Ethnography as Methodology

Ethnography is a methodology, not a method. Broadly speaking, methodology relates to the choices made about how to carry out research: the knowledge paradigm and practices that underpin the study, the research site, how the researcher will engage (or not) with respondents, what constitutes ‘data’, and how they will be collected and analysed. Methods, as we will see in the following section, are the techniques by which data are collected and analysed. What, then, are the key characteristics of this methodology?

My first brush with ethnography (although I did not realize it at the time) was reading US sociologist Donald Reference RoyRoy’s (1959) Banana Time. Roy had worked in a New York garment factory, studying how a group of operatives who were isolated from other employees and engaged in routine work ‘toughed out’ a twelve-hour day, six days a week. I recall being fascinated by the social processes Roy observed, the ritualistic conversational themes and activities that operatives engaged in throughout the day to (ironically!) deal with the monotony of their work. For example, every day Ike stole and ate Sammy’s banana – hence ‘banana time’ – and yet, every day, Sammy still brought in a banana. His main conclusion was that such regularized informal interactions in a group’s subculture were a big source of job satisfaction. His story and detailed examples bring the concepts alive for the reader.

Roy’s study is typical of the ethnographic methodology of the 1950s that was based on the Chicago School, a group of sociologists including Whyte, Goffman and Becker who studied the everyday interactions in urban life using ethnography. These scholars emphasized the importance of fieldwork, participant observation and native interpretations in understanding the empirical world (Reference Becker, Hughes and StraussBecker, Hughes and Strauss 1961; Reference BlumerBlumer 1954). Only by studying people in their everyday activities can we grasp the complexity, intricacy and mundanity (commonplace activities) of organizational life (Reference Ybema, Yanow, Wels, Kamsteeg, Ybema, Yanow, Wels and KamsteegYbema et al. 2009). The ethnographer’s focus is therefore very much on practical activities, interactions and practices, and it is this that makes it of particular relevance to studies of strategy in practice.

Broadly speaking, ethnographies are about the following (Reference CunliffeCunliffe 2010).

• Culture: situated interactions, cultural artefacts, symbols, stories and texts.

• Context and temporality: studying people in their naturally occurring settings and over a period of time to discover how meanings, actions, practices, organizing, etc. emerge. Reference Samra-FredericksSamra-Fredericks’s (2003) ethnographic study of senior managers and directors in a manufacturing organization not only vividly drew attention to the need to study strategizing as lived experience in a particular context, it also highlighted the value of ethnography in exploring a fine-grained analysis of how – in this context – one strategist was able to shape strategic direction through his relational-rhetorical skill.

• Sociality and meanings: how people live their lives, do their work and interact with others – that is, relationships between people, groups, context and culture. Reference Jeppesen and BjerregaardJeppesen and Bjerregaard (2020) draw on ethnographic data to study how strategists reframe past and present strategy initiatives around digital transformation in a manufacturing organization. Indeed, more studies are emerging that use ethnography to gather in-depth data of the micro-practices and meanings involved in sensemaking and strategic influencing.

• Thick description (Reference GeertzGeertz 1973): detailed descriptions and interpretations of local understandings, as opposed to ‘thin’ descriptions, incorporating generalized findings, factual statements and coded or statistical data. Reference WatsonWatson (2011) argues that, despite the fact that ethnography requires researchers to gain a high level of access, spend long hours in the field and be emotionally resilient, it is essential to the SAP research agenda because it helps us get close to the work, interactions, actions and identities of strategists in particular organizations.

As these characteristics imply, most ethnographies focus on a single site or organization as a means of capturing micro-practices, and this is both a strength and a foundation for one of the main criticisms of ethnography: how can insights from a single site be generalized across, and made relevant to, other contexts? I explore this issue later in the chapter.

