1978–1990. “Sociological Record” involved hundreds of
“posed” portraits of older, poor or marginalized individuals in small
towns or villages of the traditional industrial region of Silesia undergoing
the dramatic transformations after the decline of the steel industry and
coal-mining, which had once made it very prosperous. The problem,
however, is that Sztompka believes Rydet prima facie takes her word for
granted, when she talks about “sociological record”—he thinks that she
means recorded documentary evidence of empirical “sociological investi-
54 S. Magala

gation”, or analytical “sociological research” tout court. However, this is

not the case. Her photographs are as far away from a documentary report
on “real life” of the poor and the marginalized individuals in Poland of
the 1970s and 1980s as are August Sander’s photographs of Germans of
all ranks and files, posing for him in their best clothes or in their profes-
sional uniforms, demonstrating their identities, their pride in their social
status and professional recognition in the 1920s.
Neither Rydet nor Sander left us with innocent anthropological or
sociological records, pure documents of objective research activities.
Their photographs are profoundly symbolic—they were made by con-
scious and competent artists exactly the way the depicted members of
local communities would have liked to be seen from the outside (which
they made clear to their sensitive, gifted and understanding “registra-
tors”). They—Sander and Rydet—took the ethnomethodological
approach seriously (though I doubt if they ever heard of the “theatre of
daily life” and “social construction of reality” inspired by phenomenolo-
gists) because this seemed to them to fit most closely with their artistic
project of symbolic representation of a society (Germans after WWI in
case of Sander) or of a region (Silesian provincial towns and villages in
case of Rydet). Please note that although some of their depicted “protago-
nists” in the spectacle of a society may seem weird, none of them is weird
in a more disturbing, psychologically “wicked” way in which Diane Arbus
photographed her “heroes” and “heroines” in the USA of the 1960s.
In order to appreciate these “layers” of meaning in a photograph,
which should not be taken at the face value of a documentary report, one
should look toward a more qualitative methodology in research prefer-
ences. Sztompka can be forgiven for his simplistic approach toward the
images skillfully constructed by Rydet, because he is not the only one
who had missed the beat of:

the exploding culture in the sway of painters, dealers, critics, shopkeepers,

second sons, Russian epicures, Spanish parvenus, and American expatri-
ates. Jews abounded, as did homosexuals, bisexuals, Bolsheviks and women
in sensible shoes. (…) And most disturbingly, for those who felt they ought
to be in control – or that someone should be – beauties proliferated, each
finding an audience, each bearing its own little rhetorical load of psycho-­
political permission. (Hickey 2009, p. 61)
 Visual Anthropology 55

Exchange “beauties” in artistic criticism for “paradigmatic schools” in

research communities and you will see why some sociologists, especially
if they are tainted by the vain hopes of ever approaching the neo-­positivist
ideal of strict scientific methodology, cannot see beyond a documen-
tary—the symbolic message is lost on them. The temptation is very
strong, because one of the first populist cultural campaigns, which used
photography as a weapon of mass communication was Andre Malraux’s
“imaginary museum” of world visual art works, supposedly accessible to
all mankind through increasingly accurate photographic reproductions.
Malraux, whose ideals of the social functions of art had been shaped by
the leftist policies of the cultural commissars of the “united working class
popular fronts” of the 1930s (the Spanish Civil War was the rallying cry),
saw the role of photography allowing to disseminate copies of works of
art to every nook and cranny of industrial society as a huge opening of
the gates to the “gardens of culture”, heretofore reserved only for the rich
and the educated. Imaginary museum was a virtual collection which
never closed to the mass audience. Dreams of a liberating role of new
technologies die hard, in spite of the fact that a quarter of a century
before “imaginary museum” had been conceived by French minister of
culture, an elitist critic of the role of a work of art in the era of its mechan-
ical reproduction regretted the loss of “aura” in works of art disseminated
as printed photographic reproductions of originals (Walter Benjamin).
But let us turn to more qualitatively minded research communities.

4.4  hotography in Moderate Qualitative

P
Paradigmatic Climates
Krzysztof Konecki, editor in chief of the Qualitative Sociology Review,
also does, like his older colleague, Piotr Sztompka, make use of photo-
graphs in his research projects—but his methodological constraints on
their use indicate a much more sophisticated level of visual analysis. For
instance, when analyzing the photographs made of household pets, most
commonly cats and dogs, he points out that the ongoing “anthropomor-
phization” of household pets (who become symbolic “members of the
family”) is built by many gestures, body postures, non-verbal and para-­
56 S. Magala

verbal communication, all three of which are particularly well traceable

in the construction of “social spaces” by owners of pets, who make their
photographs as intended symbolic products “of ”, not only “about” a
culture.
Konecki is interested in a multi-layered analysis of “slices” of meanings
encoded in photographs as documents “of ” cultures (he introduces
another term, apart from visual anthropology and sociology, namely
“visual ethnography”). He points out that we are increasingly required to
process numerous visual artifacts as we pursue our daily routines, as we
translate our verbal communications into PowerPoint presentations with
multiple visual aids, when we record with video and photographic cam-
eras, when we send photographs through our mobile phones, indulge in
running or visiting blogs, and so on. Recommending an alliance of
“Grounded Theory Plus Visual Data” (the title of his unpublished paper),
the sociologist of working organizations and urban life writes:

If grounded theorists want to create substantive theories about contempo-

rary world, they have no choice, they have to turn to visual data and visual
processes, which are a vital component of actions within contemporary
institutions and our social world in general. Visual data open new possibili-
ties to develop grounded theories. Developing of theories of substantive
visual processes could facilitate constructing formal theories of visualiza-
tion of social problem, visualization of organizational politics, visualization
of identity, etc. The most ambitious goal looms large on a theoretical hori-
zon: the construction of a formal theory of visualization of action. Future
of grounded theories will be inevitably associated with generating theory
on social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of visual reality, not only
because of our society’s recent “visual turn” but also because of growing
research focus on visuality of our social worlds. (…) It is time to turn to
“unspeakable” phenomena, which cannot be directly communicated – ver-
bally. (Konecki 2005, p. 21)

The same qualitative sociologist in search of a grounded theory built

with visual data thus promotes a research methodology based on photo-
graphic records, whose execution is subjected to a rigorous methodology,
which allows a camera-wielding sociologist to understand the role of
images, especially photographic images, in the broader process of the
 Visual Anthropology 57

“theatralization of social space” (Magala 1978, 2009). Thus Konecki

would have incorporated “Sanderian” or “Rydetian” projects into his
research methodology as sophisticated symbols “of ” their respective cul-
tures and contributions to the ongoing negotiation of continually con-
structed and reconstructed social realities. However, communicative
games do not wait for visual sociologists or visual anthropologists, or
even visual ethnographers to hone their methodological tools and to
tackle them—they evolve and become more sophisticated, more resistant
to the critical questioning within the methodological research programs
of yesterday. They are also being solved—or at least publicly discussed
outside of the realm of science and scholarship. What should be done to
stay au courant with the evolving societies where all that is solid melts
into thin air (Halvani 2010)?
One way of staying ahead is to go for a broad alliance of sociologists
(who focus on the menu of interactions sprinkled with institutional
sauce), cultural anthropologists (who will furnish the horse-d’oeuvres of
individual actions in psychosocial salads), cultural scholars (who will sea-
son the main dish with culturally legitimized valuation) and media
experts (who will see to it that the meal comes out as it was intended to
or at least does not taste entirely differently than intended, expected,
experienced). This is the solution suggested by the visual sociologists,
who want to study photography and her images both on and behind the
social stages, on which they are displayed: They want to study

[a] broad spectrum of different micro-practices connected, primarily, to

the emergence of photographic images, and second, to the methods of
managing photographs (one’s own, but also those, which had been inher-
ited, donated, acquired, etc.), third, to the ways of incorporating them in
(or excluding them from) private stage designs constructed by individuals
in order to live and experience daily life. (Drozdowski and Krajewski 2010,
p. 4)

Photography (but also other forms of multimediated motion pictures

communications—video, visual blogs, facebook photographic and video
records, etc.) thrives in these more qualitatively oriented paradigmatic
climates of (visual) anthropological and sociological research communi-
58 S. Magala

ties—but the relationship between photography as the preferred supplier

of subcomponents to the artists (whose responsibility is the final assem-
bly line of the work of art) and photography as the privileged supplier of
sophisticated visual symbols of a culture to communities of choice (mem-
bership in which can become a matter of hot debate, cf.Kanter 1977) can
become blurred at times. When does art precede science and scholarship,
demonstrating possible future research strategies?

4.5  isual Interfaces Between Art, Research

V
and Management: Cases in Point
4.5.1 Open/Closed Performance/Installation/Visual
Research Project by Jan Piekarczyk (Summer
2006, Warsaw)1

In the summer of 2006, between June 28 and August 22, the resident of
Warsaw and a photographer/performer, Jan Piekarczyk, went out and
asked 1000 inhabitants of Warsaw who happened to be passersby, if he
could take a picture of their faces. If a person agreed, he would make a
color photograph, with clearly visible facial features. If a person refused,
he would not record the face, but take a black-and-white picture of an
anonymous detail—a piece of an elbow, a tip of a shoe, or a shadow on a
pavement. Having assembled 1000 of photographs in this way—he had
opened an exhibition “Open/Closed”, which had been composed of a
huge tableau made of 1000 images, some of them with colored portraits
and some with black-and-white details (if sometimes he did—by coinci-
dence—register a face of the refusing individual, he would mask it with
black strip in order to render the face anonymous). What were the pro-
portions? In this particular case 488 individuals agreed to have their por-
trait made and their face exhibited in the subsequent exhibition. This
means that 512 refused to agree, sometimes with a display of aggressive
behavior. The visual artist, member of the board of Society for the Artists
of Other Arts and the editor and publisher of an online quarterly “Galois”
gave it a modest title “Performance for 1000 Individuals, Camera and
Myself ”. Sometimes people approached by Piekarczyk had reflected on
 Visual Anthropology 59

their automatic behavior and changed it. The artist described, for instance,
the incident with two young, attractive women, one Turkish, one Polish,
both waiting on a bus stop at the center of Warsaw. Both were close
enough for the Turkish one to hear that the Polish one did not agree to
have her picture taken, and for the Polish one to hear a few seconds later
that the Turkish one agreed at once. Piekarczyk had photographed the
Turkish one and then returned to the Polish woman asking her again.
The young woman started thinking aloud and asked herself why, indeed,
did she give a negative response the first time round. Having found no
good reasons, she changed her mind and allowed the artist to photograph
her face. Perhaps, if we are to believe the artist, she had felt that for the
Turkish woman the act of agreement was a much braver decision—to
open her face to the camera meant not only allowing a gaze of the others
run freely and examine its details. This open exposure to naked gaze also
ran against the grain of the Muslim veil, it may have had some rebellious
undertones of a liberating, defying escape from the obligatory closure
and from hiding beneath a parda, a chador, a kvef or a veil.
The artist kept a meticulous record of his actions: he approached all
individuals, explaining that he was executing “an independent artistic
project”, avoided those in a hurry, those sunk in conversation, those who
suspected him of selling or advertising something or “marginalized” fig-
ures (beggars, homeless, pickpockets). The proportions of refusals and
agreements (48.8%—“open” ones, 51.2%—“closed” ones) prompted the
artist-performer-researcher to comment on “openness” and “closure” and
their significance for a “photography of a psychological climate of a city”.
He kept some statistical data per each 100 respondents:

1. The first 100, 47%—open, 53%—closed

2. The second 100, 52%—open, 48%—closed
3. The third 100, 51%—open, 49%—closed
4. The fourth 100, 39%—open, 61%—closed
5. The fifth 100, 51%—open, 49%—closed
6. The sixth 100, 50%—open, 50%—closed
7. The seventh 100, 45%—open, 55%—closed
8. The eighth 100, 38%—open, 62%—closed
9. The ninth 100, 55%—open, 45%—closed
10. The tenth 100, 60%—open, 40%—closed
60 S. Magala

Let us examine his own comments on the results of his project:

My project is an artistic one. It is a conceptual-sociological genre of art,

with some elements of performance—when I am approaching individuals,
asking them questions, and actually making a photograph. Statistical data
are a byproduct. The “open” ones are those who agree to be photographed.
They accept themselves. The “closed” ones, are those who do not agree. The
“closed” ones are closed for various reasons, in contingent circumstances
(living contexts). They have no self-ironic distance to themselves and some
of them probably do not accept, do not approve of themselves. (Piekarczyk,
in a radio interview, September 2006)

It would be tempting to consider a similar action-performance-project

carried out simultaneously in various urban centers all around the
globe—but this is easier said and done in academic communities (which
are already globally networked on the research level and regionally net-
worked on the teaching level) than in the artistic ones (which are only
imperfectly linked by the commercial networks of major art fairs and
major exhibiting events in cultural politics—Documenta in Kassel,
Biennale in Venice or major traveling exhibitions are cases in point).
Perhaps we shall have some day a real global grass-roots alliance and net-
working of freely clustering artists and their indispensable fellow net-
workers (curators, critics, theoreticians, empirical researchers, politicians,
experts in cultural policies, aestheticians, media professionals, journalists,
columnists, spin doctors, educators, young aspiring students of arts and
sciences, advertising gurus, wealthy and average aspiring collectors, TV
performers, cultural entrepreneurs, etc.). At present, the Open/Closed
project of Jan Piekarczyk from 2006 remains a relatively local and unex-
plored example of a successful, robust, fertile, promising, creative, imagi-
native—both aesthetically and cognitively—performative project
executed at the interface of visual anthropology, sociology or ethnogra-
phy on the one hand and visual arts on the other.
Perhaps it could—one day—become a pioneering influence upon sys-
tematic encouragement of new “communicative powers” (to paraphrase
Castells), of new communicative and interactive “social technologies” in
service of constructing new public spaces for enhanced civic communica-
 Visual Anthropology 61

tions, for (re)negotiating our “sociabilities” (abilities to socialize) and for

replenishing our social “imaginaries” (Taylor 2004).

4.5.2 V
 isual Narratives Between Touchscreens
and Communities

Visual anthropology and visual sociology are challenged by the new tech-
nologies of visual communications. Blogs have to be studied
(Olechnicki 2009), facebook accounts have to be analyzed, online dating
has to be explored, and personal connectivity has to be investigated.
Visual anthropologists and visual sociologists respond with attempts to
go beyond the classical sociology or beyond the qualitative methodolo-
gies relying mostly on verbal interpretations and tend to cluster around
the so-called narrative methodologies, which increasingly often include
the visual elements.
David Boje’s explorations of the narrative strategies of Nike,
McDonald’s and Disney are cases in point (Boje 2008). It is no coinci-
dence that Boje develops his theory of sensemaking in organizations with
the aid of “living stories”, “dead narratives” and “ante-narratives” quoting
among others—Walter Benjamin and Gertrude Stein, both of whom
were keenly aware of the increasing role of visual “clues” in our commu-
nications. Visual sociologists and anthropologists (and organizational
ethnographers in schools of business) are also challenged by a changing
way in which we conceptualize images as they enter our communica-
tions, influence our interactions and shape the visions of virtual and real
futures. The question posed with brutal directness and simplicity by
Mitchell—“What do pictures want?”—is thus legitimate, justified and
relevant. We guarantee its salience, because we do want to “know”. We
want to “see” (the expression “I see” is equivalent to “I understand” in
most languages). We want to know what pictures want from us. We want
to know what we want from the others when “speaking” through images
to them. Finally, we want to know, more generally, what branding of
cultural contents in creative industries means for ethics and aesthetics
(hence the emergence of “creative industries observatories” in London,
Los Angeles or New York). Paraphrasing Freud, who asked the same
62 S. Magala

question, allegedly, about women (“what do women want?”), we investi-

gate images as our extensions, our protheses, but also illusions, testimo-
nies to lost dreams, or, as McLuhan once phrased it “amputations”. We
want to know how ethics (measuring our actions against the expectations
and preferences of captive audiences) and aesthetics (evaluating experi-
ences triggered by images we disseminate) are related to one another. We
want to know how they are intertwined in the structures and processes
of communications. Since the domain of social communications is grow-
ing to immense proportions (we are hyper-connected and mobile and
suppliers of pure connectivity are earning many times more than suppli-
ers of cultural contents), we have to focus on some samples, some selected
sections, which we can still relatively easily isolate and study. This is the
basic explanation for the career of the “artworld” as an area of studies
performed by visual anthropologists, visual sociologists, visual ethnogra-
phers and other academic specialists. Visual sociologists are thus assisted
by art critics, art historians, art disseminators, cultural experts (curators,
gallery owners, museum directors). Why artworlds? Because they are
smaller than all socially organized communications and because they
offer a chance of studying aesthetic values emergent from individual and
collective interactions. Hence an emergent stress on interactivity in
­performative arts. Hence the focus on both stage arts and performance
artists recruited from among poets, sculptors, painters or installation
authors, say both Baryshnikov or Gielgud on the one hand and Marina
Abramovic or Christo on the other. Hence the focus on “dialogue”, on
“feedbacking” in institutional encounters with audiences and constituen-
cies and the entire new wave of “relational aesthetics” (cf. Bourriaud
2009), which came about as a result of a conscious resistance to social
formatting and standardization.
A quick click brings us to the Wikipedian definition of an artworld as
a loosely related network and overlapping organizations of individuals
who produce, commission, preserve acknowledged works of art and also
sell and buy “works of art”. Two definitions are usually quoted, first the
classical one by Howard Becker first coined in 1982:

the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint
knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produce(s) the kind of
 Visual Anthropology 63

art works that art world is noted for This tautological definition mirrors the
analysis, which is less a logically organized sociological theory of art than
an exploration of the potential of the idea of an art world for increasing our
understanding of how people produce and consume art works.(…) the
principle of analysis is social organizational, not aesthetic. (Becker 1982,
pp x–xi)

Second, a definition by a contemporary empirical analyst, a practicing

female critic and a participating observer touring all major art sales, exhi-
bitions and auctions, namely, Sarah Thornton. According to her, an art-
world is “a loose network of overlapping subcultures held together by a
belief in art. They span the globe but cluster in art capitals like New York,
London, Los Angeles, and Berlin” (Thornton 2008).
Let us note the presence of an act of faith in Thornton’s recent definition
of an artworld—as opposed to the attempted purging of an aesthetic reflec-
tion from a social organizational analysis in Becker’s approach. Social orga-
nization but also a leap of faith are being accounted for. A leap of faith (or
an assumption that studied individuals have made a great spiritual leap
forward toward a transcendent value) is required in order to “make sense”
of an artworld. In this the artworld resembles the world of religion, the
“churchworld”. Very much like churches would not have made sense if
there were no believers inside them, if individuals did not have faith in
God, musea and art galleries would not have made much sense either, if
there were no individuals convinced that works of art do allow for valuable
experiences, which transcend the material calculus of utilitarian pleasures
and open up new, more meaningful experiences of being human, being
together with the others, deciding about our common futures. Hence
nobody misses a beat when sociological and aesthetic studies are published
under such titles as “Theology Goes to the Movies” (Marsh 2007) or “The
Enchantment of Modern Life” (cf. Bennett 2001). The problem is with the
level of sophistication of this faith, which has to survive Duchamp, Warhol,
David Hockney’s iPhone “paintings” and an ongoing hum of unrelenting
criticism of everything by everybody:

I believe that magical attitudes towards images are just as powerful in the
modern world as they were in the so-called ages of faith. (…) My argument
64 S. Magala

is that the double consciousness about images is a deep and abiding feature
of human responses to representation. It is not something we “get over” as
we grow up, become modern or acquire critical consciousness. (…) The
specific expressions of this paradoxical double consciousness of images are
amazingly various. (…) They include the ineluctable tendency of criticism
itself to pose as an iconoclastic practice, a labor of demystification and
pedagogical exposure of false images. Critique-as-iconoclasm is, in my
view, just as much a symptom of the life of images as its obverse, the naive
faith in the inner life of works of art. (…) We might have to entertain what
I would call a “critical idolatry” or “secular divination” as an antidote to
that reflexive iconoclasm that governs intellectual discourse today. Critical
idolatry involves an approach to images that does not dream of destroying
them and that recognizes every act of disfiguration or defacement as itself
an act of creative destruction for which we must take responsibility.
(Mitchell 2005, pp. 8, 26)

The continuing existence of both churches and musea testifies to the

attractiveness of the (visual or visually enhanced) “narratives” told by reli-
gious or artistic story-tellers. Visually enhanced narratives prosper in
spite of two serious blows to the ontology of the works of art (analogy to
the ontological arguments about God’s existence and articles of faith is
striking). I am referring to the blow executed by Duchamp (any object
can function as a work of art replacing it in a unique context of an avant-­
garde exhibition), Warhol (any mass-produced reproduction of non-­
exceptional objects can function as a work of art in “imaginary museum”)
and Hockney (any virtual composition can function as a work of art
between digitally communicating individuals). The sequence of impor-
tant events in defining contemporary artistic practices—and the one that
visual anthropology, sociology and ethnography should study following
developments in visual arts and visual communications—is as follows:
–– In 1917, Marcel Duchamp, using the assumed name of “R.Mutt”,
submitted a sculpture to the Armory Show in New York City. The
sculpture consisted of a standard porcelain “urinoir” purchased in
the construction supply warehouse and a socket, on which it had
been mounted. The title of this work of art submitted to the exhibi-
tion was “The Fountain” (as a matter of fact the organizers did not
 Visual Anthropology 65

dare to expose it, but Alfred Stieglitz had already photographed it

for the catalogue and so Duchamp’s gesture had been publicly
acknowledged entering the public negotiation of the “borders” of
art). He succeeded in persuading the artworld that an intention of
the artist is more important than any material embodiment of his or
her idea (and that the “core” of artistic communication cannot
reside in purely material properties of “unique objects”).
–– In 1962 Andy Warhol started to produce paintings by transferring
silk-screen images onto the canvas. He was using the same technol-
ogy of cheap printing, which had been used to mass-produce
T-shirts and other “souvenir objects”. His “Factory’ continued to
work until the 1980s. Production was limited only by what Warhol
thought he could sell at the time, not by production capacities of
his assistants from the factory – who mostly executed “art by phone”,
namely following Warhol’s instructions, although the artist might
not physically have been present at the moment the “painting” on
canvas had been made.
–– In 2009, the painter David Hockney started producing images on
the touchscreen of his iPhone moving his thumb and activating the
“paintbrush” function. Upon completion, he would click the auto-
matic e-mail and the image would be sent to more than a hundred
of his friends and acquaintances. We are dealing with a direct trans-
mission of the artist’s intention to his viewers, “consumers” of the
image he had just produced. This communication happens without
any interfering “original”, which has to be processed and presented
by professional experts. No intermediaries are needed, since the
original object of art is a virtual constellation of digitally operated
liquid crystals “recorded” only in the virtual spaces and memories of
electronic devices. Of course, one still needs historians and teachers
to make individuals aware of the value of what Hockney is sending
by e-mail, but they would have done their work when the above
communication actually takes place.
This is the story of conceptual and technological shortening of a dis-
tance between an artist and individuals willing to regard what he or she
has done and willing to share the designed experience. But it is not the
66 S. Magala

entire story. For a visual anthropologist and sociologist, the most interest-
ing aspects of these developments are happening among the “distribu-
tors” of aesthetic communications (for a diamond model of artistic
communications, see Alexander 2003), or “go-betweens” connecting arts
and communities, creators and “consumers”. The controversial decision
of Andy Warhol Foundation to “deny” authenticity of one of the best-­
known Warhol “prints on canvas” is the case in point. In 2003, one of the
best known Warhol “red” self-portraits, silk-printed on canvas, framed
and signed personally by the artist, who gave it to his friend, Bruno
Bischofberger, in Zurich in 1969, was stamped on the backside frame by
the Warhol Foundation experts with the read letters “DENIED”. How
could the foundation deny authenticity of a work, which had been per-
sonally signed by the artist, personally dedicated to a friend and person-
ally given to him with many witnesses around?
Moreover, Warhol had deliberately chosen it for the cover of the “cata-
logue raisonne” of the only major retrospective exhibition that he had
organized himself (in ICA of Philadelphia, in October 1965). The argu-
ment of the foundation experts was that Warhol was only giving instruc-
tions on the phone to his collaborators, but he had not been physically
present in “the factory” when the printing of canvas was actually “fin-
ished”. They refused to acknowledge the explanations of Warhol himself,
who argued that he would like to move away from a personal touch in
painting. Their experts issue a certificate of authenticity only to the own-
ers of those prints, which had been produced earlier, when Warhol did
not yet master the entire process so well as to be able to limit himself to
the telephone instructions. Is this a valid argument? There are serious
doubts about the soundness of this decision. First, the intention of the
artist to author this particular work was clearly present, second, control
over the production process did not require physical presence at the fac-
tory for the finishing phases of production, third, ever since Renaissance
the painter’s signature and even more so a dedication to a given individ-
ual scribbled on the back of the painting were enough to “authorize” the
work of art. But there is more: the Warhol Foundation owes about $500
million worth of artworks by Andy Warhol and by controlling the market
(for instance by limiting the value of works owned by other parties
through denial of an official “authentification”) stands to make a lot more
 Visual Anthropology 67

money than it would otherwise have done. The foundation is already

challenged in a growing number of court cases, in which other collectors
charge it with illegal restricting of the number of art works by Warhol on
the market in order to increase the value of their own holdings. “Decisions,
like the one about ‘Bruno B. Self Portrait’ at best raise doubts about this
board’s competence and at worst about its integrity.”(Dorment 2009)

4.5.3 “ Regarding the Pain of Others” or Visual

Anthropology of Political Marketing

The “Warhol wars” described above are mostly about marketing of a very
large (“industrial scale”) body of work, which has been left after the art-
ist’s death and is still being “fed” to the disseminating organizations or
gallery/auction/direct approach selling points. Serious conflicts and
clashes of different views on what exactly was a legitimate creative activity
and how completely can a work of art “come unmoored” (cf. Irvin 2009)
from physical presence of the “authorizing artist” still leave us outside of
the dangerous zone where body count of dead and wounded is performed
as a matter of routine. This is not the case with the visual impact of
“regarding the pain of others”, as Susan Sontag had phrased it in the last
collection of her essays on functions of visual reports on atrocities in our
societies.
In order to analyze these functions, let us compare three different but
closely related visual communications: the documentary photograph (by
the Vietnamese Hyunh Cong Ut), the photographic work of art (by the
Polish Zbigniew Libera), and the political work of visual arts inspired by
a documentary photograph (by the British Bangsy).
The first had been made in 1972 and the girl registered in the center of
the photograph was actually suffering from napalm burns. The photogra-
pher took the picture, then put his camera aside, picked up the girl and
ran with her to the medics to have her treated for her wounds. He saved
her life and Kim Phuc is presently living in Canada, where she is, among
others, a peace activist. This differs from behavior of another photogra-
pher, Tyler Hicks, who had witnessed a lynching of a Taliban prisoner of
war in the hands of the Northern alliance’s soldiers in Afghanistan in
68 S. Magala

2001. His documentary photographs make it clear to the viewers that he

had recorded successive phases of the killing without any attempt at
either saving the prisoner’s life or reducing his suffering. Likewise, after
the Haitian earthquake of 2009, the cameraman of Fox television in
Port-au-Prince filmed a Haitian who had been shot by the police when
plundering a supermarket and lay dying on the street. The cameraman
continued filming until the shot Haitian bled to death, making no
attempt either to call medical assistance or to try to stop bleeding himself.
In view of these two later cases, one could be skeptical about the produc-
ers of photographic imagery—somehow the document recorded by
Hyunh Cong Ut seems to us more “convincing”, more “honest” than the
other two reports, which had been made at a high price of suppressing
one’s compassion and solidarity with the suffering others. But the role of
the original document from Vietnam War had already been played; we
know that it had contributed, together with many other documentary
reports on the suffering and human cost of the military actions, to the
ultimate negotiations and the end of the Vietnam War.
Long after the end of the war, however, the photograph in question
became a “secular icon”, an element of a collective memory of the horrors
of war. Zbigniew Libera, the Polish visual artist (better known from his
Lego box for constructing a do-it-yourself concentration camp), had
picked this iconic image as a collective “negative” memory, a “meme” of
our visual heritage, as a symbolic “relic” in our photographic tradition.
He had decided to turn it upside down and to rebuild it in collective
memory—but this time with an optimistic happy end, with a “plus”
instead of a “minus”, as a “positive” memory, not a negative one. Hence a
dramatic tragedy of a group of children escaping a napalm bombing of
their village turns into an idyllic outing of a group of friends who had
been exercising parachute springing and enjoying the open space, wide
horizons, green fields and smiling companions. As they return, the girl,
who is still a central figure in the composition, is still naked, is still run-
ning and is still in the middle of the country road—but this time she is
also smiling, her nakedness suggests a swimming episode a while ago
rather than a horror of burning clothes and a general being at ease with
her body, as if she were a bucolic nymph. And more generally—Libera
appears to be asking—do we really know that things happened the way
 Visual Anthropology 69

the icon in our collective memories represented it? How can we be sure
that the records of real life event were not tampered with? How can we be
sure that nobody re-arranged the records in order to get some message
through to us?
Libera’s intentions are not political: he does not want to criticize any of
the parties fighting the Vietnam War, nor does he want to reconsider the
responsibilities of the combatants for suffering inflicted upon civilians.
Bangsy, who places anonymous satirical, critical murals on the houses
and walls in the streets of London, clearly does have a political point to
make. He has also picked up the Vietnam photograph by Hyunh Cong
Ut, but he had turned it into a comic strip populated by the iconic “logos”
of the US multinationals—Mickey Mouse stands for Disney corporation
and Ronald McDonald stands for the McDonald’s corporation, and both
stand for the US capitalist economy, which dominates the world markets.
The superheroes are supposed to be children-friendly and this is how they
are depicted in the media—so that they hold hands of our Vietnamese
girl in a gesture of joyful innocence and “happy hour” for the entire
world. At the same time the girl from the original photograph is stark
naked—which in itself is against the principles of either Disneyland’s or
McDonald’s restaurants—and apparently crying (no wonder, in the orig-
inal documentary record she had just been sprinkled with burning sub-
stance). So Bangsy’s message is loud and clear—after having been injured
by the real US troops in Vietnam, the girl is symbolically “saved” and
offered consolation by fictitious American heroes, by mythical, non-­
existing figments of popular imagination and mass consumption. Damage
is real, consolation prize—illusory. Globalization à la “the West and the
rest” is not good for little girls (nor—by ideological extension—for any-
body else). This is a politically committed message, an ideological mani-
festo. But does it really prompt an action? If so, what action could it be?
If not, does it not simply add more cynicism to the eyes of the passive
consumers of fresh images? Doesn’t Bangsy, through his cynicism and
lack of clear-cut action plan, contribute to the domination of “mental
capitalism” he attempts to satirize?
The war in Vietnam is not considered a purely imperialist, one-sided
aggression of the US troops against the peace-loving south Vietnamese
peasants anymore. It is considered to have been one of the major wars by
70 S. Magala

proxies conducted in the period of the Cold War. The northern Vietnamese
communists had won because they did not hesitate to sacrifice more civil-
ians (both in the north and in the south) and military than the USA (and
their ally, the south Vietnamese government). They had also won, because
there was no such thing as the backlash of public opinion—the Hanoi
communists were not afraid of becoming less popular before the next
elections. The consolation offered by popular culture icons may be illu-
sory (and the multinational corporations are often subjected to public
criticism in the media of western democracies), but so was the one offered
by Lenin and Ho Chi Minh (and in spite of the shift toward the market
economy, the Vietnamese society has yet to see the evaluation of the
responsibility of communist elites for the bloody foreign war waged
beyond the southern border). Visual communications do play a role in
this process, as Sontag was crucially aware of (although she had made a
politically correct leftist trip to Hanoi and, later on, to Sarajevo):

The familiarity of certain photographs builds our sense of the present and
immediate past. Photographs lay down routes of reference, and serve as
totems of causes: sentiment is more likely to crystallize around a ­photograph
than around a verbal slogan. And photographs help to construct – and
revise – our sense of a more distant past, with the posthumous shocks engi-
neered by the circulation of hitherto unknown photographs. Photographs
that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society
chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about. It calls
these ideas “memories” and that is, over the long run, a fiction. Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory – part of the same
family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruc-
tion. (Sontag 2003, p. 85)

The term “collective instruction” might suggest some structured and

synchronized effort—similar to the efforts of “hidden persuaders” in the
world of commercial advertising and marketing, or even “visible persuad-
ers” as was the case with the propaganda empires of Stalin or Hitler.
However, we are all subjected to a collective instruction from a variety of
sources and agencies. At the same time, there is no centrally acknowl-
edged authority, which would check the quality of our individual “mixes”
 Visual Anthropology 71

of media influences, or which would grade our “homeworks” (“The way

you had organized your memories of grandparents banned to Kazakhstan
is great and could be an example for the others”) and publish regular
“rankings” of our collective memories (e.g. Katyń up in the EU, Soveto
down in the USA). Collective instruction is something public intellectu-
als diagnose—not in the least with the research methods of visual anthro-
pology, ethnography and sociology.

