Contributions of Critical Realist Ethnography (1)

8/17/2019 Contributions of Critical Realist Ethnography (1)

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Contributions of Critical Realist Ethnography

in researching the Multinational Organisation.

Stream 4: Critical Perspectives on Researching and Theorizing the Multinational

Organisation

Dr Diana Rosemary Sharpe

Monmouth University

School of Business AdministrationWest Long Branch,

New Jersey 07764, USA

Tel: +1 732 571 3435

Fax: +1 732 263 5518Email: [email protected]


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Abstract

This paper examines the contribution that critical realist ethnographic research can make to the

field of international business and international management (IB/IM) research. Focusing

specifically on the multinational organization as a site of much theoretical and empirical interest,the paper outlines the relevance of critical realist ethnographic research approaches to an

understanding of practices and processes within the multinational organization. In carrying outresearch on the comparative study of organizations in a cross-national context a number of

methodological issues are faced. Issues raised include the relation between structures and

processes, the connection between the micro level and the macro level and the treatment of

‘time’ in addressing research questions concerning changes in organizations and institutional

contexts. The paper argues for a methodology for the comparative study of economicorganizations that is sensitive to process. ‘Process’ is seen as being influenced by structures but

not determined by them. Critical realism is seen to be helpful as a sensitizing tool and means of

conceptualizing the phenomenon studied.

Whilst ethnographic studies in the hermeneutic tradition work with an ontology encouragingfocus on agents’ conceptualizations, critical realist ethnographies set out from the premise that

subjects’ own accounts are the starting point but not the end of the research process. Realistontologies seek to go beyond agents’ conceptualizations of events and seek to look at social

structures. Within a realist ontology social phenomenon are seen as a result of a plurality of

structures. Human action is conceived as both enabled and constrained by social structures, butthis action in turn reproduces or transforms those structures (Bhaskar 1979). Ethnographic

investigations within this context can be used to explore the relationship between structure andagency. A realist approach to ethnography aims not only to describe events but also to explain

them, by identifying the influence of structural factors on human agency. Explanation also

focuses on how agency maintains or transforms these structures. The paper draws on a criticalrealist ethnography of the transfer of management practices within a multinational

ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES IN THE FIELD OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSAND MANAGEMENT

A key player in the field of international business is the multinational enterprise (MNE), having

headquarters in one country but operations in other countries. Interest in the management of theMNE has been a significant area of developing research within the field of IB/IM. Management

practices, work organization and control strategies within the MNE and the nature of subsidiaryheadquarter relations are examples of areas that have received significant research and

theoretical attention in the field. It is interesting to note however, that the vast majority of

research publications in the field do not draw on qualitative research methods. For example in areview of articles published in six leading IB journals in the 1991-2001 period Andersen and

Skaates (2004) found that only 10 per cent of published articles used qualitative methods.

Research publications based on qualitative research methods have in turn drawn primarily on

case study research and interviewing. Within handbooks of qualitative research methods for

international business (Marschan- Piekkari and Welch 2004) ethnographic research approaches

can be found under the section on ‘alternative methods and methodologies’.


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In the inaugural issue of the journal ‘Ethnography’, Willis and Trondman (2000) refer to

arguably the first ethnographer Herodutus who said in possibly the first ethnography‘The History’ ( trans. 1987:171).. ‘So far it is my eyes, my judgement, and my searching that

speaks these words to you. In this way ‘This-ness’ and ‘lived- out-ness’ is central to theethnographers account.

Willis and Trondman (2000: 5) outline ethnography as… ‘a family of methods involving direct

and sustained social contact with agents, and of richly writing up the encounter, recording,

respecting and representing at least partly in its own terms the irreducibility of humanexperience. Ethnography is the disciplined and deliberate witness – cum recording of human

events..’.

Ethnography is an established practice within a variety of disciplines with their own histories,most notably in anthropology for which it serves as a specific method and rite of passage. Asnoted by Hammersley and Atkinson (1997) ethnography is in many respects the most basic form

of social research. Not only does it have a long history, it also bears a close resemblance to theroutine ways in which people make sense of the world in everyday life. Some commentators see

this as its basic strength, others see it as a fundamental weakness.

Within the field of IB/IM, the dearth of research drawing on ethnographic approaches can be

seen as the outcome of researchers prior exposure to and socialization into, particular intellectualtraditions and social traditions, mores, norms and values which in turn shape researchers

philosophical assumptions regarding what constitutes warranted knowledge in the field. As noted

by Rosen (1991) an individual conducts ethnography because the problems that interest him orher are believed to be best mined by the machinery o f ethnography, and conveyed in its product.