The Logic of Ethnography

In contrast to positivism’s logic of validation, which is based on a hypothetico-deductive methodology in which theory generates hypotheses that are then tested through data, ethnography utilizes a logic of discovery (Reference LockeLocke 2011). A logic of discovery means carrying out research without preconceived models or frameworks, being open to any surprises we may experience in the field, and working with them to develop new ideas, concepts and/or explanations (Reference AgarAgar 2010). What does ‘being open to surprise’ mean, though? Roy’s comment above highlights an important element; it requires that ethnographers first notice occurrences and comments without an immediate evaluation (Reference KosteraKostera 2007): looking at the details, noticing what goes on around us in an unmediated and unfiltered way. Thus, ethnographers record what at first may seem unimportant and without reason, with the idea that over time meanings may become clearer and connections and interpretations made as we get a better sense of the whole context. This is a fundamental characteristic of the logic of discovery.

Within this logic, ethnographic work is often based on abduction or induction (Reference van Maanen, Sorensen and Mitchellvan Maanen, Sorensen and Mitchell 2007) rather than deduction. Abduction focuses on the interplay of experience, literature and ideas to generate new understandings and insights about the specific practices under study. Ethnographers do not begin with a specific theory or plan that they apply; rather, they begin with the questions ‘How do I start to study this issue?’, ‘Who do I speak with next?’ and ‘What do I do next?’ (Reference AgarAgar 2010). In other words, they are open to the ‘new or unacknowledged behaviours and processes that have important implications for organizational life’ (Reference LockeLocke 2011: 614), and search for a repertoire of theories to explain them. In doing so, they play data through theories and theories through data to form new interpretations. Abduction therefore offers a useful way of generating theory for SAP scholars because it offers a way of addressing Reference WhittingtonWhittington’s (2006) call to examine the relationship between practitioners, practice and praxis.

In answering Agar’s questions, it is often helpful to think about your sampling strategy. Reference 492TracyTracy (2013: 136–7) identifies at least three strategies:

Within these approaches an ethnographer might also use snowball sampling, whereby he/she talks to new people on the basis of recommendations from existing research participants. While this can maximize access, it also needs to be monitored to ensure that an unintended outcome is not an unrepresentative sample of close colleagues but, rather, that the study comprises a diverse sample of participants.

Positioning the Ethnographer

The first consideration in ethnography is gaining access – obtaining consent ‘to go where you want, observe what you want, talk to whomever you want, obtain and read whatever documents you require’ (Reference Glesne and PeshkinGlesne and Peshkin 1992: 33) – which can be challenging. In his ethnography of police work in Latin America, Alcadipani was initially unable to gain access through formal means. He gained access after many months by hanging around and observing police as they dealt with demonstrations, eventually being called to meet with the top police commander who gave his permission (Reference 490Cunliffe and AlcadipaniCunliffe and Alcadipani 2016).

Once obtaining access, the ethnographer needs to be aware of the nature of her/his relationship with members of the organization. As already noted, in contrast to positivist methodologies, in which the researcher is the neutral expert observer, the Chicago School advocates participant observation, in which ethnographers work in the context they are studying, observing and getting to know their respondents. In The Vulnerable Observer (1996), Ruth Behar talks about the paradox of participant observation – being part of the group, empathizing, letting the culture enmesh you, but not forgetting that you are also watching then leaving to describe and theorize their lives. This can lead to emotional challenges, for example Tim Reference ButcherButcher (2013) struggled with a ‘longing to belong’ to the group of machine shop workers he was studying, having been an apprentice engineer in a similar organization, only to find that he belonged to the group as a guest, but was never in the group.

Participant observation allows for in-depth first-hand experience but can also lead to complications, some of which, as Roy found, are physical. As he noted:

In this example, the ethnographer’s experience itself provided data about organizational practices!

The ethnographer’s relationship with research participants can therefore be both problematic and fruitful. Reference Williams and WhitemanWilliams and Whiteman (2021) argue that we need to deal with world challenges by co-creating societal resilience through ‘deep engagement’ with practitioners. They illustrate through an ethnography conducted with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, where the first author worked on sustainability projects. Reference GoodallGoodall’s (2000) narrative ethnography illustrates a different form of deep engagement, using his personal experience within a culture and context to reflexively examine and offer insights of broader relevance – an approach often used in autoethnography.

Based on her fieldwork experience, Geetha Karunanayake and I proposed four ‘hyphen-spaces’¹ of ethnographer–research participant relationships (Reference Cunliffe and KarunanayakeCunliffe and Karunanayake 2013) as a way of sensitizing researchers to the importance of understanding the nature of our relationships and how they may shift over time.