Notes
1. I thank Ms Ewa Mikina for pointing out this particular artistic project
to me.

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 5
Action Research
Davydd J. Greenwood

5.1 Introduction
Action research (AR) is a strategy for social research that combines the
expertise and facilitation of a professional social researcher with the
knowledge, energy, and commitments of local stakeholders in a particu-
lar organizational, community, political, or environmental setting.
Together, these actors form a collaborative learning community to define
the problems, decide the data needed to understand them, and generate
hypotheses about the relevant causes. They then engage together in gath-
ering data, recruiting additional stakeholders, and interpreting the results.
Finally, they co-design the actions arising from their results to ameliorate
the problems, take the actions, and then evaluate the results. They evalu-
ate the results together, and if the results do not meet their expectations,
they engage in further cycles of research, analysis, and action until the

D.J. Greenwood (*)

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 75

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_5
76 D.J. Greenwood

problems have been addressed to their satisfaction. The learning commu-

nity so created operates according to a set of values that privilege respect
for the knowledge and interests of all participants (including the social
researcher), democratic dialogue that aims to permit the group to learn
from the experiences and commitments of all of its members, and that is
premised on the ability of all people to become more effective researchers
and to act more successfully on their own behalf. Action research is
guided by value commitments that include enhancing democratic par-
ticipation, increasing people’s ability to pursue their own interests, edu-
cating non-professional researchers in the use and critique of techniques
of social research and in the wise use of professional consultants.1

5.2 What Action Research Is Not

Conventional social researchers divide themselves generally into “quan-
titative” researchers who use numbers and statistical models and “quali-
tative” researchers who privilege interpretive and symbolic approaches to
research. Action researchers reject making such a choice on pragmatic
grounds. Our choice of methods and approaches must be dictated by the
requirements of the problem being addressed. If an oil spill has polluted
a domestic water supply and the oil company denies it, then a quantita-
tive scientific analysis of the geology, groundwater, and related matters is
a central part of the research. If public officials are not enforcing zoning
laws, satellite imagery, GIS data, tax assessment rolls, and so on form
part of the research response. If non-native speakers of the official lan-
guage in public schools are being patronized and not taken seriously as
students, in addition to the educational outcomes data, ethnographic
analyses and interviews about race/ethic stereotypes and other prejudices
form a necessary part of the work. The professional researcher working
with an AR project does not have to be an expert in all these methods,
though she must have a solid familiarity with the major alternatives.
Rather she must be able to help the group access such research or
researchers and guide the process of incorporating these kinds of data in
their work.
 Action Research 77

Real-world human problems are generally multi-dimensional,

dynamic, and complex. The conceit of a simplified academic division of
labor that tries to treat some issues as appropriate to history, others to
political science, others to economics, and so on is useless. Solving real
problems in context without oversimplification is a requirement for
action research projects.
Action research is not applied research. In applied research, conven-
tional researchers examine a social problem, develop a set of recommen-
dations, and then try to implement a plan of action. They define the
problem, they create the recommendations, and they design the interven-
tion, all on the basis of their research and their professional expertise. As
Flyvbjerg puts it, they know what “the good life” is (Flyvbjerg, 2001).
In action research, the researcher is an important part of the group but
also brings academic and experiential knowledge brought from other
projects and from the literature. The local participants are experts in their
own lives, problems, and situation, and their knowledge of the details of
their problem and the possibilities for action is great. It is up to them to
decide what the problem is, that “the good life” would be like, and how
it is to be brought into being. Their local knowledge is key, and they will
have to implement and live with the consequences of their actions in a
way that the professional researcher will not.
Action research is not a social theory but a set of procedures for the
deployment of a wide variety of theoretical approaches generated histori-
cally in the social sciences. Action researchers are opportunistic in using
any and all theoretical approaches that promise to be of help in address-
ing the problems the stakeholders have identified.

5.3 What Action Research Is

Action research is participatory social research in a variety of senses. It
opens up research process to non-professional researchers who are stake-
holders in the problem at hand. These non-professional researchers not
only provide input for the process but engage in the key decisions about
the goals, methods, execution, and interpretation of the results. Action
78 D.J. Greenwood

research is about doing research with rather than on people. Because the
local stakeholders are directly affected, they have the right collaboratively
to guide the process.
Action research is based on the proposition that all significant learning
is based on a well-managed interaction between reflection and action.
Without reflection, action is incompetently guided but without action,
reflection is basically useless. In this way, action research is diametrically
opposed to the dominant ideology of the conventional social sciences and
conventional applied social research that demands a radical separation of
theory and action, of theory and application and accepts the falsehood
that it is necessary or possible to theorize without applying the theories in
concrete contexts.
Action researchers believe that separating theory and action is the
highroad to social science irrelevance and patronizing applied research
projects. The irrelevance and public disrepute of much social science is
explained by the devaluation of application. It permits academic social
researchers to study social problems without taking action and liberates
applied researchers from the demands of theoretical sophistication.
Leaving aside the micropolitics of the social scientists, a more epistemo-
logically and methodologically important issue is at stake. Action research
is firmly based on scientific methods that require defining problems in an
open and clear way, developing a variety of hypothetical explanations for
the problem at hand, determining which data are relevant to the analysis
of the problem, collecting the data systematically and well, organizing the
data, and using the data to test the hypotheses. In the case of action
research, as in the case of laboratory sciences, the test of the interpretations
is made in context. If the action research–based interpretation of the prob-
lem is correct, the actions designed on these interpretations will produce
the desired results. If not, the process has to be reiterated, altering hypoth-
eses, collecting different data, working through other interpretations, or
all of the above until the outcomes match the expectations.
The contrast between this and social theory developed in the absence
of application or applications developed in the absence of theory is stark.
Theory without application is mere speculation. Untheorized application
is mere guesswork. Of course, separating theory from application makes
learning from experience all but impossible.
 Action Research 79

5.4  he Assumptions Underlying Action

T
Research
The following are some of the key assumptions underlying most action
research. Action researchers believe that most important human problems
are multi-dimensional, dynamic, and interactive. Therefore, we argue that
only multi-dimensional, dynamic, and interactive research strategies can
yield meaningful results to such challenges. This involves rejecting the cur-
rent Fordist division of labor model of the academic world that separates
disciplines and expertise into non-interacting silos. These multi-disciplin-
ary successes of the physical, life, and information sciences in recent decades
suggest that they have understood these challenges in the same way action
researchers do. Not so with the social scientists and humanists.
Action research is based on respect for the knowledge and intelligence of
non-academic people. We believe that most people are capable of conduct-
ing research, interpreting the results, and designing actions based on these
interpretations when the collaborative learning processes are well struc-
tured. A corollary of this is that non-academic experience is as important as
formal education in conducting efficacious research. The other side of not
believing in the knowledge monopoly of academics is for all participants to
learn to share their diverse experiences, skills, and hopes and to synthesize
this diversity into shared knowledge and plans for action. This is also the
foundational belief for democracy. Action research is democracy in action.

5.5 The Origins of Action Research

Action research is not new. It has been around since the beginning of the
Western intellectual tradition but it has been increasingly suppressed as
capitalism extended its grasp over the global system.

5.5.1 The Philosophical Bases of Action Research

All the key bases for action research are clearly present in the work of
Classical Greek thinkers. Aristotle is perhaps the key source of the rele-
80 D.J. Greenwood

vant concepts for action research. His distinctions between kinds of

knowing into epistêmê, tekhnê, and phrónêsis has been revisited repeatedly
in recent years by Olav Eikeland (2008),2 Stephen Toulmin (1990),
Stephen Toulmin and Björn Gustavsen, Eds. (1996), and Bent Flyvbjerg
(op. cit.) to show that the contemporary dichotomy of knowledge into
theory and application is not only wrong but is a profound dilution of
the Aristotelian legacy. Phrónêsis is not just an essential ingredient but is
also the source of the most valued forms of social knowledge such as clini-
cal knowledge.
A second major ingredient in this philosophical genealogy is the work of
the American pragmatist philosophers William James (1948, 1995) and
John Dewey (1900, 1902, 1991). Their views about the link between
thought and action, collaborative learning, and the testing of ideas in the
context of application are a core ingredient in all action research. This con-
nects to the work of Wittgenstein on “language games” (Wittgenstein 1953,
Monk 1990), Habermas (1984, 1992) on “ideal speech situations”,
Gadamer (1982) on hermeneutics, and Rorty (1981) on neo-pragmatism.3
Thus there is a very significant philosophical basis for action research,
a philosophical basis that most conventional researchers ignore.

5.5.2 The Social Bases of Action Research

Action research has re-emerged at this point in history as a counter-­

proposal to the hopeless situation of the academic and applied social sci-
ences as currently organized. This problem began with the creation of
doctoral programs and professionalization of the social sciences in the
latter part of the nineteenth century. Beginning as political economy
with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx, the
social sciences were ripped out of this holistic perspective, first by separat-
ing history from political economy, then by separating economics out as
a discipline and then subsequently by dividing the remaining turf into
sociology, psychology, political science, and anthropology. Coinciding
with the creation of doctoral programs in the social sciences in the United
States from 1880 to 1910 (Cole 2009; Ross 1991; Madoo Lengermann
and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998), this resulted in the fragmentation and
academicization of social research that endure to this day.
 Action Research 81

This fragmentation creates professional academic monopolies that

served the interests of academic professionals but that shed the holism
and reformist intent of political economy, converting academic social sci-
ence into a non-threatening, for-professionals-only set of activities. Even
the ongoing policy relevance of economics has been deeply troubling to
economists who continue to privilege theory over practice and who exiled
welfare economics and institutional economics on their road to theoreti-
cal purity (Furner 1975). In the words of Slaughter and Leslie (1997),
academic social scientists have organized themselves into mini-cartels
that, unlike the cartels of advanced capitalism, mainly produce and con-
sume their own products (graduate students, research projects, and pro-
fessional books and articles). This activity becomes entirely auto-poetic.
The loss of integration that came with the dismemberment of political
economy means that the contemporary social sciences define research
problems in the light of their own theories and methods rather than tak-
ing the problems on in their real-world contexts and complexities. Then
by treating application as anti-intellectual, they wall themselves off from
the recognition that either their theories and methods don’t work or mat-
ter to most people. In effect, this has “de-socialized” the academic social
sciences. A sure way to have a failed academic career in the social sciences
is to show an interest in activist research (Greenwood 2008).
Conventional social scientists actively contribute to the maintenance
of class relations through education, engaging in the social production of
elites and elitism. It is no surprise that academic neo-liberalism, such as
“rational choice theory”, has become the dominant paradigm in econom-
ics, sociology, and political science.

5.5.3 Counter-movements

Historically there have been counter-movements against the hegemony

of the abstracted, professionalized, disengaged social sciences. The battle
between political economy and neo-classical economics raged for a gen-
eration or more (Furner, op. cit.) and gave rise to academic purges.
Reformist sociology was quickly purged of its reformers like Jane Addams
(Magoo Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley, op. cit.). The anti-Jim
Crow, anti-American Indian genocide, and anti-immigration quota com-
82 D.J. Greenwood

mitments of the American anthropologists were quickly muted. By the

time of the McCarthy era, most academic social scientists knew how to
steer as clear of social reform work and engaged in self-censorship to be
sure they stayed socially irrelevant (Price 2004).
Despite this many counter-movements have come and gone.
Institutional economics with people like Thorstein Veblen and Clarence
Ayres had its brief moment. The Human Relations movement in sociol-
ogy had a similar rise and fall. The founding of the Society for Applied
Anthropology signaled a rejection of academic business as usual in
American anthropology but it too was quickly domesticated. And history
has repeated itself with science and technology studies, feminism, and
ethics studies, each starting as a reform movement and then being “disci-
plined” into conventional socially distanced academic activities (e.g.
Messer-Davidow 2002).
Outside of academia, some parts of NGO world have attempted to
challenge the hegemony of authoritarian neo-liberal international devel-
opment agencies like the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID with some
small successes. As yet they have not mounted an effective challenge to
the hegemony of these organizations that directly promote global capital-
ist interests. Liberation movements in the global “South”, including
Catholic Action, Marxist-inspired organizing, adult education, organiza-
tions inspired by liberation theology, and even some evangelical groups
have challenged business-as-usual in international development and
developed significant momentum for some periods (Freire 1970; Fals
Borda and Rahman 1991; Horton 1990; Horton and Freire 1990;
Hisdale et al. 1995; Belenky et al. 1997a, b; Park et al. 1993).

5.6 How to do Action Research?

A synthetic presentation of how to do action research is misleading
because the sequences, issues to be engaged, and contextual conditions
always affect what is possible and what is done. So the following is really
an abstract model of processes that, on the ground, often look quite dif-
ferent but that do not violate the general principles articulated here.
 Action Research 83

AR begins with either the formation of a group of interested stake-

holders with a shared problem or with joining an already-existing group
of the interested stakeholders. How this happens varies greatly. Sometimes
stakeholders seek out an action researcher for assistance. Sometimes
action researchers have garnered some resources that could help solve an
important problem and go out to create a collaborative group. Once the
group is formed, the participants, after getting to know each other and
after time spent learning about the pressing problems, engage in a col-
laborative problem selection process. Often there are more problems than
resources (in time and money) than can be dealt with and the collabora-
tive group has to engage in a process of prioritizing among issues.
When the problem to be dealt with has been selected, a process of
working through as many possible explanations for the existence and per-
sistence of the problem are examined. This often involves the professional
researcher bringing in what is known about the problem from the pub-
lished literature and from her experience and lengthy discussions among
the other stakeholders about their experiences of and understandings of
the problem.
From this emerges a set of research requirements that the group must
meet in order to deal effectively with the problem. This requires division
of research labor among all the stakeholders and the provision of training
for the interested stakeholders so they can engage more effectively in the
research processes. The research process is planned and then a period of
collaborative research ensues in which some people work individually,
others in teams, and there are meetings to share research problems and
preliminary results.
As the initial research phase closes, the group engages in a comprehen-
sive sharing of results and subjects all the work to critique and
­interpretation. Problems, oversights, and findings are all evaluated and
gradually a vision of the obstacles standing in the way of solving the prob-
lems emerges. At this point, the group engages in collaborative design of
actions to remedy the problem and a specific action plan for undertaking
the change process. From this, the group becomes an action team, apply-
ing their action designs to the problem and gathering information about
the results. If the outcomes are not what were expected or if new obstacles
emerge, the group recycles the action design and implementation process
84 D.J. Greenwood

until a better link between the actions and positive outcomes is achieved.
This necessarily involves data collection about the results and a systematic
and open analysis of the effectiveness of the actions backed up with data
about the results capable of convincing third parties of the credibility of
the claims.
Often this process is diagramed as an ascending spiral rather than as a
linear plan because cycles of reflection and action often cause modification
in the initial problem formulations, interpretations, strategies for action
and the group may move various times through problem formulation,
research, action design, action, and evaluation (Reason, ed. 1988, 1994).

5.6.1 Role of Professional Researcher

One of the unique features of action research is the role of the profes-
sional researcher. Research training, skills in methods, knowledge of the-
ory, experience in research are all essential to AR processes. The
professional researcher needs to be a well-trained professional social
researcher with a broad multi-disciplinary background. But the action
researcher is not the solo researcher who does research on and for others.
Rather she is a facilitator of group processes leading to the creation of
more effective learning arenas for the other stakeholders and herself. She
is a teacher but also a learner from the store of experience and judgment
of the other stakeholders. She is a facilitator but also a collaborator who
participates in the research process directly and also coaches the other
researchers.
As an experienced social scientist, the action researcher already has a
good deal of training and experience in organizing data, formulating
interpretations, and synthetically writing about what is being learned.
But, while it is often too tempting, she does not do all the writing or
dominate the representation of the work. She is expected to serve as an
assistant in developing texts and presentations based on the shared expe-
riences but also to help others learn these skills in the course of a project.
Where the educational level of the other stakeholders is very modest, the
requirements that the professional researcher do the writing are greater.
But action researchers must always remain alert to the way that rendering
 Action Research 85

the projects in writing can co-opt the voices and knowledge of others.
Thus, even as a solo writer, action researchers are expected to take the
writing to the collaborators and explain what is being said about the proj-
ect and make the modifications they deem relevant.
Action researchers also do write for other action researchers. Reflecting
on what they have learned in carrying out projects and generating ideas
they want to share to help improve the practice of other action research-
ers is not just a legitimate but necessary activity. However, this is a sepa-
rate intellectual task from supporting an action research project team.
Thus the action researcher is not the boss, not the solo intellectual, not
the team leader but a specialized team member who brings training, tech-
niques, theories, and methods as needed in support of the group’s efforts
and who facilitates the collaborative learning process in the group.

5.7 Examples of Action Research Projects

Despite the convenience of imagining that all AR, or any other social
research projects for that matter, develop according to an ideal plan, this
is never the case. AR project development is as diverse as the projects
themselves and the AR strategies used. What they have in common is a
commitment to democratizing the research process and creating out-
comes that the stakeholders see as positive. In that spirit, I will give two
examples from my own experience to emphasize how different projects
can be in terms of starting points, goals, kinds of collaborators, and insti-
tutional settings.

5.7.1 The Mondragón Project

This project took place within the Central Services department of what
was then the FAGOR Cooperative Group in the labor-managed coopera-
tives of Mondragón (now linked in an overall group, the Mondragón
cooperatives. Mondragón: Humanity at Work is the current name of the
group. Founded in 1956, these labor-managed cooperatives are the most
successful in the world, now employing over 75,000 worker-owners in
86 D.J. Greenwood

242 companies on five continents. Because they are so unusual in being

competitively successful labor-managed organizations they are the sub-
ject of many studies (Thomas and Logan 1982; Whyte and Whyte 1991).
One of the researchers, a famous professor of industrial and labor rela-
tions at Cornell University, William Foote Whyte, was conducting a
study of them (Whyte and Whyte, op. cit.) and, in the process, he offered
a feedback seminar to his hosts with his critiques of their operations. The
head of human resources for the FAGOR Group thanked him for his
critique and then asked him how he intended to help them solve the
problems.
Whyte knew that I was an expert on the Spanish Basque Country and
involved me in what became a funded project with the cooperative mem-
bers. Since they had immense experience in collaborative group problem-­
solving, I decided that any attempt to solve their problems should be
built on those practices and be consistent with the cooperative approach
to collaborative management. To that end, we convened the research
stakeholders they chose and I facilitated a long series of seminars aimed
at finding out what problems they had that they wanted to solve and then
figuring out what research techniques and processes they needed to learn
and apply to develop solutions.
Over the course of what became a three-year AR project, they deter-
mined their core concern was that they were adding so many new mem-
bers who were recruited because of well-paying, stable jobs in a good
work environment. They worried that these recruits did not share the
democratic values of the cooperatives. The research we did subjected this
view to examination and we discovered that it was quite wrong. They
were right that people were recruited by the good jobs and conditions but
they learned that new workers soon came to value the cooperative
approach highly. The dissatisfaction and alienation these worker-­managers
experienced stemmed rather from the hierarchical, authoritarian ways
human resources were handled. In effect, the new recruits were disap-
pointed about the failure of the management of the cooperatives to live
up to cooperative values. The result was the need for major changes in the
mode of operation of the human resources organizations and these
changes were put into practice. In addition, the members of the research
group also became an internal consulting organization for cooperatives
 Action Research 87

having human resource problems and used AR as the way of working on

change projects. Finally, we together wrote two books about this work
(Greenwood et al. 1990, 1992), and the Spanish-language version was
used as part of the training program for new hires.
From beginning to end, I combined group process facilitation and
consulting on research methods. However, I was also a teacher of meth-
ods and social science interpretation and writing, doing some of my own
writing but mainly helping the cooperative members develop their own
research and writing skills.

5.7.2 Ford Canal Corridor Initiative

The Housing and Urban Development authority of the US government

gave out a significant amount of money to try to re-develop the old barge
canal system in New York State for the purpose of creating tourism and
related employment opportunities. The barge canal system had been the
principal transport network for manufacturing in the period before the
railroads and interstate highway system and many small industrial towns
sprang up and prospered along the canals. However, when that transpor-
tation system lapsed, the towns fell into a long cycle of de-­industrialization
and population loss. The concept of the HUD Canal Corridor Initiative
was to restructure the canals as a tourism asset and attempt to create new
economic opportunities for these small towns.
After a period of grants, HUD put out a call for proposals to evaluate
the results and a group of sociologists, planners, and economists from
Cornell University submitted a proposal. The general proposal was of
interest to HUD but they insisted on adding an action research dimen-
sion to it. The assembled program team had no competence in AR and
thus contacted me and Frank Barry, Senior Extension Associate, in the
Family Life Development Center at Cornell to help. In return for train-
ing the group in AR, we insisted on doing small AR projects in two canal
corridor communities on the subject of community development.
In both communities, Frank Barry had prior contacts regarding youth
programs. Since opportunities for youth and preparation for adult careers
were burning issues in both communities, coalitions of adults and
88 D.J. Greenwood

authorities (mayor, superintendent of schools, bankers, teachers, local

religious authorities) all had interests in the development of opportuni-
ties for youth. We began with these coalitions and engaged in a process
by which they expanded the participation in their coalition to include all
the major categories of stakeholders in their communities, including the
youth themselves. Each of these groups developed a focal issue for an AR
activity and we then convened a two-day search conference (a participa-
tory strategic planning process, see Greenwood and Levin, op. cit.) in
which they developed their shared history of these problems, their under-
standings of the assets they have and the obstacles they face, and devel-
oped action plans in a variety of areas related to youth opportunities.
We provided ongoing support for these action teams during a year’s
time and then reconvened the two community groups together for a pro-
cess of sharing their progress and developing their ongoing plans. In nei-
ther community were the results revolutionary but both communities
developed more collaborative capacities to work on community projects
and better linkages with the various state and other funders to help them
push forward their community development plans. One of the commu-
nities succeeded in getting additional competitive funding for ongoing
efforts.4

5.8 Varieties of Action Research

There are as many varieties of AR as there are visions of social change and
the ideal democratic society. Morten Levin and I have documented the
varieties in greater detail in Greenwood and Levin (2007).
Many action researchers take a reformist approach to social change.
That is to say, they are critical of existing social arrangements but they are
not revolutionaries. They believe in the possibilities of meaningful reform
within the structure of current global capitalism. They are not naive and
believe that, even if the larger problems of inequality and exploitation can-
not be overcome easily, a great deal can be done to improve the quality of
life, work, and communities within the existing structures. Examples of
these approaches would be Whyte and Whyte (op. cit.), Greenwood et al.
(op. cit.), Reason (op. cit.), Heron (1996), and Flood and Romm (1996).
 Action Research 89

Other action researchers take a more liberationist approach to these

issues. While generally not being declared revolutionaries, they take a
more directly confrontational approach to power and exploitation and
believe in using AR to build the capacities of the oppressed to confront
power successfully. Examples are Freire (op. cit.), Fals Borda and Rahman
(op. cit.), Hall (1975), Hall et al. (1982), Horton (op. cit.), Hisdale et al.
(op. cit).
Still others see AR as working as much within the stakeholders as in
the larger society. They emphasize the development of psychodynamic
approaches to non-defensiveness, the ability to confront power more
directly, and learning to work in groups by both leading and supporting
leaders in a variety of ways. Their assumption is that more healthy and
effective individuals together can bring about significant changes in their
own environments and ultimately in society as well. Examples are Argyris
(1974, 1980, 1985, 1993), Argyris et al. (1985), Argyris and Schön
(1978), Schön (1983, 1987), and Schön et al. (1991), Belenky et al. (op.
cit.), Hirschhorn (1990, 1998).
Another group of action researchers engages problems at the system
level. From their perspective, many of the defects of our society come
from larger-scale system processes and need to be addressed systemically.
Thus they build large-scale regional and national programs that integrate
work across many local sites in larger development coalitions that share
their learning and strategies and together attempt to move the larger sys-
tem in a more democratic direction (Gustavsen 1985, 1992; Levin 1984,
1993, 1994; Flood and Romm, op. cit.). There are many more varieties of
AR but this inventory points out how very different the practices and
strategies can be.

5.9 Visions of Authority in AR

One of the significant ways practitioners of AR differ is in their analytical
view and attitude toward authority. These views range from the an almost
anarchist belief that all authority relations are an obstruction to human
development to a therapeutic view of the AR practitioner as a strong
leader who liberates human potential for important change processes to
90 D.J. Greenwood

begin. And all the positions in between—facilitator models, team-based

cooperation, dialogue leaders, activist organizer models—are represented
in the literature (Reason and Bradbury, Eds.). These are differences that
make a difference because they affect the way AR processes are initiated,
how the collaborators are treated, what kinds of group processes are
accepted, what kinds of changes are considered to be significant or worth-
while, and how success is measured. No one of these positions is correct.
Knowing the difference matters since at the very least, an AR practitioner
has the obligation to understand her own theories and practices of change
and to have clear ethical standards that guide her conduct over the course
of projects.
Tables 5.1 and 5.2 attempt to capture the implications of some of the
key differences in approaches for the practice of action research.
Regarding the vision of social change that inspires the action research
project, the tables point to four different views of the key locus of signifi-
cant democratic social change. Each of these visions tends to correspond
in certain ways with the four approaches to action research intervention
I have laid out. The reformist/collaborative approach can use diverse
approaches but not the “organizer” view that assumes that the outside
organizer knows better what local stakeholders need. The systems inter-
ventionist practitioner must have a prior notion of the system of which
the problem is a part and thus shares some of the vision of the organizer
but also sees dealing with particular key processes in the system itself as a
central point. The psychodynamically inclined practitioner tends to focus
on dialogue and individual psychodynamics as the keys to producing
change in a system.

Table 5.1 Vision of social change

Intervention Reformist/ Liberationist/ Systems Psychodynamic
approach collaborative confrontational practice interventionist
Facilitator/ X X
dialogue leader
Systems X X
interventionist
Organizer X X
Psychodynamic X X
 Action Research 91

Table 5.2 Approach to participation

Intervention Self-managing
approach Input Consultation Collaboration group
Facilitator/dialogue X X
leader
Systems interventionist X X X
Organizer X X
Psychodynamic X X

Regarding participation, these approaches also differ a good deal. The

facilitator/dialogue leader emphasizes collaboration and the group’s skills
at self-management. The systems interventionist emphasizes input, con-
sultation, and collaboration but is somewhat less focused on creating self-­
managing groups and more on creating healthier systems processes. The
organizer wants input and consultation, but because organizers already
have a vision of the changes needed, they are less interested in collabora-
tion than in group discipline and not very committed to the creation of
self-managing groups that may depart from the organizer’s strategy. The
psychodynamic approach stresses extensive personal input and the cre-
ation of dynamics that lead to self-managing groups that are character-
ized by healthy psychological attitudes and processes.

5.10 Particular Problems Encountered in AR

While this does not distinguish AR from other forms of social research
and intervention, it is important to acknowledge that no AR project ever
is perfect. All projects fall short of perfection and participatory processes
can always be enhanced and deepened, no matter how successful they are.
Since conventional research also rarely goes according to the ideal plan, it
is important to explain why this is particularly important in AR. People
engaging in AR projects are committed to democratizing social situa-
tions, to the ethical treatment of collaborators, and to the possibility of
major social improvements in concert with strong ethical beliefs. Given
that, the stakes in an AR project are very high for the participants. Not
having a project work perfectly and according to plan; having conflicts
break out occasionally in the group; and not getting everyone to partici-
92 D.J. Greenwood

pate fully can feel like failure in more than a research project—it can feel
like failure in democracy and a lack of integrity. This matters because no
AR project is perfect and novice practitioners may become discouraged
early in projects when they do not develop perfectly and they may assume
they are doing something wrong. AR projects succeed incrementally, on
a day-by-day basis, and with backward and forward movements
throughout.
Many AR projects never realize the full potential of AR. Sometimes
the conditions simply are not suitable. It may be that political conditions
militate against it. It may be that there simply are not enough financial
resources to carry on. Or a group may simply run out of energy before
achieving all of their goals. This is common in AR work but many par-
tially realized AR projects do some real good. People learn new skills, gain
new perspectives on important problems, solve some but not all the
problems they face. These are all real accomplishments and the incom-
pleteness of the project should not cause the participants to lose sight of
what they have accomplished.
The professional authority and professional respect are very much in
play in AR projects. Particularly in the early phases, the local stake-
holders’ confidence that the professional researcher knows what she is
doing and has plan for the group is important in developing the kind
of group dynamic to enable participants to take control of a develop-
mental process themselves. And yet the professional needs to operate
more like a midwife than like a surgeon. The professional needs to be
attentive to training other participants in the approaches, in ceding or
in demanding that authority be shared (along with responsibility), and
in not dominating the air space and the communication about the
project. Since conventional professionals are trained to want a high
degree of authority, to see themselves in a specialist and technical role
that makes them superior to the other participants in certain ways,
learning to be professional and not to be domineering requires both
practice and self-discipline. Unless the professional actively presses in
this direction, the default result is that people defer to the professional,
eventually get alienated from the process, and withdraw their interest
and participation.
 Action Research 93

The status of the professional also involves intellectual property issues.