Organizational Ethnographies and Hermeneutic Traditions

An underlying premise guiding much qualitative research including ethnographic research in thehermeneutic tradition is that the subject matter of the social sciences is fundamentally different to

that of the natural sciences. Human action has an internal logic, which must be understood in

order to make action intelligible. Further, the social world cannot be understood in terms ofcausal relationships that do not take into account that human actions are based on actor’s

interpretations of events, intentions, motives, attitudes and beliefs. In this way research in thesocial sciences is seen to require emic analysis in which the meanings and interpretatio ns of

those being studied is important rather than placing an etic external logic on the behavior. In thisway the task of the social scientist is to understand the framework of meaning out of which

behavior arises. The nature of the social world must be ‘discovered’ and this can only be

achieved by first hand observation and participation in ‘natural settings’.

In this way ethnography can be described as a longitudinal research method, that is geared

towards a ‘process based’ understanding of organizational life. Ethnographic studies in the

hermeneutic tradition tend to follow the thesis of Winch (1958) that a set of behaviors can be

termed an action if it is given, or could be given, a meaning by those carrying out the action.

Meaningful behavior is to be explicated as governed by rules. For Winch, analysis of reasons,


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purposes and rules is more appropriate to the study of social processes than cause, effect and law,

thereby requiring a study of the culture in which these are embedded. For Geertz (1973: 21)

ethnography is microscopic, involves thick description, it is interpretive, the ethnographer

‘inscribes’ social discourse, writing it down. Further the essential task of theory building is not tocodify abstract regularities but to make thick description possible, not to generalize across cases

but to generalize within them.

Some classic organizational ethnographies for example of Lupton (1963), Roy (1952, 1955),

Burawoy (1979) and Kamata (1982) have demonstrated the contribution that ethnographic

approaches can make in gaining insights into social processes in organizations. For example the

work of Kamata and Roy provided detailed analysis of manufacturing companies shop floor processes in specific contexts by focusing on worker behaviour within factory settings.

In the field of IB/IM, research on the multinational organization for example has only

occasionally been based on ethnographic approaches. Research questions posed in the field andthe underlying assumptions about organizations have arguably discouraged the adoption ofethnographic approaches. Taking, for example, dominant approaches to the study of

internationalization and multinational firms, much research has been shaped by an ‘economicview of the world’ that includes assumptions of rationality, goal- directed action and the

determinant nature of market processes. Research has tended to leave unexamined or

unproblematic a huge part of the social life of firms and multinationals in favor of model building based on assumptions of rationality and efficient market mechanisms (Morgan 2001)

Boddewyn et al (2004) consider the notion that international management is a socially

constructed activity in which managers involved in cross cultural activity encounter unique

problems and situations that require some social construction. Problems and situations may beinterpreted differently by distinct types of managers. For example locals, expatriates and third

country nationals. Therefore their solutions to problems and their ways of handling situationswill differ. For Bartlett and Ghoshal (1993) a key component of what is seen as international

management is the ability to work with two or more sets of experiences. Ethnographicapproaches are well suited to capture these processes of management as socially constructed

activities

The need to learn the culture of those we are studying is most obvious in the case of societies

other than our own. Here we may not know why people are doing what they are doing, or evenwhen they are doing it. The relevance of an ethnographic approach to research in such a context

is highlighted. In the field of international business and international management research the potential opportunities for ethnographic research have not been fully realized. For example a

large amount of research on multinational organizations has used survey style research and

structured questionnaires to address research questions of what management practices and worksystems have been transferred from headquarters to subsidiaries within the multinational. Framed

within positivist epistemologies and nomothetic research designs such surveys often are pitched

at top management and require an acknowledgement of whether a practice has been transferred.

For example whether quality circles or teamworking has been introduced. Such analytical survey

design is less suited to an understanding of how management practices are introduced, received,

responded to, adapted, resisted or transformed in different contexts. Ethnographic approaches


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can make a significant contribution in this regard by providing an indepth insight into how

management practices translate across different social contexts and the ways in which different

social groups and individuals may make sense of and respond to the practices. It can be argued

that the how questions are of much significance for an understanding of why particularmanagement strategies within a subsidiary may have unintended outcomes and why performance

may be less than anticipated.

Ethnographic stud ies in the hermeneutic tradition seek to provide thick descriptions of the

context in which management practices are introduced and examine the ways in which different

groups may make sense of and respond to the practices. In this way ethnographic approaches

provide an opportunity to study and portray the diversity of cultures in an organizational contextand to provide a rich appreciation of the organization as a social and political arena. Rather than

seeking to identify discrete taxonomies of control systems, such approaches seek to for example

examine the social relations and social processes surrounding the control systems, including

worker’s commitment and / or resistance and authority relations through the researcher providinga a thick description of the cultures studied.

