Living with and living like those we study: organizational hybrid ethnography as a research approach in organization studies
Living with and living like those we study: organizational hybrid ethnography as a research approach in organization studies
Riku Reunamäki
Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-
Advances in technology and the COVID-19 pandemic have fundamentally altered the ways in which we behave and interact in our daily lives. However, organizational ethnography arguably still falls short in adequately portraying the hybrid nature of work as performed and experienced by employees in contemporary organizations.
“Traditional” participant observation has been adapted to accommodate this new reality through digital and remote ethnography, and there is an ongoing conversation in ethnographic research which is concerned with what can constitute the “field” in fieldwork. Based on my own fieldwork experiences, I propose a research approach I call organizational hybrid ethnography – a combination of in-person and remote organizational ethnography – and explain how it differs from other forms of technologically mediated ethnography.
I argue that compared to purely remote observations, the hybrid ethnographer is better positioned to not only experience firsthand the office environment and explore the questions it raises for hybrid working but also to establish trust with participants when interacting with them in person. Likewise, compared to purely on-site observations, I contend that the hybrid ethnographer gains a more holistic experience and more closely captures work dynamics when occasionally observing through videoconferencing.
Hybrid is increasingly how work is organized, and a central quest for the ethnographer is to try to simulate and relate to the experiences of research participants. Organizational hybrid ethnography enables the organizational ethnographer to provide a more authentic account of the participants’ work lives in modern organizational settings.