The currency of professional activity is a combination of written products
and compensation that are the supposed requirements of a professional
role. The question of intellectual property is vexed in AR because the
intellectual property created by the participants is a joint creation that
would not have happened easily without professional facilitation. At the
same time, many participants are not interested in or do not feel able to
write about what they have done and there is a strong tendency for the
professional to be expected to do all the writing.
This is a complex matter. The professional is an experienced writer,
someone who has learned how to take a variety of materials, synthesize
them and put them into narrative form. The professional also may be
learning things in the process that are of interest to other professional
colleagues but not to other participants in the project. The best solutions
are to be open about the intellectual property issues, to work out agree-
ments about who writes and speaks with whom about what, and what
rights of review by the stakeholders and the professional exist. Often this
works out reasonably well by means of writing some things together or in
mutual consultation for the project and by the professional writing other
things for professional colleagues, things not so much of interest to the
other stakeholders but over which they have some say in deciding if they
have been fairly described. In my own personal experience, one of my
richest AR experience came from an ambitious and extended project of
writing the results up with the other participants. They varied a good deal
in their comfort with writing but the time spent working on drafts,
debating analyses, and the rest of the discipline that goes with writing was
described by one member of the group as the richest learning experience
in the whole project.
Since AR is based on both a respect for diversity and a belief that the
diversity of experience, perspective, and capability is one of the most
important resources an AR group has, dealing with diversity positively is
essential to AR projects. However, dealing with diversity by avoiding any
conflict, reconciling all differences by lowest common denominator solu-
tions, and by being politically correct rather than honest can undermine
an AR project entirely. All stakeholders have a right to articulate their
94 D.J. Greenwood

views, to debate with others, and to disagree when they sincerely don’t
agree. But AR projects proceed by leaving contentious issues that cannot
be resolved aside and concentrating on those actions that people can
agree to take forward. Sometimes an experience of success with a few
issues can make it possible for groups to go back to more divisive issues
with new energy and confront those as well.
Paolo Freire’s goal of “speaking the truth to power” sounds wonderful
but needs to be thought through carefully. Sometimes doing so can
bring the immediate destruction of a group of stakeholders. In such
cases they should avoid confrontations, at least until they have become
well enough organized and supported to be able to deal with a direct
confrontation. In any case, one rule of AR is not to take risks for other
people. Therefore, taking actions in risky situations must be analyzed
carefully in the group. Here the facilitator has important responsibilities
because some group dynamics lead people to be silent in the face of
power and that has to be confronted. On the other hand, another kind
of group dynamic can lead people collectively to feel obligated to take
risky actions that as individuals they would not take. This is called “risky
shift” in social psychology (Wallach et al. 1962). The professional facili-
tator has a clear obligation also to be alert to this dynamic and to dis-
courage the group from taking more risks than the members who make
it up feel comfortable with.
Action research directly confronts the academic social scientists and is
obligated to “speak the truth to” academic social scientists about their
complicity in the status quo through their face-saving distinction between
rigor and relevance, between objectivity and engagement, between ana-
lyzing and acting. Everything in AR militates against the validity of these
distinctions and thus rejects the bedrock of the practices of the abstracted
academic social sciences. To the extent one is to be an action researcher,
one must be ready to confront the academic establishment and to face the
hostility that unmasking the convenient ways the academic social sci-
ences evade action and social responsibility necessarily creates.
Conventional researchers oppose AR because AR questions their right to
do what they do and questions the reward structures that support their
behavior.
 Action Research 95

Notes
1. For general references on action research see Greenwood and Levin
(2007), Stringer (2004), Stringer (2007), and Reason and Bradbury,
Eds. (2007).
2. Of these, Eikeland’s is the most reliable and fully explained resource and
also has the virtue of being written by a philosopher with a quarter cen-
tury of action research experience.
3. For a critical review of pragmatism, see Diggins (1994).
4. For an analysis of this project, see Schafft and Greenwood (2003).

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 6
Ethnography and the Management
of Organisations
Tony Watson

6.1 Introduction
Ethnography is not a new activity. However, there is currently in organ-
isation studies a new interest in ethnography as scholars increasingly rec-
ognise the value of research writing that takes readers deeply inside
organisations. Also new, I feel, is the realisation that such research may be
the only way to increase our understanding of those people whose work
is critical to every organisation: the managers. And how, I wondered,
might I explain to readers of the present book the nature of ethnography
and demonstrate its potential for getting close to the work and lives of
managers. I could run through the few existing ethnographic writings on
managerial work, picking out features which might inspire and inform
people considering doing ethnography. But there exists so little ethno-
graphic work on managerial work to serve this purpose. So, alternatively,

T. Watson (*)
Nottingham University, Nottingham, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 99

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_6
100 T. Watson

I could operate in a traditional textbook manner and present in a magis-

terial voice lists of do’s and don’ts that might help potential ­ethnographers.
But this did not feel right. It would not help me to convey what I might
call the essential spirit of ethnographic work. But, then again, how could
one write about something as ethereal as an ‘essential spirit’? I answered
this question by deciding to write a chapter looking at some of my own
ethnographic endeavours in what I take to be the style of a good
ethnographer.
If I were to attempt to write in an ‘ethnographic spirit’, I said to
myself, I could treat my years of experience of this broad style of research
as an account of the ‘field’ of ethnographically inclined research in man-
agerial settings. The chapter would thus be one of those ‘tales of the
field’ that John Van Maanen (1988) writes about when looking at the
nature of ethnography, but with the ‘field’ here being ethnographic
work itself. And this is what I decided to do. I recognised that such a
venture would not be as easy as it might at first seem. The main chal-
lenge was one of pulling off the trick of being simultaneously the writer
of a chapter and the subject of it. What do I mean about being the sub-
ject of one’s own writing? Well, I do not mean engaging in what some
writers call ‘autoethnography’. My own biography is not in itself likely
to be of interest to readers. What might be of interest, however, is an
account of the learning process involved in making ethnographies. A
classic notion that ethnographers have used over the years, since its
introduction in the writing of Geer et al. (1968), is that of the people
being studied (medical students in this case) learning the ropes of the
occupation or organisation in which they are involved. What this chap-
ter does, then, is to share with readers ‘the ropes’ of ethnographic
endeavour in managerial contexts, as I have learned them. To put this
another way, everything that I have to say about ethnography comes
from what I have learned about succeeding ‘in the field’ in my various
attempts to produce effective and interesting accounts of ‘how things
work’ in organisations, occupations and workplaces. Having said this, I
feel it is important to establish just what I mean about a key character-
istic of ethnography: the research aspiration to produce truthful accounts
of ‘how things work’ in the social world.
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 101

6.2  esearching ‘How Things Work’

R
in Organisations
Research students are typically encouraged to be clear about their research
questions when they embark on a study. Although it is often difficult to
be explicit about the research questions behind ethnographic enterprises,
it is helpful to try to be explicit about just what it is one is trying to dis-
cover or understand better than previously. Let me illustrate this from
some early experiences. After graduating in sociology (with ‘industrial
sociology’ as my special interest) I decided that I would like a career as an
academic industrial sociologist. And I recognised that to do this I would
need to acquire a research degree. There were several factors that discour-
aged me from becoming a full-time research student, but significant
among these factors was the type of broad research questions I had in
mind. These questions were shaped by the discussions I had had with my
father over the years about the way relationships and activities were man-
aged in the factory where he worked as a spray painter. Why, in particu-
lar, were there so many tensions and time-wasting conflicts between
managers and workers and between some managers and other managers
in that factory?
I learned from friends in other workplaces and from experiences in the
organisations where I worked in vacations that this was not abnormal. In
my degree work I inevitably came across plenty of studies offering con-
cepts, insights and theories which were relevant to my type of question.
But I found very little research which looked at the managerial processes
that play a key role in all this. Outstanding, however, was an ethnography
in which the researcher actually became an industrial manager and was
able to analyse managerial work from the inside. This was Melville Dalton’s
ethnographic study Men Who Manage (1939). But I could see no way in
which I, as a doctoral student based in a university sociology department,
might tackle the sort of questions which Dalton’s book had inspired in
me—to put it simply, questions about how things generally tend ‘to
work’ among managers and others in work organisations. My industrial
sociology tutor then asked me one day when I was reflecting on my future
102 T. Watson

career, ‘Why not seek a trainee managerial role in a large work o­ rganisation,
register for a part-time research degree and, at the same time, earn a rea-
sonable living whilst you investigate the issues which interest you. And
you would end up with a qualification which can launch you into an
academic job’.
I did indeed enter a junior management position in one of the world’s
biggest and most successful aerospace companies. And I not only obtained
a research degree but also achieved a professional management qualifica-
tion—this combination of qualifications being extremely helpful in
obtaining an industrial sociology lectureship in the fast-growing aca-
demic world of business and management studies. This is all very well.
I’ve told a nice story of career success have I not? And I would be very
pleased if I were able to say that I had become an ethnographer through
my participant observation investigation. This was indeed true in a de
facto way. I felt I really ‘knew the ropes’ about managerial careers and how
‘things work’ in managerial circles. However, at that time, writing in a
fully ethnographic style, recounting events as they occurred and report-
ing in a reflexive manner on the day-to-day politicking which goes on in
managerial ranks, was not seen as a good way forward for an aspiring
academic. When I published a journal article on the foundry research
(Watson 1982) I got away with simply referring to my ‘case study’. I did
not even mention my participant observation work, let alone use the
term ‘ethnography’. And in a subsequent research study on the personnel
management occupation, emphasis was placed in the doctoral thesis,
articles and book on the interview-based material that I had gathered
from 100 personnel managers. Little attention was paid to the day-to-day
insider experiences and acquired insights from my participant insider
experience (in the first place as a junior manager and, in the second place,
as a more senior ‘industrial relations manager’).
So, what sort of thing had I learned in all of this with regard to ‘how
things work’ in the managerial world? To answer this question, I’ll look
back to my earliest research venture. Here, considerable conflicts were
surfacing over the prospective opening of a very large foundry and it
became apparent that a failure of the foundry’s senior managers to explain,
consult and negotiate over aspects of what was to be an enormous change
in everyone’s life was leading to powerful opposition by practically the
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 103

whole workforce to a move which was to occur only six months later.
Having gained the sponsorship of the corporate Personnel Director, I
took on an advisory role with the senior foundry-management team. The
team was told that I was ‘a qualified industrial sociologist’. And, on the
basis of my extensive informal ‘networking’ across the foundry and a for-
mal workforce survey which I designed and carried out (more to give my
arguments credibility with the largely engineering-trained managers than
to tell me things I had not discovered as a participant observer), I pre-
dicted that there would be a foundry strike well before anyone moved
into the new ‘casting facility’. There followed hours of argument and
debate and one or two angry attacks on ‘graduate know-alls’. The head of
the foundry even called me in to sack me from the company one day,
only to be told that I was on the Personnel HQ payroll rather than his. I
was clearly learning very quickly ‘the ropes’ of participant observation
research in management settings.
Essential to understanding these ‘ropes’ was the recognition that
engagement in managerial politics, whether one likes it or not, is vital if
the researcher is going to learn anything significant about the running of
an organisation. There is no avoiding the necessity of researchers having
to manage both ‘friends’ and enemies’. It is an element of ‘how things
work’ in organisational ethnographic investigations. But what about big-
ger questions of ‘how things work’ in managerially led organisational
change processes more broadly? Here theory and concepts have to come
into play. I made central use of a pair of concepts, orientations to work and
implicit contracts, to make sense of the situation in which the senior man-
agers, with two exceptions, were highly committed to personal upward
mobility in the company. Very clearly, these men understood that the
company, for whom the new foundry was of considerable strategic sig-
nificance, would reward them well in career terms if they were to succeed
with this massive venture. The managers were proud of the scale, design
and ‘leading edge’ nature of what was going to be the world’s largest and
most advanced ‘precision casting facility’. That, at the time of my inter-
vention in the management team, that the bulk of the workforce (middle
managers to yard staff, skilled men and women to clerical workers and
production engineers) were complaining with increasing bitterness about
such matters as the lack of windows in the building, the banning of tea-
104 T. Watson

making on the shop-floor and, very significantly, the ­attitude of the senior
managers that they ‘knew best’ when it came to the operation of steel
foundries. This, I argued in my research writing, reflects the very different
class or life-chance situation of non-senior-manager employees in indus-
trial organisations, compared to the situation of senior managers. The
former’s implicit contract with the company was not centred on rapid
upward career mobility. Succeeding with the world-class ‘casting facility’
would be recognised and rewarded as a great achievement by the senior
managers. But it would, for most staff, involve uncertainty, disruption,
paying higher bus fares to get to work and, of great symbolic significance,
‘drinking management tea from management vending machines’. And,
to focus on just one group of workers, the furnace men (a highly skilled
group who ‘get very thirsty after a shift’) would have no public house to
go to after work. There was thus a major gap between the priorities, the
implicit contracts and the career expectations of the managerial ‘domi-
nant coalition’ and the rest of the workforce.
At one Sunday morning ‘steering group’ meeting (where, interestingly
from an anthropological point of view, tweed jackets and flannels were
worn instead of the weekday ‘senior manager’ dark business suits) there
was an attempt to put ‘workforce complaints’ down to the company’s
mistake of allowing ‘a bloody sociologist’ into the foundry. My response
was to argue that my analysis was ‘true’ and I nervously suggested that it
‘fitted with existing sociological research on change programmes’. Most
boldly, I suggested to them that I would be willing to return to work in
the Personnel HQ as long as they would promise to invite me back to the
foundry to help them out when strike action ‘starts to bite just before
Christmas’. With this, the meeting was adjourned (‘the ladies at home
will have Sunday lunch ready’). The next day I was invited to remain in
the foundry to devise a formal programme to ‘involve’ the workforce in
the final stages of preparation for the move. I am pleased to report that
this did happen and that the foundry did not have a strike. And, although
I was encouraged not to write up my research in a fully ethnographic style
(a notion I shall I explain later), I had learned the ropes of doing partici-
pant observation research among managers. And part of the learning that
I have passed on to others over the years is that, if you want to gain
research access to managerial goings-on, gain insights into strategic
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 105

a­ ctivity and, it has to be said, get ‘close to power’, then there is no option
but to deploy the highest level of social, political and rhetorical skills that
one can manage. It cannot succeed without this. And this is something I
was highly aware of when, 20 years later, I negotiated a one-year second-
ment from my business school with the senior management of another
large company. This was in order to write the book which became In
Search of Management (Watson 2001), a study I shall come back to shortly.

6.3 Ethnography and Truth-Telling

You may have noticed that, earlier, I mentioned the research aspiration ‘to
produce truthful accounts of “how things work” in the social world’. But
the notion of truth is an exceedingly difficult one to use. I would have
struggled at the time of my early research to fully articulate a philosophi-
cally and sociologically sound explanation of what I take ‘truth’ to be. Yes,
I needed to persuade both my career sponsor and the foundry managers
that my analysis of the problems in the foundry was a true one. One rhe-
torical move, offered by me and taken up by my Personnel Director spon-
sor, was to invoke the notion of professionalism and (social) scientific
knowledge. The implication was what I said should be accepted and my
advice acted upon because I was a trained and qualified industrial sociolo-
gist. Probably much more significant was the threat ‘on your heads let it be
if you ignore Tony’s analysis’. In reality (I nearly said ‘in truth’), one cannot
predict events like strikes any more than one can simplistically present
analyses of workforce attitudes as ‘facts’. However, I was very happy to
argue that the definition of the situation in the foundry that I was putting
forward was a much wiser one to work with than the definition adopted
by the majority of the senior managers. This was, to put it simply, ‘all these
negative statements made by the workforce are the result of foolish
rumours; once people actually get to this superb new building they will
recognise how much their working lives have improved’. This might, of
course, be true. But I believed, and strongly argued, that my analysis was
the truer one in the sense that, if one were to act on the basis of my defini-
tion of the situation, then the new foundry venture was more likely to be
successful than if one acted upon the foundry senior manager one.
106 T. Watson

Although I did not clearly articulate this notion of ‘relative truths’ at

the time, it was implicit in the foundry senior managers’ eventual accep-
tance of such a position. And, of course, to adopt my view (supported,
remember, by the politically influential Personnel Director from
Company senior management) was to avoid any risk to their ambitious
career plans. This point has to be made in order to remind us that differ-
ent ‘points of view’ or definitions of the situation in organisations must
always be understood in the context of organisational politics and career
interests. And, of course, this did not just apply to the managers and the
workers. I, as the ‘expert researcher’, was no disinterested party to what
occurred; indeed, my career in the company was ‘made’ by my role in
what became the successful and strike-free move to the new ‘precision
casting facility’.
Twenty years after these events, I found myself embedded for a year in
a large telecoms development and manufacturing organisation as a senior
manager and (overt) participant observer. My intention was to write what
I hoped to be an important book about managerial work ‘from the inside’.
And it became clear that it would be academically necessary to deal more
directly with the question of the ‘truthfulness’ of ethnographic writing
than it had been back in my aerospace days. But it was not just a matter
of what I would say to an academic audience. The managers I worked
with as a colleague all knew that I was going to write a book at the end of
my secondment to the company. And, one day, several of them (all with
engineering and science backgrounds as in the previous business) chal-
lenged me on the validity of the book that I would write: ‘You promised
us at the start that you would change names, job titles and various other
things so that no individual quoted or their action described in the book
would be recognised by readers of the book. So how can you possibly
claim that you are going to tell the truth about the managerial work we
do?’ It so happened that one of those managers had that very afternoon
given me a copy of a management magazine that included a feature on
the company. This was a glowing account of the brilliant success in
change management that the company was achieving. It was clear who
the journalist had interviewed for the article, not just because of the ter-
minology, but because the account provided was one which was impres-
sively career enhancing for two particular managers. And the picture
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 107

painted was one of harmony across the business, both within manage-
ment itself and between the company and its employees.
No mention was made in the magazine article of either the enormous
tensions between different groups of management in the company or the
current trade union veto on key elements of the change programme. My
colleagues looked at the document and I commented, ‘I know from your
faces that you don’t think much of the article. But we cannot see it as it
altogether untrue’. Where I would question the value of the article, I sug-
gested, would be in terms of how helpful it can be as a guide to what is
happening in the business if it were given to someone who was coming to
work here. The managers agreed that it would be helpful in some ways,
but most definitely not in others. It implied that, as one woman put it,
‘life here is all sweetness and light. What could be more misleading than
that’. And, I said, when it came to reading my book, ‘you will probably
say that some parts of it are truer than others. However, what I promise
you now is that you will find my book to be a lot truer about how things
work in the industrial world than what is in this magazine article’.
What I did not go on to say to the managers I was talking to was that
I had now found what I referred to earlier as an epistemologically sound
justification for this notion of relative truth. I had always had at the back
my mind first-year degree-course learning about Popper’s view that sci-
ence can never lead to the discovery of final and irrefutable truths—all it
could do was to improve on the existing knowledge current at any given
time (Popper 1959). But towards the end of my year in the telecoms fac-
tory, my academic reading focused on (American) Pragmatic Philosophy
and the distinctive notion of truth claims that it offered. This, like
Popper’s writing, suggests that there are no final or conclusive truths to be
discovered. Any one piece of knowledge, research writing or teaching
may, however, be more ‘truthful’ than another—in the sense that the
knowledge in the ‘truer’ case could act as a better guide to action in the
aspect of the world to which it related than the ‘less true’ one. At the
simplest level of the new ethnographer learning the ropes of their trade,
this ‘test’ of relevance to what people might potentially do in light of the
knowledge they are creating, this Pragmatist notion of truth is immensely
helpful. And, in the broader context of academic research on organisa-
tions and management, it suggests an enormously helpful role for
108 T. Watson

e­ thnographic style research reports. Insofar as the ethnographer’s writing

is about what they learned by ‘getting close to the action’, so we will have
alternative learning material for management and business students who
are currently so dependent on over-rational and prescriptive management
textbooks.

6.4 What Do We Mean by ‘Ethnography’?

Readers might have noticed that in this chapter so far, ‘ethnography’
has not been formally defined. And further, nowhere has the research
work described and discussed been presented as ‘ethnographic research’
or the investigative work been portrayed as ‘doing ethnography’. Terms
like ‘ethnographic work’, the ‘ethnographic enterprise’ and ‘ethno-
graphic writing’ have been used, however. So, what is going on here?
Well, strange as it may seem in a chapter written in a research methods
book, I want to argue that to get at the essential qualities of ethnogra-
phy, it is helpful not to treat it as a research method at all. All the
research looked at in preceding paragraphs is centred upon the broad
research method of intensive field research and, more particularly, on
participant observation. Intensive observation, with varying degrees of
active participation in organisational processes, is a necessary condition
for the production of ethnography. But it is not a sufficient condition.
This is because ethnography is better understood as a form of writing,
rather than as an investigative method. My formal definition of eth-
nography is a style of social science writing which draws upon the writer’s
close observation of and involvement with people in a particular social
setting and relates the words spoken and the practices observed or experi-
enced to the overall cultural framework within which they occurred
(Watson 2011, p. 205).
The two main clues to finding the essential qualities of ethnography lie
in its origins in anthropology and in the word ‘ethnography’ itself. Thus,
we can say that ethnography serves an anthropological interest in under-
standing the human as a cultured being (‘ethno’) through writing about
them (‘graphy’) in a manner which provides deep insights into humans’
cultured lives. To talk of ‘cultured lives’ in this way means relating the
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 109

details of the particular events and utterances observed, heard and

­experienced in the field to a cultural whole (Baszanger and Dodier 2004;
Watson 2012). Thus, my foundry research account set the particularities
of events in the aerospace company in the context of the differing social
class imagery of people working there and in the emphasis in the organ-
isational culture on managerial status aspiration. And the account of
managerial life in the telecoms business contextualised the orientations of
the managers and the events which unfolded in terms of competing man-
agerial discourses which exist across the culture of contemporary work
organisations and their management. Similarly, a study of a pub and
brewing business located the organisation in the context of the role of
pubs in the lives of English people and gave particular attention to the
social phenomenon of the ‘real ale’ movement. And ethnographic work
in an English village was set in the context of broader processes of urban–
rural shifts over previous decades.
Another very good reason not to treat ethnography as a method is in
order to keep open the possibility of using a variety of other research
methods to complement the essential intensive fieldwork necessary for an
ethnography. Earlier, I mentioned the survey carried out in the foundry
project. On reflection, I do not think I would have spent the time on this
were it not for its ‘political’ value in my arguments with senior managers.
However, in retrospect, I certainly would have done the set of interviews
I carried out with each one of the foundry’s senior managers. This was
enormously helpful in making sense of many of the events in which I had
seen them participating. But most fruitfully, it gave me an opportunity to
discuss at length, in private and confidential terms, the reservations about
the new foundry which I had begun to infer had developed with two of
the managers. Initially, each of these men expressed in technical or busi-
ness terms their reservations about the change. But very soon, as the con-
versation developed, each of them turned to their own current work
orientation. For very different reasons, neither man wanted further pro-
motion in the company. This meant that the enormous disruption in
their working lives that was beginning to occur would not be compen-
sated for by the sort of future career ‘beyond the foundry’ which excited
and motivated their colleagues. Coming to understand these two ‘devi-
ant’ cases provided an analytically powerful comparative boost to the
110 T. Watson

understanding of the orientations of the rest of their colleagues. It is

­possible that a skilled researcher visiting the foundry to interview manag-
ers might have elicited the sort of information that came out of my con-
versations with people whom I had got to know very well as colleagues.
But I very much doubt it.
Interviews (in the sense of formally structured and recorded conversa-
tions) carried out by ‘embedded’ researchers are rather different from
standard interviews. In my later major ethnographic study I waited until
I had spent six months working alongside managers before I set up for-
mal tape-recorded and structured interviews with 60 of them. The ‘added
value’ of interviewers carried out by participant observers is more than a
matter of their creating a higher level of trust between the parties (vital
though this is) as Spradley explains in his book The Ethnographic Interview
(1979). It enabled shared experiences and events to be examined and
jointly considered to illustrate and ‘fill out’ day-to-day conversations.
And, time and again, it valuably threw light on events and arguments
that I had recorded in my day-to-day field notes. It was quite common
for interviewed managers to comment to me, in the words of just one of
these people, ‘You’d never have got all that stuff out of me if it wasn’t that
I know you well. And I know you’ve seen enough of me in action for it to
be impossible to bullshit you about what a great manager I am’.
In the same way that there can be a process of mutual reinforcement
between the outcomes of interviews and the observations made through
organisational participation, it is possible that small surveys, quantitative
data analysis and documentary discourse analysis can all be brought into
service in the process of preparing for an ethnography. The material pro-
duced by the use of these methods does not function as additional ‘evi-
dence’, so to speak. It has to be woven into the fabric of the piece of
ethnographic writing as a whole.

6.5 And Finally: Writing One’s Ethnography

The phrase ‘preparing for an ethnography’ was used above to cover all
the investigative work carried out by the researcher in the field (as well,
often, in the library and in relevant archives). This utterly is not to play
 Ethnography and the Management of Organisations 111

down the significance of research work in the field. Ethnography only

comes about, however, when this material is pulled together into a
clear and coherent narrative together with appropriate concepts and
theories from the social sciences, all of this relating detailed and spe-
cific matters to broader social and cultural ‘wholes’. To give the degree
of clarity and coherence that this requires, it is invaluable for the writer
to use writing techniques found in ‘creative’ writing, and in novels par-
ticularly. Given its anthropological roots, ethnography draws on both
the humanities and the social sciences. If we see both social science
writing and high-quality novels as being concerned to identify and
reflect upon truths about how the social world works, then it seems
wise to develop a form of writing that brings together the strengths of
both of these forms.
In ethnography, science provides research questions, concepts, theo-
ries and research techniques while creative writing such as novels pro-
vides techniques of narrative-shaping, engaging descriptions of people,
places and events, and the presentation of research subjects’ own words,
thoughts and contributions to dialogues and conversations—conversa-
tions with each other and with the researcher. In addition to all of this
rather challenging set of requirements, the ethnographic writer needs
to build a trusting relationship with readers through taking them along
with them in their engagement with the particular social setting that
they have researched. This is most effectively done by the researcher
writing in a reflexive manner: including themselves in the story, so to
speak. This enables the reader to take into account whatever biases,
interests, purposes, social skills and general human frailties that the
investigator was throwing into the fieldwork mix. A wholly objective
research account is never possible but one can get closer to it if the
researcher/writer has revealed their hand throughout. I hope that I
have done this effectively in the present chapter and that, taking into
account my clear research preferences and beliefs, readers decide for
themselves whether they wish to engage in ethnographic work—with
all its tensions, frustrations, joys and opportunities to say something
worthwhile and convincing about how organisational management
actually works.
112 T. Watson

References
Baszanger, I., & Dodier, N. (2004). Ethnography: Relating the Part to the
Whole. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research Theory, Method and
Practice (2nd ed., pp. 9–34). London: Sage.
Geer, B., Haas, J., Vivona, C., Miller, S. J., Woods, C., & Becker, H. S. (1968).
Learning the Ropes. In J. Deutscher & J. Thompson (Eds.), Among the People
(pp. 209–233). New York: Basic Books.
Popper, K. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.
Spradley, J. P. (1979). The Ethnographic Interview. Belmont: Wadsworth.
(Reissued Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2016).
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the Field. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Watson, T. J. (1982). Group Ideologies and Organisational Change. Journal of
Management Studies, 19, 259–275.
Watson, T. J. (2001). In Search of Management. London: Cengage. (Originally
Routledge 1994).
Watson, T. J. (2011). Ethnography, Reality and Truth: The Vital Need for
Studies of ‘How Things Work’ in Organisations and Management. Journal of
Management Studies, 48, 202–217.
Watson, T. J. (2012). Making Organizational Ethnography. Journal of
Organizational Ethnography, 1, 15–22.
 7
The Agential Materiality of Storytelling
David Boje and Nazanin Tourani

7.1 Introduction
Walter Benjamin (1963/1968, p. 87) tells us “The art of storytelling is
coming to an end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.”
Benjamin lists several contributing trends: the rise of the modern novel,
which is not grounded in materiality; information that can be too shal-
low to be useful; and a decline in workplace circumstances where people
can get together to practice the art of storytelling and story listening.
Benjamin says Nikolai Leskov was a storyteller who forgoes psychological
shading, had experience of a situation, and an ability to communicate it
in all its process complexity, including attention to its material vividness
and material history embedded in the “inscrutable course of the world”
(p. 96). The world does not storytell itself. There is no master storyteller

D. Boje (*)
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA
N. Tourani
Penn State University at Fayette, Lemont Furnace, PA, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 113

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_7
114 D. Boje and N. Tourani

giving us master narratives. This kind of thinking deflects attention from

the material practices of storytelling. It also deflects attention away from
our own complicity, our own ethical answerability in the material appa-
ratus of storytelling practices.
One has to turn to physics, material sociology, and native people’s sto-
rytelling to find the storytelling that Benjamin sees as passing from the
contemporary world. Indeed, this is the intent of our chapter, to revive
the material art of storytelling, grounded in the processes of the material
world. Despite the fact that there are examples of “everywhen” storytell-
ing in the west, western narrative traditions focus on linearity. Native
(indigenous) scholars are breaking with linearity in a return to nonlinear
storytelling. In quantum physics, there is a different break with linearity
but it also has something to do with storytelling. Finally, in sociology,
there is growing suspicion evidence that something is errant about the
social construction paradigm, and some rival paradigm is about to topple
it. We bring these three trends together and point out some ways meth-
odology can accommodate more nonlinear approaches to storytelling.