• Insider–outsiderness Is the ethnographer native to the organization and does he/she have an ongoing role there? An instance of insiderness might be a strategist writing about his/her experiences, incorporating literature and theoretical observations in the account (e.g., see Reference Grosse, Scott and NeilsonGrosse 2020).

• Sameness–difference Is the ethnographer similar to members of the organization in terms of gender, ethnicity, cultural values, language, etc.?

• Engagement–distance Is the ethnographer engaged with participants in their activities and are participants actively engaged in the research process? An engaged relationship occurs when researchers and strategists partner to co-produce research and, possibly, changes in practice (e.g., Reference Cunliffe and IvaldiCunliffe and Ivaldi 2021; Reference Langley and KlagLangley and Klag 2019).

• Political activism–active neutrality To what extent is the ethnographer involved in participant agendas for action and change (e.g., Reference Reedy and KingReedy and King 2019; Reference Williams and WhitemanWilliams and Whiteman 2021)?

These relationships influence, and are influenced by, the methodology and knowledge paradigm or problematic we work from, and may need to be reassessed and renegotiated. As ethnographers and researchers studying practice, we also need to be reflexively aware of the potential ethical and identity-related tensions and dilemmas that may emerge in these spaces for both ourselves and our research participants. For example, if we see or experience bullying or illegal activities during our fieldwork, do we have a responsibility to act? It is also important to consider what impact our presence in the field may have for our research participants – on their relationships and position, or the attitudes of colleagues in their organization. In their account of research co-produced between academic and practitioner, Reference Orr and BennettOrr and Bennett (2012: 434) talk about Bennett’s research being ‘a source of baffled amusement’ to a practitioner colleague.

Methods to Generate Thick Descriptions

As previously stated, methods are the techniques by which data are collected and analysed, and it is important to note that the methods used should be consistent with the research questions and the type of data that need to be collected to answer these questions. Within ethnography a range of methods are often used in order to obtain data that provide an in-depth understanding, and possibly multiple interpretations (see below), of lived experience. Methods include: participant observation, text and discourse analysis, conversation analysis (see Reference Vaara and FritschVaara and Fritsch 2021 for an overview), grounded theory (e.g., Reference Holohan and SarhanHolohan and Sarhan 2020), narrative analysis (e.g., Reference Baxter and FloydBaxter and Floyd 2019), interviews (structured to unstructured), informal conversations, observation/recording of meetings and activities, shadowing (e.g., Reference GillGill 2011), video and video diaries (e.g., Reference Lui, Jarrett, Rouleau, Grosjean and MatteLui, Jarrett, and Rouleau 2021). We will look at examples of studies using such methods from different knowledge paradigms or problematics in the following section. In addition, Part IV of the volume incorporates a range of methods, many of which are relevant to ethnography. Here I point to four examples of studies that use different methods to generate thick descriptions of experience. The first two incorporate the use of video, the third utilizes the rather unusual method of a storytelling workshop, and the fourth netnography.

Reference Zundel, MacIntosh and MackayZundel, MacIntosh and Mackay (2018) studied the strategic decision-making of managers in an engineering service firm. They gathered data through interviews, by facilitating workshops, and asking the managers to upload weekly video diaries to a private YouTube channel. These methods not only afforded access to the sensemaking of managers and their practices, but the video diaries shed light on managers’ emotions through their bodily expressions. In their ethnography of reinsurance trading in London, Reference Smets, Burke, Jarzabkowski and SpeeSmets et al. (2014) also used video, but in a different way. They recorded around 400 hours of trading activities and highlight four challenges of this method: the need to continually negotiate access, positioning the camera, the appropriation of the camera by participants, and coordinating the activities and observations of the research team.

Based on a phenomenological narrative approach, Reference Küpers, Mantere and StatlerKüpers, Mantere and Statler (2013) designed a storytelling workshop, during which they asked participants to tell stories of the company’s strategy around the narrative genres of comic, tragic and epic. They identify three storytelling practices: struggling for ownership, desacralizing strategy and a ritual of self-sacrifice. Although not part of an ethnographic study, storytelling workshops could well be used as a method within SAP research, especially if the purpose of the research involves impact and organizational change.