As Van Maanen outlines (1979: 539) ethnographic research is more than a single method andcan be distinguished from participant observation in that it has a broader aim of achieving an

analytical description of a culture. In an organizational setting the ethnographic question of what

it is to be, rather than to see, a member of the organization, is faced by the researcher.

Critical Realist Ethnographies

Whilst ethnographic studies in the hermeneutic tradition work with an ontology encouraging

focus on agents’ conceptualizations, there is a relatively smaller number of studies in the field oforganization studies/ IB/IM premised on a critical realist ontology (for example, Porter 1993,

Reed 2001, Delbridge 1998). Critical realist ethnographies set out from the premise that subjects’own accounts are the starting point but not the end of the research process. Realist ontologies

therefore seek to go beyond agents’ conceptualizations of events and seek to look at socialstructures. Within a realist ontology social phenomenon are seen as a result of a plurality of

structures. Human action is conceived as both enabled and constrained by social structures, but

this action in turn reproduces or transforms those structures (Bhaskar 1979). Ethnographicinvestigations within this context can be used to explore the relationship between structure and

agency. A realist approach to ethnography aims not only to describe events but also to explainthem, by identifying the influence of structural factors on human agency. Explanation also

focuses on how agency maintains or transforms these structures. The focus on ‘structures’ aswell as agents’ conceptualizations distinguishes critical realist ethnographies from ethnographies

in the hermeneutic tradition.

An Example of Researching the Transfer of Management Practices within a Multinational

Structures and processes in studying cross border interactions within multinationals.

Research, on the transfer of management practices within multinationals, (eg. Oliver et al 1994),

note how organizations adopting similar structures may have different outcomes which requires

an understanding of process as well as context. In this way a processual study of the transfer of

practices will look for the ways in which practices are not simply reproduced in different sites of


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the multinational, but are open to a process of experimentation and adjustment over time in the

light of responses in the subsidiary context. Smith and Elger (1996) note how multinationals are

important media for the transmission of innovations in the organization of production and the

regulation of labor, but that the very character of such ‘model’ practices as embedded, evolvingand incomplete recipes, means that they are never simply reproduced at any specific production

site, at home or in a foreign context. In this way corporate managers and local managers are seenas drawing on different ‘cultural repertoires’ of organisational practices and are engaged in the

more or less skilful selection, adaptation and development of these practices. This takes place

within the specific and evolving role of the plant within the wider company, distinctive

configurations of suppliers, customers and sister plants and the environmental institutions for

example of state regulation, labor supply and industrial relations (Smith and Elger 1996:27). Itcan be argued that measurements of structure provide static sensitizing explanatory frameworks

whereas a study of process involves looking at continuity and change in organizational practices

over time.

In researching the transfer of management practices within a multinational organization I wasinterested in researching how control systems were introduced and sustained in different

contexts. Comparative ethnographic case studies across subsidiaries of a Japanese manufacturingorganization in the UK examined how managerial control systems were introduced and adapted

and with what outcomes. Methodologically the research aimed to look at the implementation of

management practices as ongoing social processes and in this way move from analysis solely ofstructures to an analysis of processes within and across structures. This was believed to be

important in addressing the theoretical question of ‘under what conditions’ and ‘how’ managerial practices may be transferred, sustained, resisted and adapted within the context of the

multinational organization.

Survey style research of the nature of management practices, whilst describing certain practices

does not help to unravel how management practices may be applied differently, for example,according to the experience or individual considerations of a subsidiary manager. Therefore how

a practice is introduced and the responses from employees is an important focus for analysis inits own right. The focus on process enables a view of the organisation as a political arena in

which social interaction, power and political games become more central in the analysis and

understanding of organizational life. These in turn are shaped by the wider institutional context.

The above example of research on the transfer of managerial control systems across contexts hassought to defend the raising of research questions that address the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ in

studying change within the context of the multinational organization, and to highlight thecontribution that critical realist ethnographies can make in addressing the research questions

posed above.

Methodological issues: linking macro and micro level analysis, the relation between

structures and processes in the study of multinationals. In carrying out research on the

comparative study of organizations in a cross-national context a number of methodological

issues are faced. Issues raised include the relation between structures and processes, the

connection between the micro level and the macro level and the treatment of ‘time’ in addressing

research questions concerning changes in organizations and institutional contexts. This paper


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argues for a methodology for the comparative study of economic organizations that is sensitive

to process. ‘Process’ is seen as being influenced by structures but not determined by them.