7.2 Textually Mediated Communication

We are telling our stories here with many “texts,” as conceptualized by
the work of sociologist Dorothy Smith and interpreted by communica-
tion scholar Martina H. Myers. Texts are communicative objects that
allow us to “map” or do sensemaking with our material realities. Texts
can be understood as “verbal routines inscribed in organizations like
performance appraisals or job interviews” (Fairhurst and Putnam
2004, p. 8). Map and routines are both linear models in the main. The
map is not the territory, and a living story is more directly interpene-
trating with the territory of relationships, in what Bakhtin (1993) calls
once-occurrent Being-as-event. A great deal of what social actors do is
habitual and done without conscious awareness. In order to better
understand our own and each other’s material realities, we often map
texts as subroutines that organize our activities, and thus create a
higher level of awareness regarding what are typically ongoing, some-
times habitual, nonconscious social activities and relations.
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 115

Furthermore, researchers using this approach seek to discover the texts

that instigate and advance social interactions (Campbell and Gregor
2004; Smith 1990). Texts are those common bits of knowledge that
inform and indirectly motivate individuals in regard to what to do,
how to behave, and how to interact. In other words, texts are those
things we read without thinking consciously about the formation or
activation of these texts most of the times (Campbell and Gregor 2004;
Smith 1990, 1999, 2005; Myers 2009).
Holstein and Gubrium (1999) extend this discussion of texts and
material realities that Smith and Myers describe by investigating the
material objects / realities as texts that we construct and which construct
us in describing our realities for ourselves and each other. While Myers
and Smith focus on texts as the basis for social interactions, Holstein and
Gubrium extend this discussion of texts and textually mediated commu-
nication into the realm of identity construction and the construction of
self. Thus, various texts will constitute and identify ourselves in the pro-
cess of doing this research.
As such, the representational paradigm of narrative, for the most part,
has aligned with the social construction paradigm, which according to
Bruno Latour (2007, 2005) has no material moorings whatsoever. This is
not the implication of Aristotle’s (350BCE) Poetics (see, Aristotle did, how-
ever, assume that narrative must have a beginning, middle, and end; a lin-
ear and static way of looking at it (Boje 2008)). In this chapter, we introduce
a practical sociomateriality approach to storytelling. Before we get to that
topic, let us introduce the storytellers: David Boje and Nazanin Tourani.

Example 7.1 Storytellers

I, David Boje, was born in Spokane, Washington, at Saint Vincent’s Hospital
to Lorane Joyce and Daniel Quentin Boje. I am the eldest of four siblings,
and the first in my family tree to attend college, much less to graduate and
earn a Ph.D. Both parents and one younger brother have passed away.
Somewhere along the way I lost interest in linearity. It could have been that
year in Vietnam, in the undeclared war, or an outright refusal to buy into
ways of telling that conform to beginning, middle, and end. My main focus
is on storytelling. While I am not indigenous or Native American, on both
sides of my family tree there were marriages to princesses of tribes in the
Northwestern United States. And so I have Boje relatives living on
reservations.
116 D. Boje and N. Tourani

I am Nazanin Tourani. I am born in Tehran, the capital of Iran. My parents

are both alive, living in my home country. I have grown up and studied up
to master’s degree in Iran. My engineering background has educated me
mostly in linear thinking paradigm while culture and especially indigenous
folklore has brought me up in diverse nonlinear perspectives. Time is the
most prominent nonlinear perspective I have come up with. Not only find-
ing diversity and relativity of time perception among people, but also first-
hand experience of living in two different cultural environments (Iran and
U.S.) has improved nonlinear perspective of time in my mind. Now, I am in
a Ph.D. program in New Mexico State University, where I first met Dr. Boje.
Attending Dr. Boje’s classes enriched and improved my nonlinear perspec-
tive, let me observe the world in a different way. Dr. Boje is my dissertation
chair and mentor in my attempts to study strategic alliances.

Next, we introduce a methodology that combines storytelling with

materiality. It is called ontological storytelling.

7.3  ital Sociomateriality and Ontological

V
Storytelling Methodology
What is vital sociomateriality? Vital materialism suggests human as an
agent is a complex and rich composition of vital materials, who acquires
his powers from matters; hence, his power is a type of thing-power. There
is no difference between human and nonhuman agents, but it disap-
proves of considering humans as an “ontological center.” The anthropo-
centric narrative of the phenomena is not all-embracing in that it ignores
nonhuman agents. The remedy is to interpret a phenomenon considering
all human and nonhuman agents/actants. Bennett recommends that we
improve our attentiveness to things and their agencies by paying more
attention to material vitality. She supposes this approach would further
affect our political analysis of and reactions to phenomena. Similar
insights appear in a variety of philosophies. For instance, it resembles
Buddhism’s basic tenets of attentiveness, that is, mindful action in Being
in many ways. However, the latter insight mainly addresses morale con-
siderations while the former one is an ontological and epistemological
philosophy.
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 117

Bennett (2010) in Vibrant Matter applies Latour’s (2005) Actor-­

Network-­Theory (ANT) in developing onto-stories, stories of the assem-
blages of stuff one encounters and orders in their daily life. Bennett makes
a claim similar to Cajete’s (2000) Native Science, in saying that matter
holds vitality, including an “agentic capacity” (Bennett 2010, p. xii). Such
capacity is obvious in the way chemicals affect us. Chemicals in our bod-
ies, as matter instances, influence our behavioral and physical functions.
Bennett brings in the concept of nonhuman agents by emphasizing on
“material efficacy” (Bennett 2010, p. 9).
By ontological storytelling, we mean a relational process approach.
The expert relational process of practiced understanding without worry-
ing about the past or future is also a theme in Dreyfus and Dreyfus
(1986). This is an interesting narrative, but I think that Dreyfus and
Dreyfus have taken us part of the way down this line in their book “Mind
over Machine: the power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the
computer” (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986, p. 30).
Matt brings together human and nonhuman agents contributing to
his Taekwondo practice in his ontological story. Following Latour (2005),
we storytell in a sociomaterial world, from different times, places, and
optics. We focus our examples in this chapter on the storytelling process
in relation to living materiality. We will now turn to quantum physics,
then to materialist sociology, and finally to indigenous peoples “more
materialist” storytelling for new directions in the arts of storytelling.

7.4 Quantum Physics and Storytelling

The relevance of quantum physics to storytelling is that there is a consti-
tutive role of the storytelling apparatus and measurement processes that
needs to be investigated. Karen Barad’s (2007) treatise on quantum phys-
ics attempts to realign “materiality” and “discourse.” Barad (2007, p. 229)
turns to Foucault (1977, p. 137) for a theory of discourse, where regimes
of power partition “as closely as possible time, space, and movement.”
Quantum physics calls narrative representationalism and Newtonian
interactivity physics into question. It does this by refusing to separate
measurement agencies from the constitution of phenomenon being
observed in the present moment of being.
118 D. Boje and N. Tourani

Agential Realist Ontology This story brings us closer to what is called

the “agential realism” approach to relational process ontology. Karen
Barad (2007) looks at the intra-play of materiality and discourse. They
intra-penetrate each other. As a physical therapist, she is in touch with
the corporeal real body of the patients and she uses her knowledge assem-
blage of Being. But, what is agential realism and how does it relate to
ontological storytelling? Next, we answer to this question.

Agential realism is beyond the boundaries of human and nonhuman

or social and nonsocial. “The framework of agential realism does not
limit its reassessment of the matter of bodies to the realm of the human
(or to the body’s surface) or to the domain of the social” (Barad 2007,
p. 209). Agential realist ontology views “matter as a process of material-
ization beyond human and social, into a more complex understanding of
normalizing practices (including regulatory ones) and the participatory
role in the production of bodies” (p. 210). Barad (2007, p. 393) develops
the theory of “agential realism” by reworking the notions of causality and
agency. Instead of causal relationships between distinct sequential events,
as in narrative, causality is “rethought in terms of intra-activity.”
According to agential realism, there are not separate kinds of material-
ity and so the linkage between discursive practices and their materiality
effects on bodies is not all that mysterious: discursive practices are mate-
rial efficacious, to the extent that they are because there is a causal linkage
between them, which is to be understood in terms of the causality of
intra-actions (Barad 2007, p. 211).
Agential realism looks at the in-betweenness of discourse and material-
ity in a timespacemattering approach. Betweenness is not about the tra-
ditional physics of interaction, but rather the term “intra-action”
including the dash (-) is preferred. In the dash, there is an intra-play, even
an intra-penetration as discourse and materiality co-mingle. A key con-
cept is “intra-action,” which is defined as “mutual constitution of objects
and agencies of observation within phenomena” (Barad 2007, p. 197).
Intra-action is different from the old physics word, “interaction,” which
“assumes the prior existence of distinct entities” (p. 197). Neils Bohr, for
example, asserted that “the nature of the observed phenomenon changes with
corresponding changes in the apparatus” (Barad 2007, p. 106).
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 119

In this Posthumanist ontology, storytelling is a material phenomenon

accomplished by material means and the apparatus of observing and
measuring in ways that have a differential mattering in the material world
that is more or less agential. Stories are not ideational representations, not
narratives, but are occurring in mattering practices. Stories are not
abstract objects, not separable from the measuring and productive agen-
cies of storytelling. There is no storytelling apart from the observing and
measuring apparatus. It is this entanglement that is the basis of the
­agential realist ontology of storytelling. Finally, “it is the reiterative char-
acter of performativity that opens up the possibility of agency.” (p. 213).
We are in agreement with the framework and aware of a fair amount of
other literature that moves in this direction. Among the works that we
have not yet cited and that seem clearly to move in the direction of
materiality-­storytelling are John Law’s After Method (Law 2004), Evelyn
Fox Keller’s Reflections on Gender in Science (Fox Keller 1985) and A
Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (Fox
Keller 1983), and Don Ihde’s Technology and the Life World (Ihde 1990).
However, the framework has been subjected to controversy in another
body of literature. The works of K. G. Gergen (Gergen and Kaye 1992),
J. S. Bruner (1990), and Donald Polkinghorne (1988), which are more
focused on social construction and meaning rather than the materiality
of story, are noteworthy cases of resistance to the framework.
Power does not determine subject formation in storytelling since, as
Foucault observes, there is always conflict and struggle in local acts of
resistance (p. 213). In the Foucauldian microphysics of storytelling, we
can examine the causality and agency from Barad’s agential realism that is
a very different paradigm than the usual social construction or interpre-
tivism approach to narrative representationalism. The difference is the
focus on the productive and materializing effects of the microphysics of
storytelling. This requires a rethinking of causality. Instead of causality as
a linear movement from a chain of causes to effect, causality has agential
materiality, in conditions that are embodied and contingent, including
the agencies of observation, articulation, tonality, and listening in story-
telling acts. Every storytelling involves a choice of apparatus that gives
attention to some aspects of the phenomenon being included while oth-
ers are being excluded. We want to pay closer attention in qualitative
120 D. Boje and N. Tourani

methods to the conditions and apparatus of observation in accomplish-

ing storytelling.
It is time to challenge the linearity thesis of most narrative work
because as Barad (2007, p. 394) puts it, “Future moments don’t follow
present ones like beads on a string.” While narrative is mostly retrospec-
tive sensemaking, and rooted in a social construction paradigm that does
not address the material world, for Barad (2007, p. 396) “mattering is an
integral part of the world in its dynamic presencing.”
Presencing and mattering are ethical challenges to traditional narratol-
ogy because each moment of Being-ness, such as in the explorations of
Taekwondo and Physical Therapy, storytelling is alive to the possibilities
of becoming (p. 396).
Next, we look more in depth at Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory.

7.4.1 Actor-Network-Theory and Living

Materiality-Storytelling

Bruno Latour’s (1999, 2005) ANT attempts to reverse the ills of social
constructionism. To say that something is socially constructed has come
to mean that “something was not true …: either something was real and
not constructed, or it was constructed and artificial, contrived and
invented, made up and false” (p. 90). Latour’s preference is to focus on
the material ways humans and nonhuman actants are constructed assem-
blages. The problem with social construction is that it reduces all con-
structions (or all assemblages) to just one type of material, the social. It is
a strange storytelling where only the social does assemblage, and nonhu-
man materiality has no agency at all. Latour (2005, pp. 52–53) defines
agency as “doing something, “making some difference to a state of affairs”
or “transforming some As into Bs through trials with Cs” (p. 53).
Storytelling is critical to agency, since “an invisible agency that makes no
difference, produces no transformation, leaves no traces, and enters no
account is not an agency. Period” (p. 53). The cited works of Law and
Ihde are also relevant here.
Like Barad (2007), Latour (2005) does not trust the word “interac-
tion.” For Latour, the word, interaction, implies that they are of the same
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 121

time, in the same place, of the same agency, use the same optic, and have
the same pressure. In ANT storytelling, there is an exploration of how
materiality is assembled from different times, places, agencies, optics, and
pressures.
An example given by Latour (2005, pp. 200–202) is that classroom
interaction is not synchronic, not isotopic, not homogeneous, not synop-
tic, and not isobaric. The material we study is not synchronic, not of the
same time, since quite a variety is coming from quotes from books of
many times. Materials are not isotopic, in that entities ranging from bod-
ies, desks, windows, flooring, and ceiling to books, clothes, and cell
phones come from many different places. Agencies are not homogeneous,
such as when notes are made about books, typed with a keyboard into
data storage, configured onto a slide presentation, transferred digitally to
a projector, and bounced from a screen onto the mind of a half-asleep
student. Those in the classroom are not synoptic, not using the same
optic or logic. The people are not isobaric, since students have many dif-
ferent pressures, and their pressures are not the same as those of instruc-
tors or teaching assistants. Dreyfus challenges the image of the classroom
as an organization. He believes that learning communities or communi-
ties of inquiry are better images of organizations that break a number of
linear structures into other components. In any case, issues of heteroge-
neous agencies maintain.
In assemblage-materiality-storytelling, we might just discover the
“heaps of paraphernalia” (Latour 2005, p. 75) societies and organizations
organize in action. As an exercise, take a moment and do an inventory of
the assemblage you have assembled around you this day, on your person,
and around your person.

7.4.2 Assemblage-Materiality-Onto Story

Material objects and material world has been thought to contain energy
for long. However, “socio”/material agency is much more believable now-
adays, as we encounter material assemblages operating partly or even
sometimes entirely without human agents’ interference. Machine to
machine (M2M) communication is among the most conspicuous scenes
122 D. Boje and N. Tourani

of a material assemblage we usually see without noticing its nonhuman

agency. Technology has brought up ways machines can connect to one
another, communicate, transfer data and signals, and, on the whole, oper-
ate—at least partly—on their own. These M2M communications provid-
ing us with a bunch of products—such as the internet, telecommunication,
and networks—represent a noticeable exemplar of what a material assem-
blage as a nonhuman agency produces through its combinative energy.
We connect to the internet via our computers or smart phones, upload
and download data, and contact other people whom themselves have
connected to the internet via their own devices. We do all these without
even noticing how various material assemblages communicate and work
together to bring us these possibilities. Just like organizations comprising
human agencies collaborate in a supply chain, an industry, or even in
broader environments to produce products and services, material assem-
blages comprising nonhuman agencies collaborate to produce services for
humans and human agencies. Organizations using the intranet are
instances of human agencies that rely on services partly provided by non-
human agencies.
In this section, we present an ontological story of M2M networks as a
material assemblage to improve understanding of this nonhuman. Firstly,
we define the concept of “material assemblage,” and then proceed to ana-
lyze a M2M network as an agentic assemblage.
Any specific structuration of events and space form an assemblage. As
said by Deleuze and Guattari, and Bennett, accordingly, “assemblage is
an ad hoc grouping of vibrant materials” with their enhancing and con-
founding energies. This diverse range of energies leads to its “emergent
property” which is not the simple sum of all members’ energies. Hence,
an assemblage holds a distinct efficacy called “agency of assemblage”
(Bennett 2010, pp. 23–24). It is noteworthy to mention that “efficacy is
the capacity of things to correspondingly affect and being affected by
other things” (Bennett 2010, p. 21). Grouping of different things in an
assemblage creates a unique efficacy to the assemblage, which is different
from the efficacies of individual parts. This issue is brought up by Spinoza
under the title “effective bodies” (Bennett 2010, p. 23).Spinoza believes
that all bodies—the term he uses for things—are derived from a common
substance. He also asserts that more complex bodies—what we call
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 123

assemblages—are diverse compositions or forms of simple bodies. Bodies

increase their power in a heterogeneous assemblage because the assem-
blage can affiliate with more types of bodies than a simple body does.
Hence, it can affect and be affected with greater bodies, that is, has supe-
rior efficacy. From agency point of view, it means that efficacy of things is
ontologically enhanced and distributed across a heterogeneous field
(Bennett 2010, p. 23). While ontological is widely explored in systems
theory a la von Bertalanffy and Gregory Bateson, our focus here is on the
intra-activity of discourse with materiality. Plus materiality here is in the
sense of quantum physics (Barad 2007). Intra-activity, instead of interac-
tivity, distinguishes our argument from that of system theory.
Most of the things around us are in fact complex bodies that also inter-
act with a great number of other bodies. In other words, agents hardly act
alone. Rather, their agency is produced in collaboration and interaction
with other surrounding bodies.
M2M is an assemblage of things (here, machines) that influence being
affected by other things. The more partner and more diversity it involves,
there is greater power affecting other things (or forming a more dominant
mode in Spinoza’s term), hence approving Bennett’s point in enhancing
power through heterogeneous assemblage. The result is to make some-
thing happen which cannot be performed through each of the machines/
things separately. In the M2M case, networks and connections are the
emergent property of things assemblage.
Although once created by human agents, M2M assemblages in all
forms now work partially or completely independent of human agencies
and create desirable or unwanted, planned or unplanned, and even
unpredictable consequences. The production capacity of these entirely
material assemblages represents energies covert in material objects.
To further explore how a material assemblage entirely consisting of
material objects operates as an agency, we analyze a specific type of M2M
communication with which we are all familiar, that is mobile communi-
cations. In our exploration, we take advantage of an ordinary organiza-
tion consisting of human actants as a metaphor to compare a material
assemblage of nonhuman agencies versus a typical assemblage of human
agencies. This comparison help us better appreciate energy and agency of
material objects.
124 D. Boje and N. Tourani

When we make a call to another person via our cell phones, we dial a
number associated with that person and wait for the result, which might
be an answer or a reject from the other party, connecting to his or her
voicemail, or even dropping the call.
Are dialing or pressing the “answer” button the only processes and
activities required to make a phone call? Obviously not. These are activi-
ties we perform, but there are a whole bunch of other procedures and
actions that occur as we make a simple phone call, entirely by a material
assemblage called the “Mobile Telecommunication Network.” Here, we
just explore one specific technology using SIM Cards to establish mobile
telecommunication.
We observe two machines—our cell phones—are connected and if we
observe more carefully, we may notice Base Transciver Station (BTS) tow-
ers. But there are still many other machines that communicate to make
this connection possible, which we do not see. The below figure provides
a simple schematic illustration of the assemblage (Fig. 7.1).
To start a cell phone communication, the subject (here a human agent)
has to obtain a cell phone, that is, the human–nonhuman interface of the
assemblage. When a subscriber registers his or her equipment on the
Global System for Mobile (GSM) network, its data is saved in Home
Location Register (HLR). User Equipment (UE) in our example consists
of cell phone and SIM Card. Like the organization front line, UE is the
part visible to the customers.
HLR is a central database containing all the cell phone information of
subscribers who are authorized to use the GSM network. The GSM network
is the most prevalent standard for mobile communication worldwide.
As a subscriber attempts to make a phone call, he or she sends the
destination phone number to the BTS via a wireless connection. BTS is
equipment which prepares wireless communication between UE and the
network. The nearest BTS to the cell phone receives the information and
pass it to the MSC.
MSC searches for called party information in its own VLR. VLR is a
part which determines where other mobile subscribers are located. If
VLR does not have subscriber information, a request letter is sent to
HLR by MSC to query the called party information. This part of process
is comparable to decision making in an organization. If the decision
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 125

HLR

MU BTS
MSC / VLR

STP

MU BTS
MSC / VLR

Acronym Definition

MU Mobile User (subscriber/ human agent)

UE User Equipment (cell phone)

BTS Base Transceiver Station

MSC Mobile Switching Center

VLR Visitor Location Register

HLR Home Location Register

STP Signaling Transfer Point

Global System for Mobile

GSM
Communications

Fig. 7.1 Mobile telecommunication network (Source: Nazanin Tourani original)

regards a recurring issue, the decision maker may refer to the related
records and find out the results. However, when new circumstances arise,
the same person may refer to higher managers in hierarchy to ask for
additional information and guideline.
126 D. Boje and N. Tourani

When HLR returns the requested information to MSC, first MSC

sends a message to the destination MSC, related to the place where the
called party is located. This message is sent through STP, which is respon-
sible for transferring signals between GSM network nodes. The destina-
tion MSC receives and sends the message to the destination BTS. Finally,
BTS sends a message to the called party and the called party’s cell phone
rings. At this point, a signaling circuit establishes between the called par-
ty’s UE and the calling party’s UE via MSC and STP. When the called
party presses the answer button, a voice channel will be reserved between
these two subscribers to make a voice call. After establishing the voice
channel, the signaling circuit will be released to be used for another voice
call.
The call flow here is easily comparable to the data flow and communi-
cation channels in an organization. HLR, MSC, BTS, and UE represent
the hierarchy of the assemblage. It is interesting that in this material
assemblage, like most organizations, the more information a part has, the
higher position it holds.
In our final section, we turn to indigenous peoples’ storytelling and a
more-living materiality to praise Native American storytelling, which has
a very special relationship to the materiality. The implications for draw-
ing together agential realism and our path, with the “native American”
storytelling is that we can look to methodologies where embodiment is
more than how material conditions are represented. We can go to looking
at the intra-play of storytelling with a living materiality.

7.5 Indigenous People’s Storytelling

and Living Sociomateriality
Living Sociomateriality Indigenous storytelling is about a live-centered
participating with a living materiality world. Cajete (2000, p. 2) believes
that a new science is needed, a “native science” which he defines as “com-
ing to know” that tribal processes “have evolved through human experi-
ence with the natural world. Native science is born of a lived and storied
participation with the natural landscape.” “Native science” for Cajete
(2000, p. 14) “is not quantum physics or environmental science, but it
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 127

has come to similar understandings about the workings of the natural

laws through experience and participation with the natural world.”

A special sense of materiality, what Vizenor (1998, p. 15) calls “trans-

motion,” is defined as “that sense of native motion and an active presence
[that] is sui generis sovereignty” and “a reciprocal use of nature, not a
monotheistic, territorial sovereignty.” “The transmotion of ledger art is a
creative connection to the motion of horses depicted in winter counts
and heraldic hide paintings.” (p. 179). Storied transmotion is a material
“presence in stories, an actual presence in the memories of others, and an
obviative presence as semantic evidence” and in a Bakhtinian sense “a
dialogical circle” (p. 169) and “in a ‘dialogical context,’ the conversions of
[ethical] answerability” (p. 27, bracketed addition, mine). Stories are a
transmotion and a virtual sense of presence in animated and embodied
native memories that includes in a Posthumanist philosophy, animal
memories (p. 170).
Cajete (2000, p. 21) wants to reclaim an indigenous view of “ani-
mism” from its dismissal by modernism. “Native science is an echo of a
pre-­modern affinity for participation with a non-human world.” (p. 23).
Not just an affinity for animal participation, but an entire basophilic
instinct of living with all other living things. “Life and death are trans-
formations of energy into new forms, the material and energetic fuel of
nature’s creativity.” (p. 21). This sentiment echoes Barad’s Posthumanist
energetic view of quantum physics in her respect for the proton life-
world in which all things are actively participating with all other things.
In the “animistic logic of Indigenous, oral peoples,” objects such as
stones and mountains “are thought to be alive and from whom certain
names, spoken out loud, may be felt to influence the things or beings
that they name, for whom particular plants, particular animals, p ­ articular
places, person and power may all be felt to ‘participate’ in one another’s
existence” (Levy-Bruhl 1985, cited in Cajete 2000, p. 27). This work by
“native American Indian” writers and scholars speaks to an intra-active
relationship between storytelling and materiality of living ecological
places. Here, we encounter a different sort of storytelling, a storytelling
of living in an enlivened material world. Works by Cajete, Vizenor,
Sarris, Allen, Silko, Womack, and Warrior challenge the Western
128 D. Boje and N. Tourani

European-American approaches to lifeless narrative representationalism

by noting our participation in wider orders of nature.
Next, we look at the Native American storytelling scholars who we
believe are saying something important about the relationship of story-
telling and materiality.
A growing number of Native American scholars have continued to
break away from the dictates of western narratives (e.g., Allen 1992;
Cajete 2000; Owens 2001; Silko 1981; Vizenor 1998, to name but a
few). And not just Native American, but also indigenous writers around
the world are challenging western narrative hegemony. Smith, from New
Zealand, for example, rejects “the idea that the story of history can be
told in one coherent narrative” (Smith 1999, p. 31). To decolonialize for
Smith (1999, pp. 34–35) means recovering stories of the past that were
marginalized, “telling our stories form the past, reclaiming the past, giv-
ing testimony to the injustices of the past” as strategies “employed by
indigenous peoples struggling for justice.”
Our sense of time, space, and matter are largely determined by society.
From this socialization, expectations of how our storytelling is to be con-
structed are situated. Our emphasis is on the materiality focus on story-
telling (transmotion, survivance, Earth-based) which has been
marginalized in Western narratology. In this regard, we refer to nonlinear
storytelling examples, such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (Heller 1961),
Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (Welsh 1993), and James Joyce’s Ulysses (Joyce
1922), and Finnegans Wake (Joyce 1939) among many others.

Time Paul Ricoeur (1984, p. 62) asserts that “within-time-ness or

being – ‘within’ – time deploys features irreducible to the representation
of linear time.” Among Native American scholars, Highwater (1981,
p. 92) points to an errant western obsession with materiality of time:
“There are a great many preconceptions with which various societies
grasp the world and make it comprehensible, but in the West there is
perhaps no single idea as obsessive as the notion of the material reality of
time.” When we grasp the materiality conception of time in the West, we
begin to grasp the difficulty storytellers and their audiences have in mov-
ing away from mechanical clock and associated linear succession concep-
tions of time. “To designate clock-time as ‘real time’ is the same as calling
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 129

American money ‘real money.’ … It is the imperative in the West to fal-

sify our consciousness so it fits the stream of duration that carries us out
of the past and into the future, the modality of linearity, and it is com-
posed equally of a past, present, and future through which a sequence of
enduring events follow one another in an orderly and calculable manner”
(Highwater 1981, p. 94).

Western concepts of time, space, and matter have created a gap between
linear narrative and native peoples’ more nonlinear storytelling.
Indigenous peoples’ scholarship has long suspected that western narrative
is trying to keep people from noticing that the Posthuman world is decid-
edly nonlinear. It takes a good deal of special schooling, and media pro-
paganda, to convince the masses that they live in flatland. Most narrative
is about past remembrances strung together in a linear sequence of events.
These remembrances are folded onto the future, where some expect the
past to replicate its flat lines onto the future. Indeed, there are many
people and contexts in which we don’t think of time as linear. Nonetheless,
it is the dominant, educated, cosmopolitan model.
When released from clock-time, we find our temporal experience
much more personal and relativistically constructed. We are better able to
focus on now, as an extended moment, where time appears to slow and
speed up. In those moments, we can glimpse, for a fraction of a second,
that life is not running along the presumed linear trails.

Space Bergson noted that our Western conceptions of time are fixated
on space “If we want to reflect on time, it is space that responds.” Thus,
“duration is always expressed as extension.” And “the past is understood
as something lying (physically] behind us, the future as lying somewhere
ahead of us” (As cited in Highwater 1981, p. 96). Leslie Silko (1981)
writes out of her Laguna Pueblo tradition of storytelling in which
according to Highwater (1981, p. 100) “there is always an intimation of
a reality larger and essentially different from that of the dominant soci-
ety and its predominantly naturalistic literature.” Cajete (2000,
pp. 210–211) describes indigenous causational paradigm as a living
hologram where one moves around a deeply internalized sense of place
filled with life, looking from different animal and plant perspectives
130 D. Boje and N. Tourani

together with looking at landscape from the north, south, east, west,
below, above, or from within, in order to learn to bring the different
understandings of living community together. Note how different this
living hologram of ecological consciousness is in comparison to Western
Newtonian-Cartesian –mechanistic science and capitalism paradigms of
“a mass of ‘dead’ matter ripe for manipulation and material gain” (Cajete
2000, p. 212).

We would like to close our chapter on the qualitative arts of storytelling-­

materiality with David Boje’s account of becoming a blacksmith. It is also
a summary of onto-storytelling as a method.