Finally, Reference Luedicke, Husemann, Furnari and LadstaetterLuedicke et al. (2017) use a combination of netnography, interviews and participant observation to study radically open strategizing practices in a German-based collective, ‘Premium Cola’. Netnographic data included observing and engaging in email conversations (over 18,500 emails) to identify strategic issues.

To summarize, given the focus of SAP researchers on how and why strategy comes into being or is performed, then the methods need to capture not just observable micro-practices but the tacit knowledge held by strategists that may influence their actions. This means engaging in longitudinal, in-depth fieldwork and using multiple methods and forms of data collection to gather particularized details, lived experiences, multiple perspectives, and the communicative and interactional practices used in creating meaning. Ethnography can therefore not only illustrate and explain the emergent and fluid nature of strategy-making, but also strategists’ emotions (Reference Kouamé and LiuKouamé and Liu 2021) in ways that quick snapshot surveys or interviews conducted retrospectively do not. Enactive or carnal ethnography offers a way of experiencing emotions based on performing the phenomenon under study, as in Reference de Rond, Holeman and Howard-Grenvillede Rond, Holeman and Howard-Grenville’s (2019) study of sensemaking, which draws on one author’s experience of sculling the Amazon River. Carnal ethnography surfaces embodied practical knowing that is embedded in many practices, foregrounding a person ‘not just as wielder of symbols, but as sensate, suffering, skilled, sedimented, and situated creature of flesh and blood’ (Reference WacquantWacquant 2015: 1). And strategists are no different.

Theorizing: Connections and Possibilities

An important methodological issue in ethnography is how ‘to systematize the procedure by which we move from an appreciation of ethnographic detail to concepts useful in addressing problems’ (Reference BeckerBecker 1963: 191). Theorizing from extensive and multiple sources of data is not easy and, of course, depends on what we see as ‘good theory’. Reference van Maanen, Sorensen and MitchellVan Maanen, Sorensen and Mitchell (2007) argue that theory is not well defined or commonly understood. What is theory? Theory could be a guess, conjecture, hypothesis, proposition and/or a model. It is also seen as a law, constructs, the relationship between variables, and an account of a social process. I argue later that how we define theory depends on the problematic we work from, but here I address some general issues in theorizing from ethnographic data.

Deductive theorizing involves testing preconceived ideas or theories, the plausibility of hypotheses, or measuring variables and is rare in ethnographic work. Ethnographers go into the field to see what it might tell them about an issue or question and therefore inductive and abductive theorizing is more prevalent. As such, there is less emphasis on the linear relationships and causal mechanisms of positivist theory and more on ‘imaginative understandings’. While coding is part of deductive and inductive studies, Reference Locke, Feldman and Golden-BiddleLocke, Feldman and Golden-Biddle (2022) highlight some of the differences, with the latter involving ‘seeing possibilities, establishing connections, and asking questions’ (Reference CharmazCharmaz 2007: 135, emphasis in original).

Inductive theorizing therefore follows a bottom-up (theorizing from data) approach in which data may be coded or themes identified. From these codes or themes claims, concepts or insights may be developed by comparing them with existing theories (see Reference 492TracyTracy 2013). In their action research study in a Canadian community-based housing organization, Reference Bencherki, Sergi, Cooren and VásquezBencherki et al. (2021) draw on interviews, documents, a ‘reflection day’ workshop, video and audio data, to explore how communication practices influence strategizing. Based on an ethnomethodologically inspired interaction analysis, they identify, inductively, four communication practices – presentifying, substantiating, attributing and crystallizing. In an inductive process, theoretical sensitivity (Reference GlaserGlaser 1978) is an important feature: developing the insight to recognize and understand what is important in the field. Generally speaking, this means immersing oneself in the data and being open to what respondents find meaningful and significant.

