casing the promise land

what did method did Bud Goodall promote?

the narrative ethnography

what are the two problems with organizational study?

• language

• stories

what is fieldwork?

the collection of information outside a lab/sterile/controlled setting

what are organizations?

sense-making places

what is ethnography?

representing in words what you have lived through as a person when your stated purpose was to study a culture

what is the idea behind the organizational detective?

stop focusing on efficiency, but rather view research and understand organizations as a mystery (gaps in our understanding as the mysteries)

what did Goodall state as a problem with academic writing?

it did not allow for stories to be used

why should we use the organizational detective approach?

• it connects the life of researcher with the life of the subject

• we can show the intrigue

• pushes us to show, not just tell

• free to use whatever tools are available to make sense of what is found

why are mysteries good?

because small details turn out to have big implications and can reveal cultures

how do you conduct an organizational analysis?

study the organization like putting together a puzzle

who is Bud Goodall?

a rhetoric scholar-turned-organizational communication scholar

what is thick description?

the detailed account of fieldwork in which the researcher makes explicit the patterns of cultural and social relationships and puts them in context