Example 7.5 David Boje’s Account of Becoming a Blacksmith

I am a blacksmith and a storyteller. I prefer a storytelling that is ontological,
about real stuff, metal things, coal, fire, water, and tools. I learned about
onto-storytelling from Jane Bennett (2010), who applies Bruno Latour
(1999, 2005) Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). An onto-storytelling is about
humans in relation to material things, each of which is an actant in the sto-
rytelling. In ANT, there are material actants, human agents, and they have
more or less agency in a situation. The onto-storytelling is about how
humans, animals, and material things are in intra-activity. We use the word
“intra-­ action” instead of the word, “interaction” because we want to
invoke the new quantum physics, where things and people do not interact,
but at a molecular-proton level, materiality crosses in-between. Karen
Barad’s (2007) work, for example, looks at the intra-activity of materiality
and discourse. Storytelling is a domain of discourse. So here, in this chapter,
we want to see in onto-storytelling, how the storytelling and the material-
ity cross-between, intra-twine, and intra-play. We will tell you more about
quantum physics, and the new ways of looking at materiality, as we pro-
ceed with our examples of onto-storytelling.
As I was telling, I have become a blacksmith. More accurately, I am in the
process of becoming one. I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on a small horse
ranch. I am the first one in my family tree to attend college, much less get a
Ph.D., or become a professor, and do all sorts of theory things. I have been
interested in storytelling for 30 years, but it’s only since I took up black-
smithing that I became fascinated with the ontological aspects.
About a decade ago, while she was still living, my mother Loraine Joyce
told me about my great grandfather and how he had become a blacksmith
and livery stable owner in Goldendale, Washington. I suppose that planted
a seed to become a blacksmith. She also told me that on my mother’s and
dad’s sides of the family, someone had married Native Americans. It was the
first I had ever heard of it.
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 131

My mother took down a shoebox full of photos from a closet shelf. She
was cursing as I began tearing through the stack. “These photos are not
worth anything. I hate this part of my life. I want to forget about it.” “What
is my grandmother’s name,” I asked. I always knew her as grandmother.
“Her name was Wilda,” my Mother screeched with more emotion than I
was used to seeing. She then tore a photo of my grandmother Wilda. I
pieced it back together and took a digital photo. You can see the diagonal
tear through Wilda’s hat and through her horse.
My great grandfather, on my mother’s side, is William Henry Shelton
(born Jul 26, 1863, in Brownstown, Indiana; died Aug 18, 1946, in Toppenish,
WN, buried at Tacoma Cemetery in Yakima, WN). William Shelton became a
blacksmith. He and his wife Virginia Tuttle (born Mar 13, 1863, in Wayne
County, Iowa, and died Oct 11, 1944, in Toppenish and buried in Yakima,
WN) came to Washington in a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in 1897.
One of their children (Henry Wayne) died on that trail. The largest migra-
tion along the Oregon Trail took place in the 1840s with travel continuing
until the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. William and
Virginia Tuttle could not afford the train, so they did the 2,000 mile trek by
wagon in 1897.
William and Virginia were wheat farmers, but when they could not make
a go of that, they moved to the town of Goldendale and opened that
town’s first livery stable and blacksmith shop around 1900. My grand-
mother, Wilda, was born on Jan 28, 1902. She had two older sisters and two
older brothers (counting the one that died on the Oregon Trail), and one
younger brother, named Joseph Gerald Shelton (born Jun 13, 1904; died
Aug 18, 1937). He went by the name Gerald and married (or may have)
Stella LaClaire, a Native American. My mother pulled this photo out of the
shoebox, and I made a digital image.
Their children included Georgia (or Georgie) & perhaps a Darlene; Gerald
worked in circus and Rodeos; he as an alcoholic was beaten by the police,
and died in the Toppenish jail, WN; the story is they threw him in so many
times, they got tired and just beat him to death.
About three or four years ago, I decided to become a blacksmith. I was
born after my great-grandparents had died. So I can only imagine what
their blacksmith shop was like. I drove to Goldendale and poked about, but
could not find any records of it.
Most storytelling has degenerated into just retrospective narrative, into
epistemology disconnected from the material world. I prefer to do some
other storytelling in addition to narrative work. In particular, I like the living
stories and the antenarratives. A living story is part of a web of living sto-
ries, in the present, in what Mikhail Bakhtin (1993) calls the once-occurrent
event-ness of being. It is this living story, caught up in the now, that for me
is closest to the ontological. Finally, in antenarrative, a term I invented in a
2001 book, we are dealing with the future. Antenarrative is a double mean-
ing: “ante” as a ‘before’ narrative becoming fossilized, and “ante” as a
“bet” on how transformation is happening.
132 D. Boje and N. Tourani

I use my blacksmithing to explore my own living story, as I am a black-

smith. I also explore what I call the “spiral” and “assemblage” antenarra-
tives. Most antenarratives that have been studied are linear or cyclic, and so
the spiral and assemblage ones are quite novel. In a linear or cyclic antenar-
rative, the narrative has its way, just folds the past onto a future that is
expected to replicate. Spirals and assemblages happen differently. They are
antenarratives that fold the present moment of Being-ness (living story, if
you will) onto the future.
As someone becoming a blacksmith, I am in touch with my living story
and with materiality, with coal, water, fire, air to make the fire hotter, and
the iron I am holding with tongs. You know it’s real, a living flesh and blood
story, when you forget to be in the now and grab a piece of grey iron that
looks cool enough, but is still 1200 degrees. It melts the skin on your fingers
like butter. You just stare at your fingers and cannot believe you just did
something so stupid. It’s so hot, you don’t even feel it. You know that the
pain is coming. The pain comes in an hour or so when the blisters form and
continues for the next few days. I apply lots of Aloe Vera and meditate on
the importance of a blacksmith staying in the moment.
Materiality for blacksmiths is different than for non-smiths. To a smithy,
metal is only solid when it’s cold. Heat it up to 1900 or 2000 degrees, and
you can bend it, move it, and forge it into about any shape you want. Just
let it cool before you touch it. Before you can shape metal, you need the
coal fire to be just the right heat, to form some coke, keep the slag out of
the heart of the fire, and keep tending to it so the sides of the coal fire
retain the heat. As you heat up a piece of iron, you learn to pay attention,
or the iron will overheat, becoming yellow-white and shooting sparkles just
before it melts. As you heat the iron above a red heat, you can begin the
hammering. That hammering on the anvil actually changes the carbon
structure, moving the molecules into a tighter configuration, strengthening
the metal. Each type of metal has different heating and bending properties.
And it takes quite a while to learn to tend the coal fire, watch your piece,
learn to hold it steady with a pair of tongs, and understand how to use a
hammer. Using a hammer sounds simple, but when you are holding hot iron
with tongs, and wanting to shape a leaf, you learn it’s far from a simple
thing.
I have been practicing making leaves on the ends of ½ inch and some-
times 5/8th round stock. I bend the stalks of the leaves into something life-
like, and one of them I leave longer, so it spirals around the others. I have
to make at least 100 leaves before they will be anywhere near the quality I
want to achieve. To get good at something, you have to do it again and
again, until you master it.
My blacksmith shop is fashioned out of straw bale, covered in chicken
wire, and coated with stucco. It’s unlikely that William Shelton used straw
bale construction, but it’s a possibility. My shop has a metal roof and two
eight-foot doors that swing easily on strap hinges. I kept most of the floor
 The Agential Materiality of Storytelling 133

earthen since it is easier on the feet than standing on concrete. And you
don’t want to drop red or white hot metal on concrete. To be a blacksmith,
you need all sorts of tools. Some I bought: hammers, tongs, and a post vice.
Others I borrowed, such as a fine anvil, from my neighbor, Pep Gomez. Pep
is a master blacksmith and teaches the metal arts at Dona Ana Community
College. He helped me fashion the metal strap hinges holding the doors. I
finished them and mounted them, when my son Raymond was in town.
Other tools I made: a coal forge, some more tongs. You can never have
enough tongs. I also made some rather large power hammers out of recycled
truck axles, leaf springs, and some huge I-beams I got from a salvage yard.
It took me a year before I could make a leaf that looked anything like a
leaf. I also make knives out of railroad pikes and horseshoes. I cold-forged
wire into spiral pens, smaller knives, swords, and hearts. I fashioned a sword
for my son Raymond out of leaf spring. I sold one of the railroad spike
knives for $75 at an Arts Convention in Las Cruces in 2009. The others I gave
as gifts to relatives and my students.
Last November, I went to Gunter’s weeklong blacksmith workshop in
Moriarty, New Mexico. Besides how to properly tend a coal fire and various
ways to twist metal, eight of us learned to forge weld. Forge welding is
when you heat pieces of metal to a white-yellow color and try to get them
to stick together. It takes perfect heat, perfect timing, and just the right
amount of hammer blow to make a forge weld. It helps to use some borax,
applied at a red heat, to keep the pieces clean before you try the forge
weld.

References
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 8
Interpretation, Reflexivity
and Imagination in Qualitative Research
Yiannis Gabriel

8.1 Introduction
Quantitative and qualitative researchers in the social sciences face funda-
mentally different challenges in the ways they seek to generate and test
new knowledge. Quantitative researchers aim for law-like generalizations
after the model of the natural sciences. They seek to establish links
between causes and effects that apply irrespective of time and place and
come up with accurate generalizations. These can subsequently be used as
the basis for making predictions. “A rise in unemployment levels causes a
rise in crime” may lack the certainty and precision of “A rise of the tem-
perature of water to 100 degrees Celsius causes it to boil, changing from
liquid to gas”, but the two are fundamentally similar types of statements.
Both of these statements may be qualified. “Water boils at 100 degrees at
sea level” or “Crime level rises as a result of unemployment, unless a gov-
ernment invests in youth training schemes”. Both of these statements

Y. Gabriel (*)
Bath University, Bath, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 137

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_8
138 Y. Gabriel

may be falsified through evidence. Ultimately, however, they both stand

or fall depending on whether the relation between different variables can
be established with a degree of rigour demanded by the methodology of
the disciplines in question.
Qualitative researchers confront a different type of challenge. The
statement “Faced with job loss and financial ruin, Accountant X turned
to fraud, blackmail and eventually committed suicide” aims at explaining
the experiences and actions of a specific individual faced with a specific
predicament. Unlike the quantitative researcher who seeks to understand
the particular as an instance of the general, the qualitative researcher is
seeking to discover the meaning of particular events and experiences,
aiming to understand these phenomena as outcomes, intended or unin-
tended, of meaningful human actions, emotions and intentions.
Both quantitative and qualitative researchers seek to answer the ques-
tion ‘why’, but they approach it from different angles. Quantitative
researchers approach it from the angle of causality, while qualitative
researchers approach it from the angle of purpose and intent. In the social
sciences, the two approaches may address what appear as the same social
phenomena, like suicide, poverty or illness, and the same organizational
phenomena, like leadership, conflict or change, but they do so with dif-
ferent agendas, interests and logics. Quantitative research is guided by the
logic of explanation, verification and prediction even when its explana-
tions prove temporary, provisional or even unattainable. Qualitative
research, on the other hand, is guided by the logic of understanding by
constructing plausible, meaningful and coherent narratives that account
for the experiences and the actions of different individuals and groups.
Quantitative research looks at human actions as behaviour, not so very
different from the behaviour of animals or natural objects; qualitative
research, on the other hand, looks at human actions as purposive, mean-
ingful and emotional.
The distinction between logico-scientific knowledge, which is the aim
of much of quantitative research, and narrative knowledge, which is the
aim of qualitative research, was first put forward by Bruner (1986) but
may be traced to Habermas (1972) and others who argue that they each
subscribe to different ways of establishing the truthfulness of their claims.
Logico-scientific knowledge, which is sovereign in the natural sciences,
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 139

aims for rigour and generalizability. Narrative knowledge, on the other

hand, makes no claim to generalizability and its predictions are highly
contingent and qualified. “The king died, then the queen died of grief ”
does not purport to explain what happens to all queens following the
death of their husbands, but may offer a very sound narrative explanation
for the death of a particular queen who died shortly after her beloved
husband. Likewise, “the pilots were involved in a heated conversation
about the imminent merger of their company and over-ran the runway,
landing the plane on an adjacent field” may not amount to a general
explanation of missed landings or pilot conversations but may explain the
particular incident at hand. What is now known as ‘narratology’ does not
seek explanations in fixed relations between causes and effects but in
establishing the links between people’s actions, purposive and accidental,
and their outcomes by placing them in plausible plots.
Narrative knowledge and logico-scientific knowledge call for different
ways of thinking and different ways of establishing the truthfulness of
their claims, but they are not unable to interact with each other, challenge
each other and, at times, support each other. A qualitative ethnographic
case study, for example, may clarify concepts and suggest hypotheses that
may subsequently be tested through quantitative research (Eisenhardt
2002). Quantitative research, for its part, may generate insights for aggre-
gates of populations that may then be qualified and refined though quali-
tative research into specific types of cases and phenomena. Thus the
statistical argument that job loss is associated with family break-ups, alco-
holism and depression may be qualified for instances of people who after
losing their job discovered ways of fashioning better lives for themselves
and their families. The same statistical relation, however, may account for
the fact that Finance Officer X, having lost her job, was more liable to
suffer family break-up, alcoholism, depression and suicide.
This chapter examines three fundamental practices of qualitative
researchers. These practices call for specific skills and the competence
with which qualitative researchers accomplish them determines to a sub-
stantial extent the quality of their research. These practices are interpreta-
tion, which involves a skill at risk of atrophy under the influence of
coding software; reflexivity, which has become enormously fashionable
and risks becoming a box-ticking ritual; and imagination, without which
140 Y. Gabriel

no qualitative research has much value or interest but which is at risk of

­extinction as academic publishing becomes increasingly formulaic and
sterile. The chapter deals with how different interpretations may be gen-
erated and tested or corroborated. It then examines the role of reflexivity
as an “interpretation of interpretation” (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009)
and the extent to which reflexivity can corroborate the validity and
enhance the value of an interpretation. We conclude by arguing that, as
important as reflexivity is, it should not be treated as the gold standard
guaranteeing the quality of qualitative research. Instead, we highlight the
role of creative imagination in generating and testing empirically-based
insights in qualitative research.

8.2 Interpretation and Hermeneutics

Interpretation, the quest for the meaning of a phenomenon, has long
been seen as the heart of most qualitative research. Hermeneutics is the
long tradition that examines how to uncover the meanings, often hid-
den and covert, of different texts. Its etymology derives from the Greek
word ερμηνεία (interpretation), itself related to the god Hermes, known
ambiguously for his ability to convey messages but also to extricate
himself from difficult situations (hence, the related word ‘hermetic’)
and to deceive or trick others. Hermeneutics emerged originally as the
art of deciphering the deeper meanings of sacred texts, like the Bible,
but eventually came to be seen as the quest for deeper meanings in all
‘texts’ and subsequently human actions, practices, utterances, artefacts
and institutions.
Interpretation is a vital part of all qualitative research, as researchers
engage with the meaning of narrative, interview materials, images and
artefacts and indeed any action or experience whether at individual or
collective levels. Interpretation is often a difficult process requiring skill
and experience. Even a simple word like “No” can have different mean-
ings depending on the circumstances and the way in which it is spoken.
For instance, a “No” may indicate “No, don’t talk about this painful
subject” or “No, I don’t want to talk to you” or “Oh my god, this is
incredible” or even, in some circumstances, “Yes, this is exactly what
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 141

happened, but I didn’t expect you to realize”. Thus, whether interpret-

ing a particular advertisement, a major political event, a cultural institu-
tion or a single individual’s actions or experiences, an interpretation is
pieced together by identifying different clues, details, signs or symp-
toms and trying to establish their deeper significance with a new narra-
tive that accounts for all of them. A fundamental principle of
interpretation is the hermeneutic circle which describes the process of
moving from the parts to the whole and back to the parts as a way of
building up compelling explanations (Gadamer 1975; Taylor 1971,
p. 14). In this way, the interpretation of a story tries to fit different ele-
ments like plot, characters, moral message and so forth within a plau-
sible meta-story which leaves no loose ends or unanswered questions.
This circular character of interpretation suggests that no interpretation
is ever complete or total.
Qualitative researchers are frequently challenged to state the criteria
by which they corroborate or support their interpretations. How can
judicious and insightful interpretations be distinguished from fanci-
ful, wild or spurious ones? And how truthful can an interpretation be
when it is explicitly rejected or denounced by the subject whose
actions or experiences it seeks to explain? Consider, for instance, the
case of Rose, an anorexic young woman, whose condition becomes
life-threatening and her parents agonize about whether to have her
hospitalized. Different interpretations may be offered to explain her
condition, like:

1. She is a fashion victim, emulating what she sees as ideals of feminine

beauty in fashion magazines and the fashion industry;
2. She is seeking to delay the arrival of puberty and remain a child
forever;
3. She is rebelling against a society obsessed with food and consumption;
4. She is trying to guilt-trip her parents for constantly criticizing her
appearance and/or always privileging her older brother; or, alterna-
tively, she is trying to punish a boy who rejected her;
5. She has succumbed to a death drive and is seeking to kill herself;
6. She suffers from a mental disorder whereby her mind makes her think
she is obese, no matter how objectively thin she is;
142 Y. Gabriel

7. She is starving herself as an excessive form of mental discipline and

self-control;
8. She is imitating a particular celebrity with whom she and her friends
at school identify.

These and many other interpretations may account for Rose’s anorexia,
but how are we to decide if any of them are valid? It will be immediately
clear that the quest for the meaning of an individual’s anorexia is a com-
plex one and one that cannot be totally disentangled from the world
views and the interest of whoever is proffering an interpretation.
The task of interpretation has been likened to that of a detective who
pieces together the evidence in order to reveal the underlying nature of a
crime (Ginzburg 1980). It also has similarities with the task of the medi-
cal practitioner seeking to diagnose an illness from a patient’s different
symptoms. In both of these cases, considerable skill is required in identi-
fying different clues and details as meaningful and significant and then
moving to the general explanation that informs a search for new clues
and details. A successful interpretation is capable of creating an experi-
ence of brilliant enlightenment. What was dark and confused suddenly
becomes meaningful and clear. What seemed arbitrary and incompre-
hensible suddenly becomes inevitable and obvious. However, clever or
imaginative interpretations are not necessarily true. In some instances,
‘wild’ interpretations may appear truthful, only to disappoint later. A
mother may be told and believe that her son’s asthmatic attacks are a
response to her husband’s sudden explosions of temper but these may
later turn out to be caused by a particularly dusty mattress. Wild interpre-
tations can often hit home with vulnerable, sick and gullible people. It is
not accidental that some of the most skilful practitioners of interpreta-
tion can be found among astrologers, spiritualists, coffee-ground diviners
and fortune-tellers, all of whom seek to read large meanings about the
past and the future from relatively simple signs.
Interpretation is a difficult art that calls for practice, sensitivity and
imagination. Corroborating or supporting particular interpretations is
especially hard. This has led many, if not most, qualitative researchers to
avoid risking interpretations altogether. The commonest way of doing so
is through a practice that has become very common in qualitative papers,
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 143

namely quoting snippets of interviews or conversations with different

respondents in a decontextualized and fragmented way and then
­tabulating these in a manner that ostensibly indicates dominant themes
and patters. This practice is usually supported by the use of qualitative
research software, like nVivo, that all but replace interpretation with for-
mulaic techniques of coding text. The art of interpretation is thus in
danger of atrophying or even disappearing as qualitative research software
enables researchers to organize and code large amounts of qualitative
material, seeking to distil from it some theoretical essence. The use of
such software in qualitative research has now come to play the part that
number-­crunching plays in quantitative research. It amounts to a formu-
laic set of techniques that provide scientific legitimacy for the process
whereby large volumes of words are processed to extract something of
theoretical value.
Against the interpretive timidity and conservatism represented by cod-
ing software, Peter Svensson (2014, p. 174) advocated what he calls ‘over-
interpretations’ which “make it possible to transgress the positive data
(i.e. all that which can be heard, observed and perceived on the field) and
established ways of representing of social reality”. Such overinterpreta-
tions seek to reinstate the daring and critical quality of really original
interpretations, if necessary by doing violence to conventional meanings
and sensemaking attributed to everyday phenomena. Violence, Svensson
claims, “persistently tries to see through the most superficial levels of
meaning—i.e. what people say and what seems to happen in an organiza-
tion—in order to get down to the layers of soft and silent power of social
life. ‘Violence’ is a strong but nevertheless an apt term for describing the
nature of the overinterpretation.” (179) Violent interpretations are liable
to arouse hostility and defensive reactions from others including the sub-
jects whose actions and experiences are being interpreted but also other
researchers who may dismiss such interpretations as unfounded or wild.
What means then are available to qualitative researchers who wish to be
daring but also find strong corroboration for their interpretations?
No interpretation can be final or complete. Whether interpreting the
meaning of a work of art, a historical event, a biographical detail or text
of any sort, new evidence may always emerge which shifts its meaning.
Even if no new evidence comes to light, new interpretations may emerge
144 Y. Gabriel

that supplant or over-ride earlier ones. Yet, this inability to reach defini-
tive interpretations does not make every interpretation equally m­ eaningful
or valid. An interpretation may be original, clever, perceptive, incom-
plete, misleading or even plain wrong. How then can we test our inter-
pretations and increase our confidence that we have hit the mark? While
no interpretation can be ‘proven’, every interpretation can be corroborated
through a variety of techniques. The internal consistency of an interpreta-
tion is obviously paramount, where the interpretation of parts is consis-
tent with the interpretation of the whole. Different signs or clues all
pointing in the same direction. In this regard, skilled qualitative research-
ers act as devil’s advocates against their own interpretations, seeking to
identify even a single clue that would undermine or discredit their inter-
pretation. Although not falsifiable on the grounds of individual pieces of
evidence, strong interpretations make clear what evidence would lead to
their refutation. Second, in strong interpretations, specific outcomes are
over-determined. Not only do different signs all point in the same direc-
tion, but different mechanisms can be established leading to the same
outcome. Thus, to return to Rose’s anorexia, she may indeed be trying to
punish herself for several different reasons at the same time and be discov-
ering different ways of punishing herself, including through her anorexia;
for instance, she may have a long history of masochistic and self-harming
tendencies. Third, strong interpretations will generally address, account
for and supersede less strong ones and, even more importantly, will elimi-
nate counter-interpretations. Eliminating all counter-interpretations is
an effective way of corroborating an interpretation, especially if these
counter-interpretations are not ‘straw men’ but well considered and plau-
sible ones. This is often forgotten by interpretive researchers who some-
times fall in love with their own interpretations and fail to notice that
alternative interpretations of a phenomenon or an event may provide a
stronger, simpler or more complete explanation.
In generating different interpretations, testing, them, qualifying them,
corroborating them and discarding them as qualitative researchers, we are
operating in a somewhat similar manner as natural scientists seeking to
test different hypotheses. Unlike natural scientists, however, our aim is to
generate robust interpretations rather than rigorous and generalizable
chains of cause and effect. The quest for motives and meanings is quite
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 145

different from the quest for causes and effects, not least in that the
researcher’s own motives and meanings can easily become part of the
inquiry. More generally, the knowledge generated by the social and
human sciences, including theories and concepts, readily become part of
the reality under investigation. The object of the human and social sci-
ences is thus a contingent entity in constant change, a change in which
ideas and practices resulting from social science itself play a part.

8.3 Reflexivity
If there is no royal road for qualitative research, there is also no full-proof
way of validating it. The quest for rigour and objectivity, vital in quantita-
tive research, can hardly be applied to qualitative work. This opens up
qualitative research to charges of being ultimately unscientific. It is against
this background, that in recent years, there has been an increasing empha-
sis on reflexivity as an ongoing process of vigilance and self-questioning
that qualitative researchers must exercise in order to enhance the trust-
worthiness and value of their work (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009; Willig
2001). Reflexivity refers to a constant questioning on the part of qualita-
tive researchers of their own stance vis-à-vis their empirical material,
analysis and theorizing. Reflexivity emanates from a realization that the
investigators’ own values, experiences and motives cannot be separated
from the research process. These can be a source of bias and error, which
reflexivity may forestall. More importantly, however, the qualitative
researchers’ own previous experiences, sensitivity and self-knowledge can
be valuable resources, enhancing their engagement with their empirical
material and deepening their understanding of its meaning and signifi-
cance. Unlike most quantitative types of research, qualitative research,
whether conducted through interviews, observations or even textual
analysis prompts the researchers to engage emotionally with their infor-
mants, inviting researchers to respond empathetically with the experi-
ences of other people and groups.
Unlike the natural sciences, in the human sciences, the object and the
subject under investigation frequently overlap or even coincide (as in the
case of autoethnography). This overlap between the knower and the
146 Y. Gabriel

known, the subject who looks in the mirror and the image that stares
back from the mirror, has made reflexivity something of a gold standard
for qualitative researchers who do not adopt the natural sciences as their
model and reject positivist methodologies and traditional criteria of
rigour, reliability and validity (e.g. Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009;
Cunliffe 2003; Hardy et al. 2001; Hibbert et al. 2006; Tsoukas 1992). A
reflexive practice is sometimes used interchangeably with reflective prac-
tice, a term popularized by (Schön 1983), as a professional’s ability to
step back from an immediate activity or experience and turn it into an
opportunity for learning. However, as Hibbert et al. (2006) and
Malaurent and Avison (2017) have argued, a useful distinction can be
made between the two terms. Reflexivity goes beyond mere reflection or
reflectiveness in as much as it is ‘recursive’—a reflexive practice is one
that constantly redefines the practice, through the ability of human
statements to alter the state of what is being stated and the person who
states it. More generally, a reflexive activity is one in which subject and
object co-create each other—in carrying out a piece of research, I create
myself as a researcher.
A reflexive researcher recognizes that what she says or writes influences
and redefines that about which she is writing as well as herself as the
author. This recursive quality of reflexivity is admirably captured in
Alvesson and Sköldberg’s (2009) ingenious definition of reflexivity as
“the interpretation of interpretation” (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009,
p. 9). The implications of this definition are quite far-reaching—reflexiv-
ity makes every interpretation potentially unstable since interpretation is
liable to change the object being interpreted as well as the subject carry-
ing out the interpretation. Reflexivity, therefore, is not akin to the passive
reflection of a mirror but rather the interaction through the mirror of the
subject and the image. Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I adjust
my position, I change my expression, I tidy my hair and consider myself
from the position of the other. As Lacan argued, by recognizing ourselves
in the mirror as children, we begin to constitute ourselves as subjects
(2006). Later in life, many others, including parents, colleagues, audi-
ences and so forth hold mirrors in which we perceive ourselves and which
sustain our subjectivities. As researchers, the work we carry out continu-
ously defines and redefines us as subjects.
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 147

This has significant implications. Consider, for example, the issue of a

researcher’s own values and their impact on her work. A reflexive
researcher does not seek to be value neutral but is alert to the ways that
her research expresses, reinforces or undermines the values that she
holds. To this end, she seeks transparency in the values embodied by her
research in the choice of subject, choice of conceptual approaches, meth-
odologies, field work and so forth (Myrdal 1972). Achieving transpar-
ency in the values expressed in the research we do is far from easy and
calls for a close probing of our motives in doing the work we do. For
example, how many of us would be prepared or willing to acknowledge
that our choice of topic, of collaborators or of methodology may be dic-
tated by careerism or by contemporary fashion? How many of us would
acknowledge that our work may be driven by an ambition to publish at
all costs? As reflexive researchers, we often have to work against our inner
resistances and the researcher’s permanent temptation to rationalize her
work in terms of lofty ideals of enhancing knowledge and advancing the
welfare of humanity.
Reflexivity does not only call into question the values and motives
that drive our research. It also calls for a recognition of the effects of our
own presence, as researchers in the field. Qualitative ‘data’ has the impri-
matur of the researcher—it cannot claim to be objective in the way
quantitative data in both natural and social sciences can. An interview or
an observational session is a product of intersubjective encounters and
practices, influenced by numerous psychological and circumstantial fac-
tors. The same individual observed or interviewed by different research-
ers will act differently and in some cases very differently—it is not
uncommon for a respondent to say two exactly opposite things to two
different researchers. I had ample opportunity to observe this when car-
rying out research on unemployed managers and professionals (Gabriel
et al. 2010; Gabriel et al. 2013). An unemployed manager would clam
up and portray himself as having a stiff upper lip, confident of getting
another job shortly; the same manager, when interviewed by a different
researcher, would break down in tears of despair or self-loathing and
express hopelessness and despair. In a series of interviews, a younger
researcher was repeatedly able to get under the defences that were raised
by unemployed men and women in their 50s when interviewed by her
148 Y. Gabriel

senior colleagues. The qualitative interview is an interactive accomplish-

ment and difficult to assess without a strong sense of the context or the
occasion. In this way, the empirical material of qualitative research does
not pre-exist the act of c­ ollecting it but is created in the act of research
itself. It is the product of a particular type of social encounter (Gabriel
2015), one in which respondents may be seeking to impress, defer to or
defy their interviewers. It is for this reason that the precise way in which
researchers explain the purpose of their work to their respondents, some-
thing that is rarely mentioned in the ‘methodology’ sections of published
papers, is of the greatest significance in contextualizing the meaning of
the conversation. Snippets of an interview, which fail to mention even
the gender or age of a respondent, may give the impression of supporting
an often grandiloquent argument—in reality, however, all they reveal is
a researcher’s skill in supporting virtually any argument with appropri-
ate, decontextualized evidence.
Acknowledging the effects of the research relation also requires a rec-
ognition of the power dimensions of this relation, something that quali-
tative researchers ignore at their peril (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009).
This occurs both at the individual and organizational levels. A researcher
who enjoys a relatively well paid job and a comfortable life inhabits a dif-
ferent world from that of a social security claimant, a bereaved parent or
a cancer patient. Research with so-called vulnerable groups (Becker-­
Blease and Freyd 2006; Booth and Booth 1994; Dyregrov 2004) has now
become a regular topic of research ethics, but recognizing the asymme-
tries in the relation between researchers and their respondents goes
beyond formulaic precautions to safeguard the rights of these groups. It
calls for an acknowledgement of the emotional and symbolic dimensions
of a relation that cannot leave researchers as objective observers but makes
big demands on their own emotional resources.
Psychoanalytic researchers are aware that every research encounter
entails some transference and countertransference, in other words, the
reawakening of experiences and emotions from earlier periods of their
lives in both researchers and their respondents (Czander 1993; Ulus and
Gabriel 2016). Meeting somebody in the contrived environment of a
guided conversation with unequal power relations frequently triggers in a
respondent emotions and fantasies associated with significant figures
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 149

from their past. This is known as transference and can be positive (warm
and supportive feelings) or negative (fearful, envious, suspicious etc.).
Countertransference represents the researchers’ own response to the
transference of their interlocutor, shaping our own emotions during and
following an interview. A careful analysis of our countertransference can
offer powerful insights into elusive unconscious emotions and help us
make sense not only of the emotional dynamics of the interview situation
itself but also of the deeper significance of our respondents’ behaviour
and utterances in our presence (Gabriel and Ulus 2015; Gemignani
2011; Stein 1999). Acknowledging our countertransference requires con-
stant monitoring and recording of our immediate reflections and experi-
ences during field work. For example, we may write about feeling
claustrophobic, puzzled or unsettled at specific points, and such emo-
tions can serve as additional resources for interpreting our empirical
material. Countertransference, when effectively deployed, can be particu-
larly useful in bringing to the surface unconscious dimensions in an
encounter between the researcher and her respondents, which may nor-
mally be prevented from reaching the surface by various psychological
defences.
The power dynamics of research are not limited to the face-to-face
interaction between researchers and their subjects. As Alvesson and
Sköldberg (2009) observe, every aspect of the research design and its
execution entails a wide range of political and ideological assumptions
which can easily go unnoticed. This is especially apparent when we revisit
classic studies from the past, whether in sociology (e.g. Liebow 1967/1981;
Matza 1969) or in anthropology (e.g. Malinowski 1922; Mead 2001
[1930]), and the ideological and political assumptions of their authors
become immediately apparent. More specifically, qualitative research in
organizations usually involves delicate negotiations for access with differ-
ent powerful stakeholders. This is a delicate political game in which vari-
ous undertakings may be given by researchers. Reflexive researchers
question the implications of such undertakings both for the framing and
execution of their work as well as for its political implications.
The political and ideological underpinnings of all social research are
also present in the language used, the very terms and concepts used. Since
the rise of scholarship on discourse, we have become aware that every
150 Y. Gabriel

discursive resource we deploy is laden with political assumptions.