As I noted above, abduction is often seen as the heart of ethnography, especially in disciplines such as anthropology and sociology (Reference AgarAgar 2010). It is neither a bottom-up nor a top-down way of theorizing but a way of connecting context, meaning and everyday practices with existing and new ideas. It involves developing new ideas, theories, explanations and solutions from the close examination of a particular context or case, but in a suppositional way, in the sense that these are ‘theories’ about what is possible, not about what is representational or predictive (Reference Locke, Golden-Biddle and FeldmanLocke, Golden-Biddle and Feldman 2008). Reference Vaara, Sorsa and PälliVaara, Sorsa and Pälli’s (2010) critical discourse analysis of the official strategic plan in a Finnish city uses an abductive approach, going ‘back and forth between our theoretical ideas and empirical analyses to create an increasingly elaborate understanding of the various discursive features that seemed to explain the power effects of the strategic plan’ (Reference Vaara, Sorsa and PälliVaara, Sorsa and Pälli 2010: 690). This process of theorizing involves making connections and using our imagination to develop possible explanations.

Generalizability – or Writing ‘Convincing’ Ethnographic Accounts

A perennial criticism of ethnography is that it is dependent on the ethnographer – his/her theories, perceptions and biases. Consequently, ethnographies are not replicable or generalizable, because not only will different ethnographers see the same context in different ways but the details are particular to the context. This criticism could also be extended to the study of strategic practice within a particular organizational context. In this section I offer four ways of addressing ‘generalizability’ within ethnographic research.

First, it is important to note that ethnographers think about ‘generalization’ in a different way from positivist and ‘scientific’ researchers. Whereas, with the latter, generalization is typically seen as being across contexts and case, within ethnography generalizations are made within contexts (Reference TracyTracy 2010). Generalizing within contexts can be seen in two ways: (1) that instances and small details, such as the specific strategic practices of managers within one organization, can be placed in relation to broader theories and concepts; and (2) specific practices from one group of strategists may resonate with strategists in other organizations. Thus, for ethnographers, the purpose is not to develop abstract theoretical generalizations but to create insights from within a context that resonate in other contexts – both practical and theoretical. So, for example, Reference Bencherki, Sergi, Cooren and VásquezBencherki et al.’s (2021) four communication practices highlighted above – presentifying, substantiating, attributing and crystallizing – could be applied and used by strategists in many different contexts.

Another way of addressing generalizability is critical cultural anthropologist George Reference MarcusMarcus’s (1995) idea of multi-sited or mobile ethnographies – ‘multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the local and the global’ (Reference MarcusMarcus 1995: 95). A multi-sited research methodology examines the flow of meanings, discourses and narratives; the formation and relationships in and between cultural logics, economies and practices; and systemic forms of domination and resistance, within and across sites. An example of when a multi-sited ethnography would be particularly appropriate would be when studies of environmental sustainability are involved and when studying practices and relationships across organizational boundaries (Reference Berthod, Grothe-Hammer, Sydow, Bryman and BuchananBerthod, Grothe-Hammer and Sydow 2018). Multi-sited ethnography is not just about things being understood similarly or differently across different sites (Reference NeylandNeyland 2008); it is also about following something – a practice or process – across time and space: ‘Strategies of quite literally following connections, associations, and putative relationships are thus at the very heart of designing multi-sited ethnographic research’ (Reference MarcusMarcus 1995: 97). Such connections may relate to participants, an object (text), a discourse or metaphor, plots and stories, a life/biography and even a conflict about particular issues. Reference OrrOrr’s (1996) study of Xerox technicians is one such example; he followed the technicians as they visited various clients in different organizations. Reference van DuijnVan Duijn (2020) employed multi-sited ethnography to study strategic collaborations in the Dutch health care system. She discusses the methodological advantages and challenges of this approach, which include the value of experiencing the complexity of collaboration between multiple actors, and the challenges of negotiating access and ‘drowning in a sea of possible connections’ (p. 286).

Reference MarcusMarcus (1995) argues that multi-sited research tests the limits of ethnography because it is about connecting local knowledges with ‘world systems’ – which are not portrayed as total, fixed representations but, instead, mapped as emerging relationships between sites. Reference PeltonenPeltonen (2007) suggests that one area of study that lends itself to multi-sited ethnography is international management. In his study of the lived experience of middle managers in MNCs, he connects their individual experiences of restructuring, mobile careers, family stress, being on call twenty-four hours a day, etc. with the macro-level market-driven characteristics of global capitalism – that is, the ‘human consequences of global capitalism’ (Reference PeltonenPeltonen 2007: 355). In doing so, he offers a way of linking local and global practices. Such an approach could be used to study strategic practice in multinational organizations.

