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Organizational multi-sited ethnography: challenges and strategies in management research

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsProceedings

Published
Publication date01/2014
PublisherAcademy of Management
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Multi-sited ethnography has emerged as an alternative way of doing ethnographic work, specifically targeting spatially and temporally delocalized phenomena. Multi-sited ethnography has been used to trace phenomena in migration, feminist, and science and technology studies. Despite its diffusion in many research areas, its use by management scholars has been limited, and considerations on reflexivity, and on the emerging issues related to the use of multi-sited ethnography in organizations, widely marginalized. The article first contributes in proposing insights on an promising method for management research; it clarifies its origins and the extent of its practice for exploring organizational phenomena, as well as its differences with other methodological approaches. Moreover, the article extends contemporary engagements with multi-sited ethnography in organizations, by offering insights on issues on reflexivity and identity deriving from the use of the method. Throughout the analysis of material collected in a multi-sited ethnographic study involving two R&D organizations, problems emerging in doing multi-sited ethnography across different organizations, and the related strategies for overcoming them are explored. The data is considered in light of performativity theories, primarily drawing on the works of Judith Butler, and Karen Barad.