Even innocent-sounding terms like ‘management’, ‘consumers’, ‘mar-
kets’, ‘culture’, ‘gender’, ‘stakeholders’ and ‘knowledge’ embody powerful
ideo­logical and political assumptions from which researchers cannot
detach or abstract themselves. In doing research on unemployed manag-
ers and professionals, we found that the word ‘unemployed’ itself carried
assumptions of self-blame and self-responsibility that frequently raised
emotional defences among our respondents. Using an expression like
“being out of paid work” frequently drew different responses from our
participants from “being unemployed”. Reflexive researchers will be sen-
sitive to these assumptions that can be notoriously difficult to disentangle
and explore. Moreover, terms can carry connotations and resonances that
vary from research to researcher and from researcher to the wider public.
Notice for example how the long-standing convention of referring to
homo sapiens through the male pronoun is now widely viewed as part of
a sexist language that privileges the male of the species and frequently
renders women invisible and inaudible. Notice too often apparently
innocent terms appear to embody assumptions that tacitly sustain hierar-
chies of inclusion and privilege.
Reflexive qualitative researchers face another type of challenge. Unlike
quantitative researchers in both natural and social sciences who can set
their sights on confirming or disconfirming a theory or a hypothesis,
qualitative researchers are often undertaking a journey whose conclusion
may be very different from their original intentions; along the way of this
journey, they may themselves emerge as different subjects, their ideas,
methodologies and even their identities altered in some very significant
ways. Reflexive researchers cannot deal with empirical material as some-
thing separate from themselves—as something stored in a computer file,
to be processed, squeezed or distilled to generate knowledge at a later
date. Instead, their own identity as researchers and their own practices as
investigators are intimately intertwined with their experiences in the
field. In writing up their research, in a thesis, an article or a monograph,
qualitative researchers are thus faced with a difficult conundrum. Should
they acknowledge that the destination point of their work was different
from the original one, in which case their methodology was one chosen
for a different purpose, or should, as they often do, create a story of how
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 151

their research was always intended to reach the conclusions which they
finally attained?
Several scholars discussing reflexivity in qualitative research emphasize
its social nature. Reflexivity is not merely a solitary conversation with the
self, but calls for a series of dialogues with multiple ‘others’, including
audiences, research collaborators and field respondents (Mahadevan
2011; Orr and Bennett 2009). Reflexivity should not lapse into a solip-
sistic or narcissistic exercise (Tomkins and Eatough 2010) but should
rather be a vigorous effort of questioning both individual and profes-
sional practices. Not only should the individual researcher’s values and
motives be interrogated but equally the professional norms of different
disciplines, the practices of academic publishing and, more widely, the
role of social research in society. In this connection, Alvesson et al. (2017)
have criticized what they view as the loss of social relevance and meaning
for a large part of research in the social sciences which has become
increasingly formulaic and esoteric. Research is no longer a vocation
driven by passion for learning and discovery but has become a publish-
ing game, whereby individual researchers aim for hits in prestigious jour-
nals and the merits of different pieces of work is reduced to metrics, such
as journal impact factors and citation counts. Many articles that get pub-
lished amount to hardly more than footnotes to the work of others, foot-
notes that are only meaningful to tiny microtribes of fellow researchers,
if that. Alvesson et al. castigate the explosion of published outputs which
create a noisy, cluttered environment as different voices compete to cap-
ture the limelight even briefly. In an environment where the volume of
published material doubles every five years or so and where most of the
publications remain unnoticed and uncited, capturing the limelight,
however briefly, becomes paramount. This results in widespread cyni-
cism among many social researchers on the value of academic research
including their own. Combating this type of cynicism and seeking to
make their findings socially meaningful by engaging a wider public is
seen as a significant challenge for reflexive researchers. This challenge is
compounded by various institutional factors, including research assess-
ment exercises, departmental rankings and the general devaluation of
teaching that become internalized by academics seeking to promote their
own careers and reputations.
152 Y. Gabriel

8.4 Limits to Reflexivity

Faced with such a challenge, several voices have cautioned against view-
ing reflexivity as the panacea for qualitative research. Weick (2002) has
criticized reflexivity as an end in itself which easily ends up as navel-­
gazing or box-ticking rather than as a means for improving the quality of
theory. The critique of reflexivity as an end in itself is shared by Rhodes
(2009), who argues that reflexivity must reach beyond minuscule textual
interrogation and aim towards the development of a social responsibility
among researchers in the ways they exercise and promote academic free-
dom through their daily practices. Lynch (2000, p. 26) has been even
more absolute in castigating reflexivity as an increasingly diffuse idea that
serves to legitimate various types of knowledge by privileging researchers
who claim to be reflexive against those who are assumed to be unreflexive.
He proposes, instead, that reflexivity is “an ordinary, unremarkable and
unavoidable feature of [all human] action” and should not be viewed as a
special virtue and the unique preserve of those researchers who use the
term as a prop for a wide variety of claims.
Such warnings are valuable. Reflexivity should certainly not be reduced
to either a box-ticking exercise or solipsistic self-questioning. Nor should
it be seen as a guarantee of good quality research or theorizing. All the
reflexivity in the world will not turn a dull piece of work into an interest-
ing one. Quite the opposite—it will make it still duller. What reflexivity
will not replace is the researcher’s intelligence and craft that are alert to
similarities and exceptions, continuities and discontinuities, plans and
accidents. In particular, reflexivity cannot replace two vital qualities in
qualitative research—the ability to spot meaningful details and critical
theoretical imagination.
Spotting significant details for a qualitative researcher is, as we saw
earlier, akin to a detective’s skill in identifying those tiny clues that lead to
the criminal and the crime. Having an eye for the significant detail, pres-
ent or missing (Schreven 2015), is the skill threatened by unquestioned
reliance on coding software like nVivo to reveal the deeper meaning of a
text. Observing significant details is a skill that calls not just for textual
alertness, but also for a kind of vigilance. Significant details do not go
unnoticed simply because they are details but because, very often, there
 Interpretation, Reflexivity and Imagination in Qualitative... 153

are particular obstacles, institutional, intellectual and emotional, deliber-

ately placed so as to hide them. Excessive preoccupation with large sizes
and quantities very frequently makes us blind to the significant detail.
Thus, instead of seeking to process large amounts of qualitative material
as though it were quantitative, my preference is to search for small reveal-
ing details amidst large quantities of uniform, predictable and dull data.
In this regard, I have suggested that qualitative researchers should act as
beachcombers who survey a huge beach looking for valuable objects and
materials or at least for objects and materials which offer interesting pos-
sibilities (Gabriel 2015).
A beachcomber will ignore large amounts of sand, rocks and rubbish
with eyes that search restlessly for small items of value and interest. In this
sense, a beachcomber is in a quest not for objects themselves but rather
for the possibilities offered by different objects. To a beachcomber, a piece
of driftwood may suggest things as diverse as a bonfire on the beach, an
artistic installation or the existence of a nearby shipwreck. A sea-shell may
suggest an addition to a mobile or may spark the inspiration for a collage
or painting. In a similar way, it seems to me that an important part of a
qualitative researcher’s skill lies in the recognition of possibilities afforded
by small details in the empirical material, details than can be easily over-
looked and are unlikely to be picked up by nVivo or other coding soft-
ware. Details full of interesting possibilities for qualitative researchers is
exactly what Gibson (1977) calls affordances—a realm of possibilities for
action opened up by different objects of the environment.
Identifying these theoretical possibilities of specific aspects of qualita-
tive material requires that qualitative researchers go beyond the standard-
ized routines of their methodologies and use their critical theoretical
imagination. Imagination, a quality praised by C. Wright Mills (1959) in
his book The Sociological Imagination that should be required reading for
every qualitative researcher, is a quality present at every stage of an inquiry.
It is a restless state of the mind that pressingly and persistently asks the
questions “Why?”, “What if?” and “So what?”, one that is capable of
shifting perspectives from the specific to the general and vice-versa, one
that seeks theoretical openings in analogies and metaphors, one that does
not seek easy closure in the face of mystery and uncertainty. Imagination
is a quality that does not discard method but is willing to work ‘against
154 Y. Gabriel

method’ when circumstances call for it (Feyerabend 1975). Far from

being the enemy of objective inquiry, imagination is an indispensable
quality for challenging existing and, at times, oppressive beliefs and ideas
and venturing into the realms of alternative possibilities. Imagination is
an essential quality of all critical inquiry—inquiry that seeks to challenge
existing assumptions (Alvesson and Sandberg 2013), common sense,
comfortable routines and predictable, comfortable interpretations
(Svensson 2014).
In this chapter, we have identified some core differences in the ways
that quantitative and qualitative researchers go about pursuing knowl-
edge. We have highlighted the importance of interpretation for qualita-
tive research and have indicated some of the ambiguities and complexities
researchers face in corroborating and strengthening their interpretations.
We then examined the role of reflexivity as an important quality in quali-
tative research, one through which researchers, individually and in
groups, explore the assumptions, meaning and ramifications of their own
practices, as well as the wider social relevance of their contributions. As
important as reflexivity is, we concluded by suggesting that reflexivity is
no substitute for critical imagination—a vital quality in all qualitative
research. We suggested that this quality frequently calls for a departure
from the strictures of formal methodology, an approach to empirical
material with a sharp eye for detail as a set of affordances rather than a
uniform volume of data, to the act of interpretation itself as well as to a
persistent critical deployment of the questions “Why?”, “What if?” and
“So what?”

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 9
The Emotional Nature of Qualitative
Research
Angela Stephanie Mazzetti

9.1 Introduction
This chapter aims to explore an issue that is rarely discussed in manage-
ment research ‘how-to’ textbooks: the emotional nature of qualitative
research. This chapter comprises five sections. In Sect. 9.2, I present an
overview of emotions and explain some of the key terms used throughout
the chapter. In Sect. 9.3, I discuss the emotional challenges of existing in
two worlds: our own world and our participants’ world. In Sect. 9.4, I
explore some of the emotional challenges of developing rapport with
research participants. I also discuss the difficulties of conducting research
with our friends and conducting research in our own employing organ-
isation. In Sect. 9.5, I explore the complexities of discussing sensitive
topics either by design or by accident. In each section, I draw on a care-
fully selected literature set to explain the key concepts, and I present

A.S. Mazzetti (*)

Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 159

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_9
160 A.S. Mazzetti

examples from qualitative research studies as an illustration of these

­concepts. Finally, in Sect. 9.6, I present a series of suggestions to help
prepare you to engage with the emotions.

9.2 Understanding Emotion

Our emotions influence much of what we do and how we do it and are an
essential part of being ‘human’ (Lazarus 1991). Emotions are the complex
reactions we have to our judgements about ourselves in the world, influ-
enced by our sense of who we feel we are and who we want to be (Lazarus
1999). Our emotions are therefore ignited when we encounter situations
that either threaten or enhance our sense of self, our values and beliefs, and
our aspirations and goals (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). We experience
negative emotions when we encounter situations that have the potential to
threaten our personal values and aspirations or harm our well-being, and
positive emotions when we encounter situations that contribute to the
achievement of our ambitions and enable us to flourish (Lazarus 1991).
Emotions can be conceptualised as both ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ states and, as
such, we feel our emotion inwardly, but we also display our emotion out-
wardly to others and these outward displays are regulated by the cultural
and social worlds to which we belong (Svašek 2005). Hochschild (1979,
p. 560) uses the term ‘emotion work’ to refer to “the act of trying to
change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling”, suggesting that in
social encounters, we engage in the management of our emotions to either
evoke an emotion that is absent or suppress an emotion that is present.
She noted that ‘feeling rules’ determine the culturally scripted norms and
expectations about how we should feel and act in given situations and
therefore which emotions should be absent or present. Hochschild (1983)
notes that feeling rules also determine the appropriate ‘bows from the
heart’, the appropriate emotional exchanges, such as facial expressions,
choice of words or tone of voice expected by others to convey to them that
we are feeling the appropriate emotion. However, she notes that feeling
rules are culturally scripted, creating a dilemma as to how ‘much’ emotion
we display; too much emotion and we may come across as insincere, but
too little and we may appear cold and detached (Hochschild 1983).
 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 161

Qualitative studies are, by their nature, emotional, as they involve

human researchers interacting with human participants (Broussine et al.
2014); interactions which ignite our feelings and emotions about our-
selves and our participants (Clarke and Knights 2014). However,
although the emotional nature of conducting qualitative research is
openly discussed in other disciplines (see Dickson-Swift et al. (2008) for
a review in health research and Milton and Svašek(2005) for a review in
anthropological research), within business and management studies,
there has been limited reference to the issue (Broussine et al. 2014; Clarke
et al. 2014; Mazzetti 2013; Whiteman et al. 2009). Yet, the research pro-
cess is “marinated in all kinds of emotions” (Broussine et al. 2014, p. 11).
A number of researchers have suggested that the lack of discussion regard-
ing the emotions stems from an academic community dominated by
positivism, objectivity and science, (Cassell and Symon 2012; Watts
2014) and, as such, the rational is still privileged over the emotional
(Brannan 2014). This has resulted in the plethora of ‘how-to’ textbooks
focusing on technique rather than on skills with the emotional and
embodied aspects of conducting qualitative studies rarely explored
(Clarke and Knights 2014). However, not addressing the emotional
nature of qualitative research in organisational settings risks researchers
being unprepared for their emotional encounters (Whiteman et al. 2009)
and may result in researchers feeling inadequate or incompetent (Clarke
et al. 2014; Mazzetti 2013). Yet, if we embark on a study of human lives,
we have to be ready to face these human feelings (Hoffmann 2007). This
chapter aims to address this gap by providing some advice and guidance
on how to be prepared for our own and our participants’ emotions.

9.3 Straddling Two Worlds

When we embark on a research project, we are motivated by thinking
that our research is important and will have a positive impact for both
our research participants and the academic community (Down et al.
2006). However, as we enter a research setting, we find ourselves strad-
dling two social worlds—our own and our participants’—and we walk a
fine line between closeness (with our own world) and distance (with our
162 A.S. Mazzetti

participants’ worlds) (Agar 1980; Down et al. 2006). These worlds are
bounded by cultural, social and organisational ‘rules’ (Down et al. 2006;
Whiteman et al. 2009) and therefore our interactions with our partici-
pants are founded on varying degrees of ‘strangeness’ and ‘familiarity’
with these ‘rules’ (Tietze 2012). We often find that our research partici-
pants are not as enthusiastic about our research intentions as we are, and
in some cases, they can be indifferent, dismissive and resentful, or misin-
terpret the purpose of our research and therefore our role as a researcher
(Brannan 2014; Down et al. 2006). This can create emotional dissonance
as we experience challenges to the legitimacy of our research and there-
fore threats to our researcher identity (Down et al. 2006).
Brannan (2014) highlights that we engage in the academic inquiry of
a topic that is situated within a defined academic conversation; however,
he notes that when we engage with our research setting, these academic
‘frames of reference’ become ‘operationalised’ and as such the focus of our
research may not necessarily be perceived in the same way by our partici-
pants. He illustrates this point by making reference to his own ethno-
graphic study in a call centre, noting that despite his candour as to the
intent of his research (he was researching employee behaviour), it was
often misunderstood or misinterpreted by participants (who considered
that he was researching knowledge exchange or teamworking), highlight-
ing that although an academic community may see clear boundaries and
distinctions between different areas of academic inquiry, our research
participants may not. Brannan (2014) adds that misinterpretations as to
the purpose of his research made him feel vulnerable as an academic and
he started to question the ‘legitimacy and usefulness’ of his research, to
question if his research design was flawed and to question if his research
questions were misguided. He feared that if he was unable to clearly artic-
ulate the purpose of his research to his participants, how could he do so
to a more hostile academic community?
Misunderstanding as to the purpose of our research can also create ten-
sions between us and our participants. In organisational settings, research-
ers are not always welcomed, as those who grant access for the research to
be conducted may not always be those who are directly interacting with
the researcher (Brewer 2000) and, in certain contexts, for example, organ-
isational ethnographies, participants may be less able to ‘opt out’ of the
 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 163

research process (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). This may lead to

feelings of suspicion and resentment towards a researcher who asks ques-
tions and records responses ‘on behalf of the management’ (Brewer 2000).
For example, Knights (cited in Clarke and Knights 2014) refers to a dif-
ficult interview with a union representative during his research at a man-
ufacturing plant. This participant interpreted the purpose of the research
solely as a means of getting information for the ‘management’ and, as
such, he refused to allow the interview to be recorded and his responses
were monosyllabic and purposefully guarded and limited. Researchers
can therefore often feel like ‘interlopers’ and ‘outsiders’ (Clarke and
Knights 2014). Indeed, Garrety (cited in Down et al. 2006, p. 95) notes
that during her observations of management meetings at a steel works,
she felt “out of place, like a spy or a parasite”.
Clarke and Knights (2014) note that interactions with participants
will also be informed by attitudes to our physical identity in terms of age,
gender, class, sexuality and race. Clarke (cited in Clarke and Knights
2014) notes that she felt ‘apprehension and trepidation’ during her
research with male engineers, as she was so very different from those she
was researching; she was neither male nor an engineer. Garrety (cited in
Down et al. 2006, p. 95) notes her discomfort working in a male-­
dominated environment explaining that “although I tried to be friendly,
I found it difficult (impossible!) to do the matey blokey stuff. I thought
it would be too patently false to even try”. However, Clarke notes that
because she was different, her male engineers felt liberated to tell her
things that they would not normally discuss in their male-dominated
environment. Because she was female, they considered her a ‘safe pair of
hands’ in which they could talk about their feelings and sentiments in a
way that they could not normally do with their peers.
Clarke and Knights (2014) further highlight several challenges facing
young researchers who may be perceived as inexperienced and naive.
They suggest that young researchers may have their research manipulated
by organisational gatekeepers and are therefore more likely to make ill-­
informed decisions due to lack of experience. Knights refers to his own
research with a newspaper sales organisation, where the release of his pre-
liminary findings to the workforce (by order of the management but
unbeknownst to him) led to the staff engineering his removal from the
164 A.S. Mazzetti

organisation. The lesson of this story, he suggests, is that researchers

should never underestimate the power of organisational politics. Clarke
and Knights (2014, p. 48) therefore highlight that “your identity as a
researcher is not so much about your idea of who you are but the poten-
tial myriad of interpretations and projections made by your audience”.

9.4 Developing Relationships

An important aspect of qualitative research is developing ‘rapport’ with
our research participants, and to do this, we need to be able to demon-
strate an understanding of our participants’ worlds, an interest in their
stories and empathy with their feelings (Dickson-Swift et al. 2008). In
their research of the challenges encountered by PhD students undertak-
ing qualitative interviews, Roulston et al. (2003) highlight that new
researchers are often anxious about dealing with unexpected participant
behaviours, dealing with their own actions and biases, keeping the inter-
view flowing and focused and dealing with sensitive issues. They further
highlighted a number of practical issues that can impact the researcher/
participant interaction, including dealing with distractions such as noise,
dealing with eavesdroppers, taking notes during discussions and dealing
with the ‘stumbles’ and ‘slips’ of normal conversations. Qualitative
researchers therefore need to be able to outwardly display their interest,
understanding and empathy with their participants’ stories but within
the appropriate culturally scripted levels of exchange (Dickson-Swift
et al. 2008; Hoffmann 2007).
Not all of our encounters with participants will be positive ones.
Sometimes, we meet people with whom we struggle to develop a rapport
(Down et al. 2006; Kleinman and Copp 1993) and, at times, we may
encounter those who are hostile or rude towards us despite our best
efforts to engage with them (Dundon and Ryan 2010; Mazzetti 2013).
The on-going effort of trying to establish a rapport (when there clearly is
not one to be established) requires not only significant emotion work on
behalf of the researcher (Dickson-Swift et al. 2008) but also a need for us
to engage in alternative strategies to find some connection with our par-
ticipants (Dundon and Ryan 2010). Sometimes, we may avoid engaging
 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 165

with those we do not like, but in doing this, we risk potentially missing
out on hearing different or alternative perspectives (Down et al. 2006;
Kleinman 1991). In some encounters, we may need to suppress the nega-
tive emotions we feel for our participants (Down et al. 2006), which
means we have to ‘hang onto’ all that emotion until we have an opportu-
nity for a safe release (Dickson-Swift et al. 2008). It is important that
there is a safe outlet for these emotions, for example by recording our
feelings in a reflexive diary or by discussing our feelings with our research
supervisor or a research buddy (Mazzetti 2013), as failing to address the
issue may impact our long-term engagement with qualitative research or
result in us becoming disenfranchised with our research (Kleinman
1991).
Perriton (2000) suggests that new researchers often engage with peer
groups, family, friends and even partners in search of a ‘research nirvana’,
anticipating that it will be easier to research those with whom there is
already an established relationship rather than trying to build a relation-
ship with a ‘stranger’. However, she adds that just because there is an
established relationship does not mean that the difficulties inherent in
research with ‘strangers’ are absent. Indeed, she notes that this new rela-
tionship of friend/researcher and friend/participant often results in feel-
ings of embarrassment and ‘bewilderment’, suggesting that friendship
and research are a ‘potent mix’. She illustrates with an example of a rather
uncomfortable ‘research’ lunch with a friend during which the normal
lunchtime protocols such as where to go and who should pay became
rather strained and the whole conversation had an atmosphere of tension
not normally experienced under normal lunchtime discussions.
Additionally, many researchers conduct their research in their own
(employing) organisation. Tietze (2012) and Perriton (2000) suggest
that the growth in professional qualifications which require the comple-
tion of a dissertation, project or thesis has resulted in an increase in such
‘insider researcher’ studies (Brannick and Coghlan 2007). A number of
advantages and disadvantages to ‘insider research’ have been put for-
ward. Tietze (2012, p. 56) notes that such close involvement and famil-
iarity with the research setting, can ensure “access to organizational
niches and nooks, which may remain hidden otherwise”. However,
Brannick and Coghlan (2007) note that some avenues may be closed off
166 A.S. Mazzetti

to insider researchers because of their position in the organisation’s hier-

archy: too low in the hierarchy and insider researchers may find that
they cannot gain access to the more senior networks; too high in the
hierarchy and they may not get access to the informal and grapevine
networks. Additionally, these different ‘actors’ in the system may hold
very different expectations and suspicions about the purpose of the
research (Grisoni and Broussine 2014).
Insider researchers take on multiple roles as they become “researchers
as well as employees, managers, bosses, occupational experts, colleagues
and friends” (Tietze 2012, p. 59) and, as such, they are likely to experi-
ence role conflict as they are caught between the sometimes conflicting
demands of their organisational role(s) and their researcher role (Brannick
and Coghlan 2007; Grisoni and Broussine 2014). Tietze (2012) suggests
that the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’ may have conflicting views as to
what it means to be a ‘colleague’ and a ‘researcher participant’ at the same
time, putting a strain on relationships, a strain which may extend beyond
the life of the research project. Referring to her own PhD ‘insider’ research
of student and staff in an educational setting, Grisoni (cited in Grisoni
and Broussine 2014) highlights the challenges she encountered taking on
the roles of line manager, researcher and tutor. She notes that being an
insider had advantages in terms of preknowledge and an understanding
of the research context, but also had implications for the power relation-
ships between her and her participants. She suggests that, at times, she
would ‘shy away’ from asking challenging or follow-up questions during
interviews due to the conflicting roles of line manager and researcher.
Indeed, Brannick and Coghlan (2007) highlight that our employing
organisation may put constraints on what can be disclosed and docu-
mented leaving us with the dilemma of ‘report’ (and live with the after-
math) or ‘don’t report’ (and keep our job). Grisoni (cited in Grisoni and
Broussine 2014) also highlights the practical difficulties in switching
between the role of ‘researcher’ and that of ‘employee’, noting that she
would often rush through a research meeting in order to prepare for a
work meeting. She learned to allocate days specifically for research so that
she was not squeezing research activities in between work activities, which
she suggests gave her a clearer research focus.
 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 167

9.5 Dealing with Emotive Topics

Hoffmann (2007) suggests that the focus of our research may be sensi-
tive and therefore emotive. Lee (1993) defines sensitive research as being
intrusive in nature (e.g. the study of private or personal stories and
issues), incriminating (e.g. the study of deviant behaviours) or political
(e.g. the study of power imbalances or coercion). For example, Hoffmann
(2007) suggests that her research of ‘problems in the workplace’ was by
its nature an emotive topic for many of the participants. She discusses
the emotion work required to demonstrate just the right amount of
empathy with her participants but without being too emotional or too
detached. She also highlights a common problem for many management
researchers, that of being caught in the middle between managers and
subordinates and therefore having heard ‘the story’ from both perspec-
tives. She illustrates this point by referring to an interview with a man-
ager who became emotional when discussing how his subordinates
perceived him as a manager. She highlights that she was unable to con-
sole him by saying “that’s not true, they don’t think of you in that way”
(because she knew they did) or defend him by saying “don’t worry about
what they think” (because this would have been dismissive of their views)
and, as such, we can find ourselves in situations where we can neither
‘soothe or defend’ our respondents.
However, Lee (1993) suggests that what is considered ‘sensitive’ is
‘highly contextual’ as even fairly innocuous topics can become highly
emotive because of the situational context in which they are researched.
He refers to John Brewer’s (1991) ethnographic study of routine polic-
ing (a fairly innocuous topic), which was highly emotive as a result of
the social conflict in Northern Ireland at the time of the study. Lee
(1993) therefore suggests that it may not necessarily be the topic per se
that is sensitive but rather the conditions under which sensitivity may
arise. For example, my own ethnographic study with the fire and res-
cue service took place during a period of tense industrial relations,
government reforms, spending cuts, and industrial action. This cre-
ated a situational sensitivity to my research I had not anticipated
(Mazzetti 2016).
168 A.S. Mazzetti

Roulston et al. (2003) highlight that a key anxiety for new researchers
undertaking qualitative interviews is that although we might anticipate
our conversations to follow a particular format, we can never be sure
what way the interview will progress and the topics we will end up dis-
cussing. Indeed, the emergent and participant-led nature of qualitative
research means that we often find ourselves discussing topics that we had
not anticipated (Hoffmann 2007). This means that we can often ‘trespass’
into sensitive territory (Lee 1993). Roulston et al. (2003) note that new
researchers fear discussing sensitive topics as interviews can ‘get too
tough’. They suggest that this influences the researcher’s ability and will-
ingness to ask probing questions. However, Van Maanen (2010, p. 338)
states that we should not shy away from such issues, suggesting that
“without an affront, injustice, complaint, or beef to explore we might
well become ciphers-qua-celebrants, happy agreeable sorts who wallow in
unmitigated delight within the organizations we study and, in the end,
have little to say other than everything is hunky-dory”.

9.6 Conclusions
Following on from the discussion and examples presented in this chapter, I
have suggested some ideas to help prepare you for emotional encounters.

• Be aware of your own biases and ‘grievances’ and reflect on how these
can influence your choice of research topic, your choice of research
setting, your research design, how you engage with participants and
how you interpret and present your data.
• Read the papers and books cited in this chapter as they provide detailed
academic debates and more practical advice and guidance on the topic
of researcher emotion. Reflect on the issues they raise and prepare an
action plan for your own development.
• Talk to your research supervisor about any worries and concerns you
may have about your research and also about any emotional encoun-
ters you may experience. It is important that you have a safe outlet for
such discussions. Also, find out if your institution offers any other
formal support mechanisms for researchers.
 The Emotional Nature of Qualitative Research 169

• Find out if your institution has a research buddy system or researcher

action learning set. These peer support mechanisms can often provide
an additional and more informal source of advice and guidance.
• Keep a reflective diary to record your feelings and emotions.
• If you are new to qualitative research, take advantage of training and
development activities aimed at helping to develop your researcher
skills such as interviewing techniques. It is safer to hone such skills in
the safe environment of a training room.
• Accept that we all have research encounters that we wish had gone bet-
ter. Reflect on what happened, discuss it with your supervisor or
research buddy, and then action plan for future development.

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Brannick, T., & Coghlan, D. (2007). In Defense of Being “Native”: The Case
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 10
Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers
to Participation
Daniela Rudloff

10.1 Introduction
Regardless of the specific epistemological approach, wanting to capture
the lived experience of the individual is at the very heart of conducting
qualitative research and often this is explicitly acknowledged by talking
about ‘making voices heard’ (e.g., Postle et al. 2005; Cheyns 2014). But
how do we help making voices heard? Two conditions need to be met:
researchers need to (1) listen and (2) allow participants to speak up. And
yet, research methods do not give everyone the same opportunity to
speak up and marginalised groups are likely to be further excluded from
research. In some cases, this is because of an unwillingness or inability to
reach out to vulnerable communities (Reid 1993; McDonald and Keys
2008); in other cases, reaching out is only the first step—making it pos-
sible for people to actually participate another is the second step.