Another way of linking micro and macro and the local with the global within ethnography is Reference NicoliniNicolini’s (2009) double movement of ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’ on practice. This requires the use of various theoretical lenses and perspectives (zooming in), then zooming out to follow the connections between the practice being studied and the broader practices in which they are situated, or the translocal effects of the immediate practice – for example, historical, cultural and structural practices and changes. Reference ZilberZilber (2020) identifies four research strategies to facilitate zooming in and out when studying institutional processes:

In this way, we begin to understand the societal/organizational effects of situated practices – and vice versa. Zooming ‘in’ and ‘out’ therefore offers a way of studying the relationship between practices and strategy-making in one organization and how this might relate to broader professional, industry or cultural practices.

Finally, in a now classic article, Reference Golden-Biddle and LockeGolden-Biddle and Locke (1993) argue that, in ethnographic work, the question is not how results from an ethnographic study of one research site can be generalized to others but how ethnographers can convince readers that their work is credible and rigorous. They argue that ethnographic texts ‘convince’ if they meet the following three criteria.

1. (1) Authenticity: this shows that the ethnographer has been there and grasped the ‘life world’ of participants. Research accounts can convey the vitality and detail of everyday life by gathering and analysing data in a disciplined way. In a SAP context, this means using the language that strategists use and being able to describe and explain their actions, conversations and relationships in ways that show the ethnographer understands the context in which they are spoken and their impact. It may also mean using multiple methods of data collection. Reference Whittle, Gilchrist, Mueller and LenneyWhittle et al. (2021) gathered data through intensive fieldwork comprising semi-structured interviews, participant observation, shadowing and documents in their ethnographic study conducted in a multinational corporation subsidiary. These sources offered rich data on interactional moments and real-time activities relating to changes in strategy arrangements. Using Reference GoffmanGoffman’s (1990 [1959]) dramaturgical perspective they illustrate the frontstage and backstage practices involved in strategic change, giving specific quotes, examples and details.

2. (2) Plausibility: The story makes sense, the connection between the descriptive and conceptual is explained, potentially problematic assertions are made sensible and a distinctive contribution is made. As a result, the practices identified are connected to theories in a meaningful and persuasive way. Reference WeiserWeiser’s (2021) study of top managers’ sensemaking and sensegiving during a strategic change initiative in a software company draws on observations of meetings and department interactions, interviews and document analysis. Her data was coded to identify first-order concepts, second-order themes and aggregate dimensions. In doing so, she presents detailed illustrative quotes – connecting in a persuasive way the descriptive with a multimodel model of sensemaking.

3. (3) Criticality: the text causes the reader to question taken-for-granted assumptions, through form and rhetorical style. A number of the texts cited in the introduction to this chapter exemplify this aspect. Based on a multi-sited ethnography conducted in occupied Palestinian territory, Reference PrasadPrasad (2019) discusses how a researcher’s field experience impacts conceptions of self and Other. Using ethnographic and autoethnographic data, he challenges us to think more reflexively about our role as researchers and the challenges we may face in the situations we may encounter.

Reference Jarzabkowski, Bednarek and LeJarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Le (2014) suggest that in presenting convincing evidence we knit together our field notes by presenting verbatim excerpts from conversations, the context of the conversation and vignettes, along with our interpretation and translation to illuminate theoretical concepts. These are useful guidelines for writing and for justifying ethnographic accounts, and they make sense given that ethnographies are about rich, thick descriptions and interpretations of processes, practices or phenomena situated in particular contexts. In other words, the key question is not ‘Is this work generalizable?’ but ‘Do the insights generated in this context resonate in other contexts?’

Having given an overview of key considerations in ethnography, I now address some deeper fundamental issues relating to the knowledge paradigms or problematics underpinning research, with specific reference to the study of practice. Understanding how the knowledge problematic we work from influences our research design is important in ensuring that we engage in consistent and rigorous research. In doing so, I refer to illustrative studies from the SAP field.