D. Rudloff (*)
University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 173

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_10
174 D. Rudloff

10.2 Representativeness and Representation

In 2014, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that in Great
Britain ‘there are over 11 million people with a limiting long term illness,
impairment or disability’ (ONS 2014). The prevalence of disability
increases with age, from 6% for children to 45% for people at State
Pension age (ONS), although the prevalence of disabilities is likely to be
underreported and the actual rates therefore higher (Abberley 1992).
In the ONS report, the term ‘disability’ covers a wide range of sensory
and mobility impairments as well as mental health illnesses, learning dis-
abilities and non-neurotypicality; consequently, there is a wide range of
impairments which can lead people to encounter different barriers to
participation and do so to different degrees. Statistically speaking, there
is a high likelihood that you have encountered or will encounter disabled
participants in your past, current or future research: Even at the lowest
reported level of 6%, the prevalence established for disabilities in chil-
dren, and not accounting for corrections for presumed underreporting,
in a sample of 35 participants, two would be considered disabled under
the ONS guidelines; when conducting research with participants past
their retirement age, that number rises to 2 out of 5, or 15 out of 35. Of
course, these are the numbers assuming the sample is representative. But for
research to be representative, participation must be possible, and for par-
ticipation to be possible, methods need to be accessible. However, there is
increasing awareness that research methods can present barriers to par-
ticipation (Wilson et al. 2013; Whitney 2006), ranging from phone sur-
veys which are barely or not at all accessible to hearing-impaired or deaf
people; household surveys excluding people with mobility issues who do
not answer the door fast enough (both from Parsons et al. 2000); to focus
groups putting substantial strain on elderly participants (Barrett and Kirk
2000), to name just a few examples.
In some of these cases, research participation can be literally inacces-
sible because participation is either made difficult or impossible. Research
can impose further barriers by not being inclusive wherever assumptions
about the lived experience of (potential) participants are expressed, such
as regarding their gender, sexual orientation, faith, and their health and
communication abilities.
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 175

Despite a growing body of research on the multiple barriers disabled

people can encounter in their day-to-day lives (e.g., Easton 2013;
Hammel et al. 2015), and a strong movement towards making research
more accessible for participants with cognitive disabilities (e.g., Nind and
Vinha 2012; Bigby et al. 2014), accessibility is often neglected as a con-
sideration in the design of research methods. There are few or no formal
‘checkpoints’ which would require a researcher to explicitly reflect or
report on accessibility considerations, whether for funding or for dissemi-
nation. For example, there is no mention of the requirements of making
research accessible except in the context of using ‘accessible language’ and
making sure to safeguard vulnerable participants (almost exclusively
defined as participants with cognitive disabilities) in the ethics guidelines
of major research and funding organisations, such as the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC 2010), British Academy of Management
(BAM 2013), British Sociological Association (BSA 2006) or the
Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Trust 2017). Similarly, few journals (outside
research areas such as Disability Studies and Medical Research) require
authors to report on any considerations of accessibility.
At the same time, measuring the extent of the resulting exclusion is
difficult since any systematic exclusion would only be observable by com-
paring the relevant demographic data with the overall population demo-
graphics but, of course, this requires collecting the relevant demographic
data in the first place, and unlike age, gender and education, information
on disability and impairments is not usually collected unless the research
question is already focussed on disability.
The consequences of unequal access to research participation are stark.
Farmer and Macleod (2011, p. 6, emphasis mine) warn that ‘[f ]ailing to
involve disabled people in research that concerns their experiences or to
communicate research results in an accessible way could mean that
research alienates disabled research participants’. The limitation to
‘research that concerns their experiences’ is interesting to note since it
would have been equally, or more, valid to simply state ‘failing to involve
disabled people in research could mean that research alienates disabled
research participants’. I similarly take issue with their advice that ‘the
appropriate level of involvement, and the extent to which you ensure data
collection is accessible to disabled people, should remain in line with the
176 D. Rudloff

objectives and the likelihood of disabled people falling within the sample’
(p. 5); instead, I would argue that research needs to be accessible on prin-
ciple; more so, since any such estimate would be based on what are likely
underreported levels of prevalence (Abberley 1992).
This exclusion may not be intentional but could be the result of a lack
of awareness or reluctance to face additional difficulties:

Social exclusion in research can be the result of investigators not being

‘aware’ or not choosing to look into the direction of the excluded (Kroll
2011). Participants are thought of as being ‘too difficult’ or ‘too hard to
find’. Investigators may cite tight study budgets, resource and time scarcity
that do not allow for extensive accommodations. (Kroll 2011, p. 66)

The resulting skew may very well be substantial. We know that in some
aspects, disabled employees experience the workplace differently to their
non-disabled colleagues (e.g., Lockyer 2015; Jones 2016; Mik-Meyer
2016) and present different values relating to work and the workplace
(e.g., Ville and Ravaud 1998). Impairments and disability can also affect
how disabled employees’ gender is perceived (e.g., Mik-Meyer 2015).
Any qualitative research on people’s experiences in the workplace would
therefore be lacking crucial facets of lived experience.
To deny participation by failing to improve access thus likely means
perpetuating existing structures of inequality at the multiple intersections
of, for example (dis)ability and gender (Mik-Meyer 2015; Kavanagh
et al. 2015); race, gender and disability (Petersen 2012; McDonald et al.
2007); or class and disability (Petersen 2012; Nind 2008), leading to the
poignantly named ‘body’ of knowledge being dominated by the experi-
ences of non-disabled participants.
This chapter therefore aims to make you more aware of potential bar-
riers to participation; to help you remove or lower those barriers so that
more people can participate; and to subsequently give more people a
voice, making your research more representative of the population in
general. In doing so, I am keenly aware of my own privilege as a non-­
disabled, white woman. I am also aware that my role and position as an
academic affords me further relative privilege to make my own voice
heard, and to do so from relative financial safety and security. My aim is
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 177

to use this privilege afforded to me in allyship to marginalised groups in

the hopes that this is seen as such, and neither as exploitation nor conde-
scension or appropriation. Any mistakes made, any information omit-
ted, any resultant need for education, and any offense caused is no one’s
fault or responsibility but my own.
A final caveat: This chapter relates to research that does not explicitly
focus on disability, and, in doing so, further focuses on the implications
of (potential) participants with physical impairments, such as, for exam-
ple sensory and mobility impairments. The exclusion of mental health,
cognitive impairments, learning disabilities and non-neurotypicality
should not be understood as an expression of importance or priority, but
reflects the limited scope a single chapter can necessarily cover.

10.3 The Accessible Research Process

Improving access to participation starts well in advance of the first con-
tact with a participant, and it extends beyond data collection to data
analysis and dissemination. The following sections will look at individual
elements of the research process, from the planning stage, to recruiting
and communicating with participants, the main stage of qualitative data
collection, and to the dissemination of research findings.

10.3.1 Planning Accessible Research

Your research question and your epistemology determine the major

framework, methodology and method of your research; yet, you likely
will have some degree of freedom in how you design, realise and embody
the actual research method. Different methods can put different groups
at a (dis)advantage and methods which may improve access for some
may make it more difficult to participate for others: For example,
Schroedel (1984) established that hearing-impaired or deaf individuals
preferred face-to-face interviews, as this provided additional visual cues
to ­understanding; Farmer and Macleod (2011) similarly recommend
face-to-face or, alternatively, written or postal communication for
178 D. Rudloff

hearing-impaired participants. Yet, printed material and postal commu-

nication can put participants with a visual impairment at a disadvan-
tage. Parsons et al. (2000) therefore recommend mixed methods or
multiple methods to increase participants’ chances to find a mode of
participation that suits their communication needs. Farmer and Macleod
(2011, p. 36) similarly suggest using in-depth interviews or ethnography
over surveys because of the flexibility this provides for participants with
learning disabilities, communication issues or neuro-diversity impair-
ments, adding that ‘for people who use specific tools to enable commu-
nication, such as Talking Mats, it would also be appropriate to develop
a methodology that allows them to respond using their preferred method
of communication’.
The planning stage also includes budgeting for potential extra costs
which could improve accessibility, such as costs for a sign language inter-
preter, providing Braille versions of documents, testing and improving
accessibility of online tools, or budgeting for more and smaller groups.
You may find that some of these possible accommodations are less expen-
sive and therefore more feasible, whereas others may appear too expensive
and therefore impractical. For example, hourly rates for a fully qualified
Sign Language Interpreter start at £70/hour plus a call-out fee (National
Union of British Sign Language Interpreters 2017); hiring interpreters
for a series of interviews or focus group sessions can therefore quickly
become a noticeable cost in a budget. That said, funders cannot grant
funds for which they are not asked; university departments cannot bud-
get for costs no one requests and argues for.

10.3.2 Approaching and Recruiting Participants

Communication in the recruitment phase is particularly important since

it is at this stage that individuals become (potential) participants.
Whenever you do not communicate possible accommodations in
advance, your potential participants will have to explicitly ask for accom-
modations, which is putting the onus on them—or take a risk by turning
up and finding out whether participation is possible. This essentially asks
potential participants to perform emotional labour (Wilton 2008) in the
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 179

form of requesting accommodation and, in the process, disclosing a dis-

ability or impairment in order to perform actual labour in the form of
participation for your research interest and gain before participation is
even established. To reduce the amount of necessary emotional labour,
possible accommodation needs to be communicated proactively:

• If research requires participants to travel to a particular location, for

example to attend a focus group or meet for an interview:
–– Are parking spaces reserved for disabled drivers?
–– Are accessible toilets nearby?
–– Are the premises themselves accessible, that is can meeting rooms
be reached without having to navigate stairs?
–– Are the doorframes wide enough for a wheelchair to pass through?
–– Could the premises accommodate the presence of possible com-
pany such as an assistant or a carer, for example are there possible
waiting rooms nearby?
• Could participants request to have a sign language interpreter be pres-
ent for the interview or focus group? Are there induction loops?
• Could participants request any provided material (e.g., consent forms,
participant information letter) in advance and in different formats, for
example large print / in different colour schemes / in Braille?
• For interviews, could participants request the interview be conducted
as a (audio-) computer-assisted self-interview?

If budget or other constraints do not allow for any or all of these

accommodations, it is equally important to note this in any initial com-
munication to reduce the participants’ need to enquire and therefore
disclose well in advance of the actual participation. Olkin (2004)
observes that participants, especially in the deaf and hearing-impaired
community, note the presence or absence of possible accommodations,
and that their willingness to participate is strongly affected by how the
researcher’s efforts are perceived. Equally, participants note whether any
concerted effort was made to reach out to the community and whether
care was taken to word participant invitation and communication in a
tactful and respectful manner (Olkin 2004). Suitable accommodations
180 D. Rudloff

for hearing-­impaired participants may include offering a communica-

tion channel to the researcher through voice relay services, such as TTY,
textphone, teletypewriter or minicom (Farmer and Macleod 2011; Olkin
2004) or the option to request sign language interpreters (Olkin 2004).
The question whether to pay participants is a contentious one (see,
e.g., Head 2009; Belfrage 2016, Bentley and Thacker 2004) though a
distinction should be made between reimbursing expenses and paying for
the participants’ time. To make research more accessible, it seems unavoid-
able to offer full reimbursement for expenses. Not only does this help
participants with sensory or mobility issues, for whom extra costs can add
up quickly, for example, through the use of public transport or taxi or the
need to be accompanied by a carer or an assistant; it also increases the
chance of access for poorer and marginalised groups (see, e.g., Reid 1993,
on the marginalisation of poor women in Psychology research). On that
basis, it could be argued that payment should also be offered for the par-
ticipant’s time, effort and (emotional) labour and that not doing so would
be exploitative (Farmer and Macleod 2011). However, the Turner and
Beresford (2005) report from a consultation with participants stated that
some felt ‘service users may feel pressured to give more than they are able
to give because of payments’ (p. 42). This would be a particular concern
for participants with health issues that made them prone to fatigue and
exhaustion, who may feel obliged to continue to the detriment of their
own wellbeing, and requires care and attention on the researcher’s side.
Lastly, it is unfortunately also the case that some types of payment may
be to the detriment of participants who are receiving disability or unem-
ployment benefits, potentially putting an already vulnerable and margin-
alised group at further risk; it is therefore necessary to check with the
individual participant how they can be offered adequate and fair com-
pensation without putting them at legal or financial risk.

10.3.3 Scheduling for Interviews and Focus Groups

Allowing for more time throughout the entire research is a relatively

straightforward way for you to make it easier for people to participate. If
you schedule direct contact with participants, that is, for interviews
(face-­to-­face, through Skype or by phone) or focus groups, and the time
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 181

of contact is set by you rather than the participant, smaller groups and
more frequent breaks will make it easier for all participants involved. In
focus groups with elderly participants, Barrett and Kirk (2000) noticed
that participants tended to lose concentration and tire fast and that with
increasing group size, participants struggled to understand researchers
and other participants; they consequently suggest to plan shorter sessions
and refreshment breaks to allow their participants to recover. For a simi-
lar reason, Kroll (2011) recommends smaller group sizes to accommo-
date the individual participant. Although Barrett and Kirk’s research was
specific to elderly, disabled participants, shorter sessions and frequent
breaks will also make it easier for participants with sensory impair-
ments—as Farmer and Macleod (2011) point out, lip-reading or follow-
ing a sign translator is tiring—or in fact for any participant who is prone
to exhaustion, for whichever reason.
Being able to choose from a range of different times during the day
over a range of different days benefits most participants: It allows par-
ticipants with varying levels of energy to attend at a time they feel
most comfortable with, but also accommodates different work pat-
terns and lifestyles. To participate during working hours, potential
participants will need to have the flexibility to take time off work and
the financial means to buffer the potential loss of income from doing
so; restricting the time available to working hours can therefore poten-
tially disadvantage individuals with lower incomes or precarious
employment situations. Awareness of school holidays, religious holi-
days or requirements to observe religious practices, for example Islamic
prayer (Salah) times, can also increase the number and scope of poten-
tial participants. Even taking all this into consideration, flexibility and
a certain amount of over-­recruiting may be required. Barrett and Kirk
point out that particularly where disabled and elderly participants and
their carers are involved, cancellation due to illness (the participant’s
or their carer’s) is likely.
Lastly, Kroll (2011) notes that it is not just the communication with
participants and data collection that may take more time, but also data
handling and analysis. Preparing information in different formats and
modes; hiring and coordinating with a sign language translator (see
below); and transcribing across multiple modes of participation all fur-
ther extend the time needed to conduct a research project.
182 D. Rudloff

10.3.4 Choosing Accessible Premises

The premises and locations where research is conducted are not always
under your control; for example, when conducting ethnographic research,
the location is determined by the nature and scope of your research ques-
tion. At other times, you might offer to meet participants at a location of
their choice, such as their home or workplace; in this context, it will be
more likely that they will have adjusted their environment to suit their
accessibility needs. But in some instances, for example when conducting
focus groups, it is inevitable to ask participants to attend a location that
you have set. Kroll (2011) recommends that any such location fulfils a
number of requirements:

• Easily accessible, especially by public transport

• Accessible parking nearby
• Accessible bathrooms in reasonable proximity to the room or location
where the meeting takes place
• Few physical barriers for the participant to navigate
• Well lit to allow to create optimum conditions for participants with
auditory or visual impairments

It may well be that some or all of these aspects are not under your
control. Barrett and Kirk, (2000), for example further suggest to strive
for an environment with little reverb: ‘a quiet and echo-free environ-
ment is essential. Reverberation in a room can be reduced by the use of
carpets, curtains, plants’ (p. 627). While you may have some flexibility
in choosing a room, you may not always have the added opportunity
to adjust its furnishing. However, as I have emphasised above, the key
is good advance communication with participants and to inform them
as much as you can of any features you consider either particularly
beneficial or detrimental. To keep with Barrett and Kirk’s example, this
might mean giving your participants advance notice that the location
would be less suitable for participants with hearing impairments.
Informed participants are in a better position to decide whether to
attend or not.
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 183

10.3.5 Preparing Accessible Visual Material

This section concerns visual material which may be provided to partici-

pants throughout the research process, ranging from participant informa-
tion and consent letters to surveys, research findings or a summary which
may be made available to participants, or any material that may be pre-
sented to participants in order to elicit a comment or response. In this
context, visual material includes both printed material and content pre-
sented on a screen.
To make printed material accessible, Farmer and Macleod (2011) and
the UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAAF 2012) recommend
a clear, that is, uncluttered, layout with maximum readability. This can be
achieved through a variety of measures:

• Font size 14 or up1

• Minimal use of emphasis such as italic, bold or underlined text
• Adequate spacing of letters and lines
• Use of clear, sans serif fonts as sans serif fonts are more legible for
people with visual impairments and are beneficial for dyslexic
participants
• Minimal use of graphics; where graphics are used, making sure that
text is not broken up too much by graphics
• High contrast, low or no glare.

Additionally, the choice of colour and colour schemes needs to be care-

fully considered. Not only are some colours and colour schemes less leg-
ible than others (see, e.g., Gradišar et al. 2007; Greco et al. 2008) but
where meaning is communicated through colour, for example, through
the use of using red to highlight critical or wrong statements and green to
highlight correct or acceptable, colour-blind participants will be less or
not able at all to extract that meaning. Several free websites offer excellent
resources to check colours and colour palettes for accessibility.
Should you offer a Braille version? Farmer and Macleod (2011, p. 47)
suggest you do, while at the same time cautioning that only ‘around 3 per
cent of people registered blind or partially sighted use Braille’; offering
184 D. Rudloff

Braille is therefore only of limited help to a large number of partially

sighted participants but will be of substantial assistance to those who are
able to read it.
For many partially sighted or blind participants, accessibility can be
improved by providing printed material in digital form instead, as this
allows the use of screen readers, that is, assistive software which trans-
lates content on the screen into speech read out loud to the user.
However, this approach comes with its own set of problems. Lazar
et al. (2007, p. 247) report on the most frustrating issues for screen
reader users:

The top causes of frustration reported were (a) page layout causing confus-
ing screen reader feedback; (b) conflict between screen reader and applica-
tion; (c) poorly designed/unlabelled forms; (d) no alt text for pictures; and
(e) 3-way tie between misleading links, inaccessible PDF, and a screen
reader crash.

For online content, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) stan-
dard sets guidelines for accessible web content2; For electronic docu-
ments, the ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning project has
collated a list of resources3; this includes providing the right kind of
metadata for electronic documents, for example tags for pdf documents
(Brady et al. 2015; Drümmer and Chang 2014; Bigham et al. 2016).

10.3.6 A
 ccessible Verbal Communication
and Auditory Material

The previous section primarily discussed material that was presented to

participants in printed form or on a screen. The current section relates to
the simple spoken word, whether by the individual researcher or in the
context of a group discussion.
Hearing-impaired participants benefit from a suitable choice of prem-
ises, which means well lit (Kroll 2011; Farmer and Macleod 2011), little
reverb (Barrett and Kirk 2000) and preferably the presence of induction
loops (Farmer and Macleod 2011); in addition, the use of visual aids can
further aid understanding (Farmer and Macleod 2011).
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 185

Although deaf and hard-of-hearing participants may use lip-reading to

aid understanding, in addition to it being very tiring (Farmer and
Macleod 2011), Whitney (2006) warns that it is unreliable as an exclu-
sive source of understanding: ‘As vowels do not appear on the lips, much
of lip-reading is guess work, based on the context or situation. In perfect
conditions (good lighting, no moustaches, etc), lip-reading is still 70%
guesswork’ (p. 289). For optimal conditions for lip-reading, the speaker,
that is, the person whose lips are read, would also have to be trained to
enunciate very clearly (Farmer and Macleod 2011).
Another option to improve accessibility is the provision of a sign lan-
guage interpreter (Olkin 2004; Farmer and Macleod 2011) although this
requires additional considerations:

• Like other languages, sign language exists in different forms and

dialects, for example British Sign Language, American Sign
Language and Australian Sign Language. When hiring a sign lan-
guage interpreter, you therefore need to make sure to approach an
interpreter with the relevant training; additionally, participants may
have a preference for interpreters already known to them, or, con-
versely, be reluctant to be interpreted by people they already know
(Olkin 2004).
• Some terms may not have a corresponding expression in the relevant
sign language; something that would have to be discussed in advance
between researcher and interpreter (Farmer and Macleod 2011).

In recent years, Computer-Assisted-Self-Interviewing (CASI) has

increasingly been used (Couper et al. 2003; Leeuw et al. 2003) as a
means of eliciting responses on sensitive topics: The interviewer can
type in a question or set up the computer with a list of questions in
advance, before handing over the computer for the participant to
respond; in the Audio-­CASI variant, the question is read out to the
participant via headphone. Both variants are recommended by Farmer
and Macleod (2011) as a means to make research methods more acces-
sible: with AUDIO-CASI (or ACASI), appropriate technology can
provide amplification for the audio output to assist hearing-impaired
participants, whereas deaf participants can read the interviewer’s ques-
186 D. Rudloff

tions from the screen; participants with speech impediments may pre-
fer to enter their responses directly rather than in oral communication
with the interviewer. Note, however, that self-entry requires a certain
level of manual dexterity and fine-motor control and that some partici-
pants may require extra help with data entry, such as adapted key-
boards or pointers, which may also take more time (Farmer and
Macleod 2011).
Although participants with speech impediments potentially benefit
from employing a CASI or Audio-CASI setup, it could be argued that
this puts the onus on participants to make themselves understood.
However, Farmer and Macleod (2011) point out that the process of
establishing understanding between participant and researcher is likely
exhausting for both parties, requiring more time and more breaks, and
therefore recommend questions requiring short(er) answers. Ultimately,
it has to be the participants’ choice.
Barrett and Kirk (2000) further note that speech impediments may
require further accommodation in the context of group discussions, and
that time and effort to transcribe data will increase.
Lastly, Kroll (2011, p. 72) suggests that some light rephrasing of ques-
tions, for example to reduce the number of sibilants, can aid understand-
ing for hearing-impaired participants:

Example (High frequency sounds): How satisfied are you with the overall
quality of care you receive? Are you satisfied, somewhat satisfied, nei-
ther satisfied nor dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?
Example (low frequency sounds): How would you rate the overall quality
of the medical care you get? Is it excellent, very good, good, fair or
poor?

Admittedly, this is feasible only in a context where much of the con-

tent of the uttered speech is known in advance, such as in a structured
interview or survey, whereas a semi-structured or unstructured interview
or a discussion in a focus group would not allow for the required amount
of planning and careful tailoring of speech.
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 187

10.4 General Communication

with Participants
Accessible research requires flexibility and attention to the needs of par-
ticipants. This includes being attentive to participants’ ability to partici-
pate without detriment to their health. Parsons et al. (2000) stress the
need for the interviewer to be trained not only in meeting the partici-
pants’ communication needs but also in spotting signs of exhaustion and
fatigue. For example, Barrett and Kirk (2000) observed elderly partici-
pants losing concentration and focus towards the end of the focus group
sessions, leading to participants getting distracted and losing their line of
thought, particularly when being interrupted by the interviewer or other
participants. In response, Barrett and Kirk stressed the importance of
clear, simple and understandable questions and made sure to introduce
changes of topics and provide plenty of signposting.
Related, Gregory (1996, as cited in Farmer and Macleod 2011) recom-
mends a range of rules to make information more accessible:

• Don’t use long sentences

• Include one main point, and only one or two clauses in a sentence
• Communicate in the active voice, rather than the passive
• Avoid abstract concepts
• Use simple words, without being patronising
• Repeat difficult or unfamiliar words
• Don’t use jargon
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms
• Avoid using the third person

Although those rules were specifically devised for communicating with

people with learning disabilities, arguably most of them are applicable
and helpful for communication in a wide variety of contexts4 though not
always feasible, particularly in the context of spontaneous and unplanned
speech.
188 D. Rudloff

10.5 Presenting and Disseminating Research

The final section of this chapter outlines recommendations to improve
research accessibility by improving the accessibility of research findings.
Wilson et al. (2013) argued that ‘[people with disabilities] are often
excluded from participation in political dialogues and democratic pro-
cesses, and hence decision making processes that greatly affect them’. By
the same token, where research findings are inaccessible, people are
excluded from the public discussion of these findings and, in turn, are
not given all the relevant information to make decisions.
Several recommendations on how to improve the accessibility of writ-
ten material have already been covered in a previous section. Undoubtedly,
sometimes, these will be outside your control, as most journals impose
strict formatting guidelines for paper submissions and very few journals
consider accessibility part of their submission guidelines (e.g., Garbutt
2009). But research dissemination means more than papers in peer-­
reviewed journals: It also means disseminating findings through informa-
tion leaflets for participants; presentations and hand-outs in
workshops—and storing information on departmental homepages or on
websites such as academia.edu or researchgate.net. In part, dissemination
is accessibility.
And yet, even the most commonly used format (Portable Document
Format or PDF) is fraught with problems (Bigham et al. 2016). Bigham
et al. (2016, p. 622) list a range of requirements for accessible PDF
documents:

[…] visual information should be represented in another form (often,

plain text) so that it can be consumed in another way by blind or visually
impaired readers. […] The document should allow for easy magnifica-
tion for people with low vision. While one may easily mistake this for a
zoom feature in a PDF reader, which the current format does not due to
(among other things) its two column format. To be made easier to read
by people with reading disabilities, the document should be flexible,
allowing for not only magnification but changing of fonts, colors, and
layout.
 Accessible Research: Lowering Barriers to Participation 189

Although good guidance is available to making PDF documents accessible

(e.g., Drümmer and Chang 2014), Bigham et al. note that this is only a partial
solution since Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) are superior to PDF and conclude that ‘[t]he most frustrating part
about the lack of accessibility of research papers is that all we would need to
do to make them accessible is to decide to do so’ (Bigham et al. 2016, p. 628).

10.6 Conclusion
Bigham et al.’s quote in the last paragraph is pertinent to the argument I
have been trying to set out within this chapter. First, accessible research is
necessary. If you are serious about your research representing and examin-
ing the lived experience of your participants, making research accessible
and communicating possible adaptations and accommodations is your
responsibility. Second, accessible research is possible. It does require plan-
ning and attention; it may require extra funding, and it almost certainly
takes more time, but it is feasible. Third, making research more accessible
is productive. Lowering barriers to research participation is not a zero-sum
game. Flexible schedules can improve access for people with chronic ill-
nesses as well as for people with caring responsibilities or those who
­cannot afford to take time off work; while shorter focus group sessions
with more breaks also benefit elderly participants or people who are preg-
nant.5 Enabling more people to participate in your research will help you
make more voices heard. These voices have always been there; it is time
we start to listen.

Notes
1. Of course, this can always be subject to publication layout limitations, as
is the case with the chapter in this book.
2. A good overview is listed here: https://www.w3.org/standards/webde-
sign/accessibility.
3. List of resources here: http://www.ict4ial.eu/guidelines/making-electronic-
documents-accessible/resources-help-make-electronic-documents-accessible.
190 D. Rudloff

4. In addition, reducing the extent of the use of metaphors or humour

could benefit non-neurotypical participants (Samson and Hegenloh
2010; Lyons and Fitzgerald 2004).
5. I use ‘people who are pregnant’ rather than ‘pregnant women’ to acknowl-
edge pregnant trans men.

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 11
Ethics in Qualitative Research
Sylwia Ciuk and Dominika Latusek

11.1 Introduction
Qualitative researchers working in the diverse field of social sciences need
to address ethical issues at every stage of the research process (Clegg and
Slife 2009), regardless of the perspective, research design or methods of
data collection they opt for. As is widely recognised, ethical thinking in
qualitative research goes beyond ethical decisions during data collection
and analysis (Kara and Pickering 2017). Indeed, it concerns broader
issues, such as presentation and dissemination of research results, public
engagement or the deposition of data in research databanks in order to
make them available for other researchers, which is increasingly required
by funding bodies. In the light of the rapidly changing research landscape
that has, in many contexts, become subject to stringent formal ethical
review and governance and where technological advances have offered

S. Ciuk (*)
Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
D. Latusek
Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 195

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7_11
196 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

new possibilities for research innovation, long-standing ethical issues

have taken on new meanings and new ethical dilemmas have emerged
(Mauthner et al. 2012). For example, visual methods, many of which are
innovative and pioneering (Howell et al. 2014), often force researchers to
reconsider their responses to a range of crucial ethical issues, such as
informed consent, confidentiality or ownership, along with questions
around data presentation and dissemination (e.g. Allen 2012; Cox et al.
2014). Similarly, academics conducting internet research, the context
and scope of which have grown exponentially, need to navigate complex
ethical terrains. In this context, Birch et al. (2012, p. 4) might indeed be
right when they observe that ‘ethics matter more now than they did a
decade ago’.
The significance of ethical issues in empirical research, employing both
qualitative and quantitative methodologies, is reflected in the plethora of
codes of ethics put forward by relevant professional associations (e.g.
Association of Internet Researchers and British Sociological Association
or its American counterpart) and the growing institutional regulations
which increasingly not only seek to guide but more recently also to gov-
ern the work of researchers. Although the importance of ethical guidance
and the associated relevant training for researchers is rarely, if ever, dis-
puted, the institutional approach to research ethics, sometimes referred
to as ethics (Haggerty 2004) and ‘audit creep’ (Stanley and Wise 2010,
p. 25), has come under strong criticism (for a more detailed discussion,
see e.g. Cannella and Lincoln 2007; Coupal 2005; Hammersley 2009;
Hedgecoe 2008). As authors point out (e.g. Birch et al. 2012; Hammersley
and Trainou 2012; Stanley and Wise 2010), the idiosyncratic qualities of
qualitative research which typically involve a considerable degree of flex-
ibility of the research design, and the collection of (more or less) unstruc-
tured data that is typically collected in natural settings are not easily
reconciled with the standardised and largely inflexible external formal
ethical regulation that relies on universalist principles and generalist cri-
teria. This recognition notwithstanding, the remit of Research Ethics
Committees (RECs) and the associated anticipatory, pre-study ethics
regulation (Mautghner et al. 2012) has been expanding. This trend, how-
ever, has not reduced the ethical challenges faced by qualitative r­ esearchers
and there is still considerable ambiguity surrounding ethical decision-
making as more ‘than one set of norms, values, principles and usual prac-
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 197

tices can be seen to legitimately apply to the issue(s) involved’ (Markham

and Buchanan 2012, p. 5). In fact, as some authors observe (e.g. Tilley
and Woodthorpe 2011), ethical governance can at times exacerbate,
rather than reduce ethical tensions and can itself pose new ethical dilem-
mas. For example, researchers can be required to deposit their data in
research databanks so that others could reuse them in the future. This
requirement, however, as Mauthner et al. (2012, p. 180) observe, ‘raises
ethical and moral issues about the responsibility that we take as research-
ers for the methods we use; for how we carry our research and for the
context in which this occurs’. Ethical requirements associated with proce-
dural ethics (Guillemin and Gillam 2004) therefore need to be supple-
mented with professional guidance, theoretical models and ‘contextualized
reasoning’ (Birch et al. 2012, p. 6) which can help researchers negotiate
ethics in practice (Guillemin and Gillam 2004) in dynamic research set-
tings (see also Markham and Buchanan 2012).
In the remainder of this text, we revisit some of the most commonly
recurring ethical issues facing qualitative researchers at different stages of
the research process and point to some of the new ethical dilemmas asso-
ciated with the changing research landscape and innovative research
methodologies. Those interested in the philosophical considerations
regarding research ethics may refer to the more specialist sources, such as
Kent (2000), Christians (2011) or Hammersley and Traunou (2012).
Similarly, others looking for more detailed discussions of ethical chal-
lenges linked to specific methodologies and approaches can consider the
already available relevant sources, such as Cox et al. (2014) for guidelines
for ethical visual research methods or Markham and Buchanan (2012)
for recommendations for internet research. The questions we focus on are
intended to serve as an illustration of the multitude of ethical issues that
social scientists are faced with in their daily practice, rather than a com-
prehensive review.

11.2 Informed Consent

One of the most central requirements of research ethics committees, and
arguably also one of the most often debated ethical challenges, is the need
to obtain informed consent from the prospective research participants.
198 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

Despite the seemingly commonsensical nature of this postulate according

to which those invited to take part in research have to give their (usually
written) consent to participate in the project after having been informed
about the nature, purpose and outcome of the study and their role in it,
as well as the possibility to withdraw from the study (and the unprocessed
data that they helped generate), its implementation in different research
settings is certainly far from straightforward, in particular when consid-
ered in the context of longitudinal research projects, or with studies
utilising more participative methodologies.
While ethics committees typically require obtaining consent once,
usually prior to data collection, compelling arguments have been put for-
ward suggesting that consent should rather be regarded as a matter of
ongoing negotiations between the researcher(s) and the research partici-
pants and revisited as the research evolves. According to Birch and Miller
(2002), for example, a one-off consent—regardless of whether given
orally or made in writing—is insufficient, especially when it comes to
ethnographic studies or other kinds of longitudinal qualitative research
projects which require longer-term involvement of the research partici-
pants. Participation in such studies requires a different kind of commit-
ment and that is why, as argued by Birch and Miller (2002), it should be
subject to continuous renegotiation. Furthermore, researchers have an
obligation to remind their participants on a regular basis that they may
revoke their consent at any time. This point is further reiterated by Neale
(2013, p. 6) who observes that ‘well established ethical principles [such as
consent] take on new meaning and need reworking when seen with a
temporal gaze’. In longitudinal projects, the ethical landscape gets broad-
ened and becomes further complicated. Participants may choose to with-
draw temporarily from the research project but simultaneously reserve
the right to re-join at a later stage. When the time frames of research get
extended, so does the likelihood that earlier unforeseen ethical challenges
will emerge (op cit). But it is, however, not only the consent to partici-
pate in a research project that may be subject to renegotiation between
researchers and their participants. As a research project evolves, the nature
and the scope of participation may also need to be renegotiated. As
already mentioned, many researchers point out (e.g. Miller and Bell
2002; Duncombe and Jessop 2002) that at the beginning of a research
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 199

project both researchers and research subjects are not always able to accu-
rately assess the potential impact of their research on their participants,
nor are the participants often in a position to fully grasp what taking part
in the study entails. It is also important to remember that research par-
ticipants’ personal circumstances may also change with time, which may,
in turn, have an impact on their participation.
In the context of visual research methods, Cox et al. (2014, p. 12) pro-
pose to view consent as ‘a series of decision that take place at pre-­identified
points as project unfolds’. As the authors outline, in visual methods, con-
sent refers not only to the generation and collection of visual images, but,
importantly, also applies to their analysis, presentation and crucial dis-
semination among different audiences. Cox et al. (2014) therefore recom-
mend seeing consent as composing of different levels and stages. This
point is well illustrated by Murray and Nash’s (2016) paper discussing the
ethical challenges of photovoice and photo elicitation in two separate
studies carried out by the quoted authors, one of which explored the
embodiment of pregnancy in Australia, whereas the other focused on the
experiences of infant setting in Vietnam. The authors explain how in the
Australian study, three different consent forms were used at different
stages of the research process, which not only sought to explain partici-
pants’ rights and responsibilities (consent one), but also focused on
obtaining consent from others who appeared in the photographs (consent
two). In particular, the last stage of negotiating consent described by the
authors is instructive. Murray and Nash (2016) describe a detailed process
of consulting with participants the extent to which they consented to
their different images being disseminated and shared with the academic
audience and the general public, a procedure of ‘different levels of con-
sent’ also usefully described by Lunney et al. (2015) in the case of photo
elicitation research into young women’s experiences with drinking alco-
hol. Another challenge related to the requirement of ­obtaining informed
consent from research participants is linked to wider cultural and institu-
tional norms of a given research setting, which, in some situations, might
run counter to this requirement. For example, Marzano (2007) conducted
a research project into the experiences of the terminally ill at an oncologi-
cal ward in Italy. However, in Italy, at the time of data collection, the
dominant institutional norm, as Marzano explains, was not to inform
200 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

terminally ill patients of their actual condition. In such institutional con-

texts where the commonly held belief about the detrimental effects of
revealing to patients information about their condition is deeply rooted in
the local culture, the researcher may decide not to violate this norm and,
therefore, not to disclose the purpose of their research. Marzano admitted
that if he had revealed the real purpose of his research, he might have been
forced to leave the research site and, most likely, might also have been
forbidden to access it again so he decided to observe the cultural and insti-
tutional norm to withhold crucial information from the studied patients.
As the author revealed, his decision came at a considerable emotional cost
to him. The requirement to obtain informed consent from participants—
like many other ethical issues—becomes further complicated in the con-
text of internet-mediated research projects. As argued, among others, by
Ellen Whiteman (2007), when doing (non-participant) observation
online, it is not always clear what can be considered a private and what a
public domain. Is it necessary to reveal one’s identity when researching
internet forums or online community networks? Or can we recognise
them as public domains that may be monitored without the need to
inform our research participants of the conducted study? There are differ-
ent recommendations on this matter. Kozinets (2002, 2015), for example,
writing about netnography and netnographers as cultural participants
rather than unobtrusive observes calls for a full disclosure of researcher’s
identity and explains that even though information posted online is gen-
erally freely available, this fact does not mean that its authors automati-
cally consent to it being used for academic purposes. According to
Kozinets (2015, p. 139), the internet ‘is not either public or private; it
does not simply contain data but digital doubles of our identities and
selves’ and therefore it requires more ‘creative and bricolage-­based solu-
tions’ to ethical dilemmas (op cit, p. 139). He further lists a range of
strategies researchers can use to inform research ­ participants of the
researcher’s identity (such as posting relevant information in status updates
or next to the researcher’s name or using pop-ups). Others (e.g. Langer
and Beckman 2005) see the recommendations put forward by Kozinets
(2002) as ‘far too rigorous’ (Langer and Beckman 2005, p. 195) and argue
that netnography ‘enables the researcher in an unobtrusive and covert way
to gain deeper insights’ into people’s options and motives, whereas Roberts
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 201

suggests that while deciding on whether to reveal their identity researches

need to consider not only the assessibility of the online community to
outsiders, but also the perceptions and perferences of its members, the
permanance of data as well as the sensitivity of the topic at hand. Finally,
and relatedly, the requirement to obtain ‘informed consent’ poses consid-
erable challenges to conducting disguised observation. Even though dis-
guised observation is increasingly seen as problematic, there are a number
of excellent ethnographic studies developed on the basis of this method.
Ethics committees usually underline the need to inform research subjects
of the fact that there is a research project conducted with their involve-
ment and of the purpose of any such research project. There are, however,
exceptions to this rule. It might be possible to opt for disguised observa-
tion if there is no other suitable method of studying a given research prob-
lem. Disguised observation may be also performed in studies of public
behaviour, as already indicated, where the identity of research participants
will remain unknown. In such cases, the recommendation is to monitor
the behaviour of research participants and to treat even potential signs of
reluctance as a refusal to take part in the study. However, we can still won-
der to what extent researchers can really trust their ability to accurately
interpret the intentions of their research subjects. Is there really a guaran-
tee that the identity of the research subjects will remain anonymous?
These and many other questions show the complexity behind ethical con-
siderations while doing field work—even when one tries to act according
to the already strict guidelines.
Tina Miller and Linda Bell (2002) raise an important question of the
role of ‘gatekeepers’ in obtaining participants’ consent. One of them—
Linda Bell—conducted an interview-based study of a group of
Bangladeshi women living in southern England, the access to whom was
secured by a person closely involved with the community of interest.
However, although the gatekeeper’s support made it possible for Bell to
obtain access and to secure consent from the research participants, she
quickly realised that participants were in fact rather reluctant to take part
in her study. She came to a conclusion that their consent was largely
motivated by respect and a sense of obligation towards the gatekeeper,
rather than their actual willingness to take part in the project. The gate-
keeper was held in high regard in the studied community because of her
202 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

origin and background, and the related social status. Questions, there-
fore, arise as to the extent to which one can treat the obtained consent as
a sign of participants’ readiness to take part in the study of their own free
will. Similar questions emerge in the context of research in organisational
settings. To what extent, for example, do employees who have agreed to
take part in a study upon a request set out by their superiors have an
actual option to decline this invitation? How can we know whether their
consent is not primarily driven by fear of being punished if they do refuse
to participate?

11.3 P
 rotection of Research Participants’
Identity
It is widely accepted that researchers are obliged to protect their research
participants (and themselves) against any undesirable effects of their
study. The requirement of doing no harm and the obligation to protect
one’s research participants have contributed to the practice of treating the
identity of research subjects (i.e. people, organisations and selected social
groups) as confidential and substituting it with pseudonyms in reports
and publications of the results. Granting research participants’ anonym-
ity often involves omitting or obscuring certain information in the pub-
lication of research findings that could make it possible to identify the
said participants. However, despite the fact that anonymity has started to
be perceived as an ethical norm, in the changing research landscape secur-
ing anonymity has been increasingly challenging. Internet research is a
good example of the potency of this problem.
The longevity and ease of traceability of information published online
coupled with the common requirement to aim to widely disseminate
one’s research results to a range of audiences mean that standard solutions
of securing anonymity are often no longer fit for purpose and researchers
can no longer control how the data they share is consumed and repro-
duced by others (e.g. Tilley and Woodthorpe 2011), including the
research participants themselves (see e.g. Lunnay et al. 2015). While
some practical solutions have been proposed on how to overcome these
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 203

challenges, such as rephrasing or avoiding direct quotes (see e.g. Kozinets

2015), it has also been suggested that ‘the standard of anonymity in the
context of the twenty first century academic work may need to be
rethought’ (op cit, p. 1), as even seemingly anonymised data can contain
sufficient information to lead to identification of a given participant
(Markham and Buchanan 2012).
Similarly, the requirement to protect the identity of our research
participants is also problematic in the context of participatory and
emancipatory research methods where the issues of anonymity need to
be evaluated against the notions of shared authorship and empower-
ment. As observed by Tilley and Woodthorpe (2011), in some con-
texts, the otherwise seemingly uncontentious principle of anonymity
can be at odds with the aim of the research and the dissemination plan.
Participatory research designs therefore typically seek to give partici-
pants’ choice as to whether they wish to retain anonymity or whether
they would rather their identity was disclosed (Tilley and Woodthorpe
2011). As Christians (2011, p. 66) observes, anonymising procedures
which ‘researchers consider innocent [can be] perceived by partici-
pants as misleading or even betrayal’, especially when they see them-
selves as important contributors to the research project. In a similar
vein, strategies of anonymising images in visual methodologies, such
as blurring and obscuring techniques, do not also always offer full ano-
nymity and can have the unintended consequences of compromising
the authenticity of the image and dehumanising the research partici-
pants (Cox et al. 2014).
These challenges might best be taken into consideration already at the
planning stage of the research and revisited when negotiating consent.
Ethical dilemmas might also arise when the participants’ right to ano-
nymity is in conflict with the rights of other parties. One such situation is
described by John Van Maanen (1983) in relation to his ethnographic
study of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Van Maanen was
asked to testify in the case of a man who had been battered by the police,
an incident which Van Maanen witnessed. In this case, Van Maanen
refused to cooperate with the police, in order to protect his research par-
ticipant. His decision, however, can be interpreted as potentially detri-
204 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

mental to the broader community. Relatedly, Sabir and Sabir Ben-Yehoshua

(2017) have illustrated how participants might deliberately seek to poten-
tially compromise their own anonymity in order to punish a member of
their family (e.g. an ex-husband). Should we then respect the wish of our
research participants, or should we rather choose to protect them and
their environment against their recommendation? How to act if the find-
ings of our research may benefit the majority of the community under
study, but harm its minority? The existing source literature does not offer
straightforward answers to the above questions. Instead, ethical choices
are seen as being highly context dependent and ‘requiring contextualized
reasoning’ rather than an application of ‘abstract rules and principles’
(Birch et al. 2012, p. 6), as well as an informed dialogue between the
research and their participants (Sabir and Sabir Ben-­Yehoshua 2017).

11.4 Maintaining Relationships

with Research Participants
Many ethical issues in qualitative research based on direct relationships
with research participants are related to commencing, maintaining and
ending those relations. Jean Duncombe and Julie Jessop (2002) note that
ethical issues already emerge at the stage of preparation for fieldwork. It
is commonly believed that the ability to establish relations with research
participants is very important for qualitative researchers. The skill is often
considered to be a prerequisite for building trust with participants which,
in turn, is expected to help the researcher obtaining more honest answers
from research participants and richer data. But such an instrumental
approach to building and maintaining relationships with research partici-
pants raises some considerable ethical questions. Critics of this approach
(e.g. the earlier cited Duncombe and Jessop 2002) point out that in this
perspective, relationships with research participants are treated as a form
of emotional labour (Hochschild 1983). In practice, ‘establishing rela-
tionships’ in the field may at times manifest itself as ‘faking friendship’ in
the field and, as argued by its critics (e.g. Fine 1994), it may, in fact, be
more common among field researchers than research reports would lead
one to believe. Others, for example Beech et al. (2009), call on research-
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 205

ers to get more involved with the problems of the communities they
research. They point to a possibility of establishing mutually beneficial
relationships which not only help the researchers secure better access to
data, but support the studied communities in solving local issues.
The complexity of relationships with research participants and the
related ethical issues are also covered by Duncombe and Jessop (2002)
who give an account of how their ability to ‘establish relationships with
research participants’ enabled them to obtain much more information
than their research participants were initially willing to share with them.
However, the researchers also point to the negative consequences of this.
Jessop, for instance, conducted an in-depth interview with a man who
was left by his wife after a long marriage, and obtained an extensive
account of his past experience that he had not even shared with his wife.
The interview ended with the man bursting into tears and the researcher
leaving with a sense of guilt. By quoting the above example, the authors
contribute to calls for respecting the research participants’ right to ignore
their deepest thoughts if they wish to do so. They argue that no research
should force participants into reflexivity they find unwelcome.
The matter of emotions in research is yet another ethical issue related
to establishing relationships with research participants. This concerns
both researchers’ and research participants’ emotions. According to
guidelines included in various codes of ethics, research should not cause
emotional harm to its participants. But researchers are not always able to
foresee which of the questions might evoke a strong emotional reaction
in the participants. For example, one of the authors of this chapter con-
ducted a study into a culture of two different organisations. When she
asked one of the research participants about her views on and experiences
with the company value of ‘care’, the research participant unexpectedly
burst into tears midway through her answer. While the researcher did not
intend to raise any topics that could evoke a strong emotional response
which did not even seem necessary in the study, it turned out that the
above-mentioned and seemingly neutral question about the core values
of the company reminded the research participant of her child’s death—
and of the support her superior at the time gave her child beforehand. To
her, the superior’s attitude was a real-life embodiment of the value of
‘care’. The researcher’s question led to an emotional tension and inadver-
206 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

tently made the research participant recall painful memories. So, what to
do in such a situation? What could be considered ethical behaviour in
this case? Stopping the interview? Turning the voice recorder off? Showing
empathy, compassion? Proceeding with the subject? Maybe it would have
been reasonable to continue probing the participant about her superior
to thus allow the participant experience more positive emotions and help
her compose herself. The researcher, surprised with the turn of events, let
the research participant finish the topic, and went on to continue the
interview, carefully monitoring the participant.
Two other researchers, Wendy Mitchell and Annie Irvine (2008), who
also encountered strong emotional reactions among their research par-
ticipants in the course of their studies, formulated similar ethical ques-
tions. Each of them reacted in a different way to the emotionally charged
situations, which has prompted them to argue for the need for a more
conscious approach to emotions management in research. They recom-
mend trying to predict, as much as it is possible, the emotional responses
of one’s participants and considering how to react to them prior to data
collection. It is important to remember that research participants might
themselves be well placed to communicate to the researcher how they
would prefer to proceed after an emotional encounter. Researchers iden-
tifying themselves with the feminist perspective draw attention to further
ethical considerations when doing fieldwork. They not only endorse the
basic principle of doing no harm to research participants, but they also
call for the need to approach research participants with care. How exactly
to use the principle of care in practice tends to be viewed differently by
authors and can itself pose a number of ethical challenges (cf. Mitchell
and Irvine 2008). If a research participant, for example, reveals, in the
course of the interview, something that troubles them, should we offer
our help if we are in a position to provide it? To what extent are we—as
social researchers—in a position to offer emotional support to our
research participants? How can we judge whether our research partici-
pants would actually welcome our offer to help? What possible conse-
quences can researchers’ involvement have?
The issue of relationships with research participants becomes even more
pronounced in the case of longitudinal research projects or when research-
ers decide to extend the timeframe (and scope) of past studies in previ-
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 207

ously unplanned ways and, as a consequence, seek to trace past participants,

the practicalities of which can, as Miller (2015: 2) admits, ‘at times feel
analogous to stalking’. It is important for researchers conducting extended
field work to be able to set and manage the boundaries of relationships
and mutual expectations (see e.g. Lunnay et al. 2015; Neale 2013). This
need can appear quite early on in one’s research project and one’s career.
One of us, for example, was faced with a challenging situation while con-
ducting the third interview in her academic career. The researcher was to
conduct a series of interviews with employees working in the same depart-
ment in a large multinational corporation. As it turned out later, the
department was also a place where three female employees battled fiercely
for a managerial position. The first interviewee (let us call her Anna)
offered the researcher a very warm welcome; she suggested they call each
other by their first names, contrary to the local custom, and offered to
allocate more time for the interview after its allotted time had run out.
The interview was to continue after work in a nearby café. The inexperi-
enced researcher was glad to take the opportunity and was happy with the
friendliness she was approached with. The following day, however, when
she met another interviewee, she realised her enthusiasm was premature.
By that time (the morning of the following day), it appeared that almost
all employees of the company were convinced that the researcher was
‘Anna’s friend’, which triggered mistrust towards the researcher and made
it virtually impossible to proceed with the research project.

11.5 Presentation of Research Findings

As has been stated earlier, guidelines on the dissemination and presenta-
tion of findings can at times run counter to the wishes of research partici-
pants. In particular, in participative and emancipatory research methods,
such as photovoice, such discrepancies can pose considerable ethical
dilemmas for the concerned researchers, as well captured by the earlier
cited study by Murray and Nash (2016). The authors illustrate how the
guidelines put forward by the British Sociological Association (2006)
which, quite uncontroversially, outline that researchers must avoid poten-
tially inappropriate or sexually explicit images, were seen as problematic
208 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

in one of their studies (carried out by Nash) on pregnancy embodiment.

As it turned out, a number of participants produced and shared nude
images of themselves in order to fully address the question they were set
to explore and to depict their lived embodied experiences of pregnancy.
Contrary to the ethical guidelines but with informed consent from the
participants, Nash has published the nude images, which admittedly did
not show the participants’ faces.
Upon giving a formal consent to participate in a research project,
organisations often reserve the right to obtain a report of the study. It is
important to note, however, that it is the researchers who assume full
responsibility for the conclusions they draw and are not obliged to include
the feedback they may get from the organisation in future publications.
While it is now customary for organisations participating in an academic
study to expect a report from the project, the time lag between data col-
lection, analysis and the preparation of the report may at times discour-
age researchers, despite their earlier assurances, from sharing their results
with the concerned organisations. We believe that it is important to pro-
vide research participants with the promised information and see this as
part of the research project.
It is also helpful to prepare oneself for the eventuality that our research
participants do not react as positively to our findings and conclusions as
we would hope them to. Participants may at times find it hard to accept
the conclusions drawn by the researcher. However, it is important to
acknowledge that sharing our results with the research participants may
also add significant value to our projects. Indeed, in some of our past
projects, our participants did us a great service by taking the time to read
our research reports and provide us with some additional contextual
information that proved highly insightful when we started working on
subsequent publications from that data set.
We witness nowadays growing pressures on researchers—also qualita-
tive researchers—to put their data in open-access repositories to enable
cross-checking and replications of the original study. Sometimes, it is a
formal requirement of external funding bodies, non-negotiable by the
researcher. This raises a serious issue of confidentiality—‘a complex pro-
cess that involves more than merely disguising the identities of research
participants or sites’ (Tilley and Woodthorpe 2011, p. 3). If the data are
 Ethics in Qualitative Research 209

to be made available for reuse by other researchers, it is important to pay

particular attention to protecting the participants of the research who
should be asked to provide explicit consent to making data available after
the research project is completed (see also Corti et al. 2000).

11.6 Conclusions
Ethical dilemmas faced by qualitative researchers may arise from tensions
when various—often conflicting—principles meet. Although there are
codes of ethics for researchers, they may only act as guidelines since
research work involves dealing with unpredictable dilemmas that often
require researchers to make judgement calls and to resolve them indepen-
dently, on an ongoing basis, as our research evolves. We believe that many
ethical dilemmas are simply insoluble; researchers often face situations
where a number of principles of ethical conduct may appear to be con-
flicting with one another.
We agree with Wolff-Michael Roth (2005) and others (e.g. Markham
and Buchanan 2012; Miller 2012) who argue that it is impossible to
reduce ethics in research to an institutionalised set of top-down rules that
could be applicable to all contexts. Any ‘principle has to be interpreted in
the light of particular situations – it is rarely if ever a matter of simply
applying a rule, calculating what is best, or knowing directly what a situ-
ation requires’ (Hammersley and Traianou 2012, p. 34). Research ethics
needs to be regarded as an inherent element of research practice. ‘Ethically
important moments’ (Guillemin and Gillam 2004) and ethical questions
appear at every stage of the research process requiring researchers to make
their own choices depending on the context of the research and, most
importantly, according to their conscience. Knowledge of codes of ethics
for researchers, understanding of various philosophical perspectives on
which ethical postulates are based, and reflexivity, increasingly recognised
as one of the key quality assurance strategies in qualitative research
(Berger 2015), can all aid researchers in dealing with ethical challenges.
As we have attempted to argue in this chapter, ethics is not an abstract
notion or a one-off task that needs to be addressed to secure ethical
approval. Foreseeing, addressing and reflecting upon ethical issues are
210 S. Ciuk and D. Latusek

part and parcel of everyday research practice. In light of the changing

research landscape and methodological innovations, adopting ‘a dialogic,
case-based, inductive, and process approach to ethics’ (Markham and
Buchanan 2012: 5) might be more conducive to ethical decision-making
that is sensitive to (at times, conflicting) contextual, cultural, institutional
and legal requirements than reliance on regulatory models and proce-
dural ethics.

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 Index

A B
Accessible Bakhtin, M.M., 114, 131
auditory material, 184–186 Bangsy, 67, 69
premises, 179, 182 Beliefs, 3, 19, 21–23, 30, 31, 44, 63,
verbal communication, 184 79, 89, 91, 93, 111, 154, 160,
visual material, 183–184 200
Agar, M., 161 Benjamin, W., 55, 61, 113, 114
Agnostic, 3, 11 Burrell, G., 13, 15, 17–20
Analysis
case, 14–16
comprehensive, 16, 33, 83, 197 C
discourse, 16, 64, 110 Case study
multi-layered, 56 descriptive, x
Anonymity, 202–204 Categories, 2, 11, 18–20, 27, 31,
Anthropology 33–36, 39–44, 88
visual, ix, 49–52, 57, 61, 62, core, 39, 41
66–71 Causality, 118, 119, 138
Art, 52, 55, 58–71, 113, 114, 127, Clustering, 60, 61, 63
140, 142, 143 Codes, 27, 31, 34–36, 38–41, 43,
Atlast.ti, 36 143, 196, 205, 209

© The Author(s) 2018 215

M. Ciesielska, D. Jemielniak (eds.), Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65217-7
216 Index

Coding Ethical
axial, 40 dilemmas, x, 196, 197, 200, 203,
families, 40 207, 209
in vivo, 36, 37 issues, 195–197, 200, 204, 205,
independent, 209 209
preliminary, 83, 163 Ethnography
strategies, 35, 36 autoetnography, 100, 145
themes, 143
Concept cards, 37, 38
Construct, 19, 23, 31, 37, 54, F
56, 57, 70, 115, 120, 129 Field visit, 3, 27, 43, 149, 201, 204,
Constructivism, 21, 23 206, 207
radical, 18, 20 Findings, 43, 54, 83, 86, 108, 116,
Contextualism, 109, 148, 197, 204 151, 178, 204
Culture Ford cannal corridor, 87–88
differences, 2, 109, 205 Foucault, M., 117, 119
visual Gardens of, 50, 51, 55 Functionalism, 18, 19
Czarniawska, B., 3, 30, 32, 37
Czarniawska-Joerges, B., 3, 30, 37
G
Gabriel, Y., x
D Gender, 148, 150, 163,
Data 174–176
triangulation, 33 Giddens, A., 8
visual, 33, 56 Glaser, B.G., 28, 29, 31, 32, 35,
Denzin, N.K., 24, 33 40–43
Dualism, 11, 21 Greenwood, D.J., x, 2, 3, 75–94
Duchamp, M., 63–65

H
E Hermeneutic circle, 141
Embodied presence, 119, 127, 147, Hermeneutics, 23, 80, 140–145
161, 208 Human actions, 22, 138, 140
Emotional dissonance, 162 Hypothesis, 44, 150
Emotions, 131, 138, 148, 149, 159,
160, 164, 165, 167–169, 205,
206 I
Epistemologies, ix, 7, 12, 21–23, Idealism, 11, 17
131, 177 Imagination, x, 69
 Index
   217

Informed consent, 196–202, 208 Languages, 14, 24, 36, 37, 61, 76,
Intent, 81, 114, 138, 162 80, 149, 150, 175, 178–181,
Intentions, 65, 66, 69, 106, 138, 185
150, 162, 201 games, 80
Interpretation, x, 2, 3, 23, 29, 31, Latour, B., 3, 115, 117, 120, 121,
33, 44, 52, 61, 77–79, 83, 84, 130
87, 137–154, 164 Learning the ropes, 100, 107
Interpretivism, 18, 119 Libera. Z., 67–69
interview Lincoln, Y.S., 20, 21, 23, 24, 196
creative, 60
ethnographic, 76
focused group, 20, 32, 33, M
178–180, 186 Magala, S., 49–71
non-standardized, 32 Malinowski, B., 1, 149
non-structured, 186 Management
questionnaire, 2, 16 of organizations, 1, 13, 99–111
standardized, 16 qualification, 102
structured, 2, 110, 186 Materialism, 11, 116
Iteration, 42 Materiality, 113
Mead, M., 149
Metaphors, 13, 14, 37, 123, 153
K epistemological, 13
Knowledge Methodologies, 2, 7, 14–16, 21–23,
instrumental, 43, 204 25, 28, 30, 43, 53–57, 61,
logico-scientific, 138, 139 114, 116, 117, 126, 138,
reflexive, 146, 147, 149, 150, 146–148, 150, 153, 154, 177,
152 178, 196–198, 203
Konecki, K., 2, 3, 33, 40, 55–57 Mondragon project, 85
Kostera, M., 3, 9, 13, 16 Morgan, G., 13–15, 17
Kozinets, R., 200, 203
Kuhn, T., 8–10
Kunda, G., 3 N
Narratives, 16, 34, 35, 61–67, 93,
111, 114–120, 128, 129, 131,
L 132, 138–141
Laddering Native, 114, 115, 117, 126–131
down, 2, 50, 68 Neo-positivism, 55
upwards, 103, 104 Netnography, 200
218 Index

Notes taking, 32–34, 164 Recordings

NVivo, 36, 44, 143, 152, 153 audio, 206
video, 57
Recruiting participants, 178–180
O Reflexive practice, 146
Objectivism, 17, 18, 20, 21 Reflexivity, 3, 137, 205, 209
Observation See also Self-reflexivity
non-participant, 32, 200 Research
participant, 32, 102–104, 106, accessible, 52, 173, 175
108 action design, 84
Observer deductive, 42
completely participating, 63 design, 13, 79, 149, 162, 168,
Ontology 175, 195, 196, 203
agential, 118–120 disseminating, 188–189
posthumanist, 119 ethics, 148, 196, 197, 205,
realist, 21, 118 209
relational, 117, 118 findings, 177, 183, 188, 202,
207–209
inductive, 210
P participation, 173–189
Paradigm problem, 81, 83, 201
participatory, 21, 23 process, 15, 16, 27, 28, 30, 31,
utility, 10 34, 40, 41, 44, 77, 83–85,
Photography, 51–59 145, 161, 163, 177–186, 195,
Pilot study, 30 197, 199, 209
Positivism, 21, 161 qualitative, 1–3, 7, 27, 137, 145,
Postmodernism, 20 159–169, 173, 195–210
Postpositivism, 21, 22 quantitative, 14, 15, 19, 22, 138,
Project proposal, 87 139, 143, 145, 196
Properties, 10, 15, 31, 41, 43, 65, question, 101, 111, 162, 175,
93, 122, 123, 132 177, 182
strategy, 30, 31, 44, 79
tools, 16
R Research project
Radical structuralism, 18, 20 budget, 176
Ranciere, J., 50 feasibility, 189
Rapport, 159, 164 Researcher, 162
Realism, 11, 17, 21, 22, 118, 126 insider, 166
 Index
   219

Risky shift, 94 formal, 29, 56

Rydet, Z., 53, 54 formulation, 31, 33, 41
generating, 40–42, 56
grounded, 14, 16, 27–44, 56
S mid-range, 29, 34
Samples, 15, 28, 31, 42, 62, 174, substantive, 29, 40, 56
176 triangulation, 22, 33
Science Time, 8, 9, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25,
ideographic, 15 29, 34, 37, 39, 42, 43, 56, 59,
nomothetic, 15, 17 65, 68–70, 82, 83, 88, 93,
normal, 8 102, 103, 105–107, 109, 110,
Scientific revolutions, 8, 9 116, 117, 120, 121, 128, 129,
Sensemaking, 52, 61, 114, 120, 143 137, 144, 166, 167, 175, 176,
Shadowing, 32 180, 181, 183, 186, 189, 198,
Sociology 199, 205, 207, 208
of radical change, 18, 20 Triangulation
of regulation, 18, 19 data, 33
visual, 49–52, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64 investigator, 33
Spaces, 11, 24, 53, 56, 57, 60, 65, 68, methodological, 22, 33
92, 117, 122, 129, 130, 179 theory, 22, 33
Spradley, J. P., 110
Storytelling, 113–133
Strauss, A. L., 28, 29, 31, 35, 40–43 V
Subjectivism, 17, 18, 23 Validity, 9, 94, 106, 140, 146
Symbolic interactionism, 29 Values, 9, 14, 21–23, 25, 37, 43, 52,
Sztompka, P., 53–55 54, 62, 63, 65–67, 76, 86, 99,
109, 110, 140, 143, 145, 147,
151, 153, 160, 176, 196, 205,
T 208
Theoretical Van Maanen, J., 3, 100, 168, 203
sampling, 27, 31, 32, 34
saturation, 31, 34, 44
Theory W
actor-network, 117, 120, 121, 130 Warhol, A., 63–67
critical, 21, 22, 153 Watson, T., 99
discourse, 117 Weick, K. E., 37, 152