The Ontology of Practice and Implications for Ethnography

‘Practice’ is a construct or a lens through which we study everyday life, and, as such, its meaning is contested (Reference GeigerGeiger 2009). I want to suggest that what we see as practice and how we study practices depend on our ontological assumptions. This means asking fundamental ontological and epistemological questions prior to research.

• What is the ontological nature of practice?

• How do we evaluate ‘good’ knowledge about practice?

• What are the implications for research design?

• Practice is for whom and by whom?

Elsewhere (Reference CunliffeCunliffe 2011), in trying to answer these questions from a general organization studies perspective, I have articulated three knowledge problematics that underpin our research: objectivism, subjectivism and intersubjectivism. Each problematic is based on ontological and epistemological assumptions that each have their own internal logic that influences how we view our topic of research, what we see as ‘data’, how we collect, interpret and theorize from these data and how we write our research accounts. I briefly outline each problematic in Table 26.1 before going on to examine the implications for studying practice.

Studying Practice from the Objectivist Problematic

For researchers working within an objectivist problematic, practice is an object of study – a phenomenon that can be observed and understood from outside the practice. The characteristics of a practice and/or process, routines, norms, stages and types are identified to offer a factual account and knowledge that can be generalized and replicated across contexts. Objectivist studies can include big-data and small-data projects, and while the latter may involve a study of micro-practices, the key differentiator in relation to other problematics lies in what is seen as ‘data’ and how the data are treated. For example, from an objectivist problematic, actions, activities and discourses may be identified in a specific context or practice, but treated as ‘stand-alone’ phenomena, abstracted and unconnected to the people performing them. Van Maanen’s ethnography of Disneyland mentioned earlier is, as he says himself, ‘an old-fashioned realist ethnography that tells of a culture’ (Reference van Maanen, Frost, Moore, Louis, Lundberg and Martinvan Maanen 1991: 58): the type of culture, socialization processes, and the emotional and stage management practices that went on behind the scenes at Disneyland.

The predominant focus on this problematic is reinforced in Reference Abdallah, Basque, Rouleau, Cassell, Cunliffe and GrandyAbdallah, Basque and Rouleau’s (2018) observation that the three research design profiles identified in their review of SAP research – Classical, Expanded and Comprehensive – are objectivist, aiming to offer patterns, concrete processes, micro-practices and discourses. While arguing in their review that the SAP field has become increasingly diverse, Reference Kohtamäki, Whittington, Vaara and RabetinoKohtamäki et al. (2022) do not mention diversity in terms of subjectivist, intersubjective, interpretive or participatory studies.

An example of an objectivist study is that of Reference Burke and WolfBurke and Wolfe (2021) who conducted a three-and-a-half-year ethnographic study of a multidivisional construction-engineering group, to examine how managers created a strategy tool. They gathered data through observation of meetings, exploratory interviews and company documents and analysed the data inductively through coding. From first-order concepts such as translating ideas into visual representations and divergent views about sectors, they create second-order themes (e.g., material-making domain, discovery of latent ambiguities) and finally aggregate dimensions: three domains of toolmaking activity, unintended process affordances emerge, and the locus of strategic value (p. 368). From this, they develop a model of an expanding spiral of unintended affordances.

The key indicators in objectivist studies are terms such as ‘categories’, ‘mechanisms’, ‘processes’, ‘coding’ and ‘dynamics’. From an objectivist problematic, the focus lies on the properties or types of practices in the context studied, with human intentions and interpretations removed. Indeed, in his ethnographic study of telemedicine practices, Reference NicoliniNicolini (2011) is explicit that his intention was ‘to substitute the dominant belief that subjects are the ultimate source of meaning and knowledge with the view that knowledge and meaning reside in a nexus of practices’ (Reference NicoliniNicolini 2011: 603). In other words, the object of study is practice, not individuals’ subjective interpretations of their practices.

Studying Practices from a Subjectivist Problematic

While objectivists view strategy as something out there that can be studied as an independent entity, subjectivists see strategizing evolving in the meanings and activities of organization members. Within a subjectivist problematic, people have a reflexive relationship with the world around them, meaning that they both constitute and are constituted by their surroundings – a broadly social constructionist perspective. Practices are therefore enacted by people in particular places, times and situations, and their understanding of these practices emerges from, and influences, their practices – rather like Escher’s lithograph of two hands drawing each other. To understand people’s practices, we therefore need to ask research participants what it is that they are doing and why, and in our interpretation of their responses stick closely to what they say and how they say it. In doing so, the ethnographer is not abstracting theoretical constructs, but emphasizing fluidity, similar and different interpretations in particular contexts. Reference Hassard, Burns, Hyde and BurnsHassard et al. (2018) elaborate how video-based ethnography can offer a way of developing more subjectivist, interpretive, reflexive, and even participatory accounts.

Although not an ethnography, in her study of moral agency from a SAP perspective, Reference EricsonEricson (2018) carries out an interpretive study of Löfbergs, a Swedish coffee company. She used online and face-to-face dialogue with practitioners, asking them to reflect and comment on their transcribed texts to develop a mutual understanding. Reference Begkos, Llewellyn and WalsheBekgos, Llewellyn and Walshe (2020), while using semi-structured interviews rather than ethnography, exemplify a subjectivist and interpretivist approach in their study of the strategizing practices of medical managers in the UK National Health Service. They conduct a thematic analysis which results in three main practices – controlling, contesting and competing – illustrating the themes through participant comments rather than models or frameworks. Another interesting subjectivist study is that by Reference Grosse, Scott and NeilsonGrosse (2020), who, as owner of a construction company, uses autoethnography to understand the micro-processes of strategizing in his business. He had written field notes almost daily about his experience over a period of years. Using these notes, he created an autoethnographic narrative as a means of reflecting on his strategic and managerial actions – which sometimes led to ‘uncomfortable truths’ (p. 782).

These examples highlight key elements of a subjectivist research methodology, which incorporates stories and narratives of practice from the practitioner’s perspective, different interpretations, excerpts from conversations and open interviews. Subjectivist accounts may also include photographs, film, researcher field notes and excerpts from practitioner diaries and accounts. Key indicators of subjectivist ethnographies are terms such as ‘making sense’, ‘meanings’, ‘interpretations’, ‘conversations’, ‘multiple interpretations’, ‘intentions’, ‘knowing’ and ‘practising’.

Engaging in Practices within an Intersubjective Problematic

An intersubjective ontology differs from subjectivism in that it is not about individual subjects and their interpretations and actions (‘I’s) but about ‘we-ness’ – that we are always ‘selves-in-relation-to-others’ (Reference RicœurRicœur 1992). Our practices and understandings of such practices are shaped between us (intentionally and otherwise), in situ, in our relational interactions and conversations. The implications of this problematic for practice are that:

• we are always in-relation-with and anticipating an ‘other’ (person, situation, event, practice …);

• meanings will be both shared and different;

• practices are never finalized, but ‘transformed in what is created’ in the moment (Reference Bakhtin, Emerson and HolquistBakhtin 1986 [1953]: 120); and

• research itself is also a practice, and, as such, researchers and practitioners are an integral and reflexive part of sensemaking.

Intersubjective ethnography means working with practitioners to share and create knowledge/knowing and meanings/understandings between us in collaborative dialogue. The ethnographer is therefore not a participant observer but a co-producer with strategists in generating meaning around how strategizing occurs (see examples in Reference Williams and WhitemanWilliams and Whiteman 2021).

Participatory action research offers one way of working from an intersubjective problematic because all research participants share in the design and generation of knowledge, and perhaps in changing practices (Reference Cunliffe and ScarattiCunliffe and Scaratti 2017; Reference ReasonReason 2006). A compelling study is that of Reference Burns, Hyde, Killett, Poland and GrayBurns et al. (2014) who take an intersubjective approach to examining how institutional practices impacted the quality of care and mistreatment of elderly residents of care homes. They involved owners, staff, residents, their relatives, regulatory and representative organizations from the initial development of the research proposal, through data collection and analysis. They discovered that the ‘polyvocality of competing interests’ shed light on organizational practices and priorities and highlighted issues the researchers themselves would not have noticed.