Critical realism is seen to be helpful as a sensitizing tool and means of conceptualizing the

phenomenon studied. This can be considered through reflection on the study of the transfer ofmanagement practices within a multinational. In this study the research sought to examine the

importance of context and contingencies in influencing the implementation and evolution of shopfloor managerial control systems across two Japanese subsidiaries in the UK. The research began

with an awareness of the ‘ideal typical’ Japanese and English work organization and control

systems and how these were embedded in broader social and institutional arrangements. The

research was interested in examining the following issues:

-the various means of managerial control on the shop floor within the UK subsidiaries of theJapanese multinational, including formal and informal, social and technical.

-In addressing process as well as structure the research also wanted to learn how the control

systems were sustained, adapted and resisted in the local context over time.

-the implications of these processes for the outcomes including the experience of work andorganizational performance.

Such research questions therefore required micro level and macro level analysis and a link between the two in studying cross border interactions within the firm. The research questions are

also put forward from the standpoint that the study of the experience of changes in organizations

and institutional contexts at the level of the ‘individual’ are important both for theorizing aboutchange and for developing policy implications on change. Such a standpoint takes the position

that as researchers we can also inform policy makers and other ‘stakeholders’ in reflecting onorganizational and institutional change. The specific research questions were addressed by

adopting critical realist ethnography, which enabled the micro level study of processes to be

linked to underlying structures, generative mechanisms and contingencies influencing outcomes.

In researching the multinational as an organization that crosses over institutional and nationaldivides, the notion of a transnational social space that is created by the flows of people, ideas,

resources and practices provides an interesting context in which to consider the potentialcontribution of ethnographic research to capturing the meanings of practices and actions for the

actors involved, and the ways in which these meanings are themselves shaped by the realities of

work for different actors in this transnational social space. The concept of transnational socialspace (Morgan 2001) provides a lens through which to look at social processes within the arena

of the multinational, and provides a conceptual framework for researchers that is accessible to a processual study of the experience of individuals and communities that engage within the social

space. The concept of transnational social space links the experience of actors to the internalmanagerial control strategies of firms and managers and to the transnational communities that

cut across the boundaries of the firm and connect the individual into social groupings that span

institutional contexts.

The connection between the shaping of internal processes within the transnational social space of

a multinational and wider institutional structures at a local, national or international level (Djelic

and Bensedrine 2001) sensitizes the researcher to the importance of connecting the micro level

analysis of actors’ experiences with macro level structures in which they have been shaped and

influenced (and seek to influence). This encourages analysis that moves beyond agents’ own


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conceptualizations. As Porter outlines: ‘exclusive concentration on and uncritical acceptance of

subjects’ own accounts is the Achilles heel of phenomenological ethnography. Understanding

actors’ viewpoints may be a necessary condition for social knowledge, but it is not a sufficient

one. For critical realists the ontological assumption that individual interactions andinterpretations are ultimately all there are leads to analytical superficiality. (Porter 1993: 596). A

realist ontology considers social reality as the result of a plurality of structures with humanaction being both enabled and constrained by social structures. This action in turn reproduces or

transforms those structures (Bhaskar, 1979). A realist framework thereby provides a sensitizing

tool and means of conceptualizing how the actors’ experience within the transnational social

space can best be examined by a macro regress to the social structures shaping and constraining

individual action.

Explanation and the role of agency in maintaining and transforming structures.

A realist ethnography aims not only to describe events but also to explain them, by identifyingthe influence of structural factors on human agency. Explanation also focuses on how agencymaintains or transforms these structures. Critical realism thereby provides an epistemology and

ontology for examining changes in institutional structures and the relationship between structuresand agency in processes of change. Ethnographic investigation within this context can be used to

explore the relationship between agency and structure and to explore the changing nature of

generative mechanisms that impact on the transnational social space of the multinational.

In the research work I conducted on the multinational outlined above, adopting a critical realistepistemology allowed for the recognition of the role of structure and human agency in the

analysis of shop floor practices under changing forms of managerial control. The ‘structures’

referred to in the realist analysis can be considered as sets of internally related objects or practices. The manager, trainer, associate ‘internal relations’ in the Japanese work organization

form a social structure for example. Even though social structures exist only where peoplereproduce them, Sayer (1992, 2000) outlines how in the case of internally related objects (for

example team leader and team member), emergent powers are created because this type ofcombination of individuals modifies their powers in fundamental ways. Thus, although social

structures exist only where people reproduce them, they have powers irreducible to those of

individuals. In this way, explanation of the actions of individuals in my comparative study ofmanagerial contro l systems required supplementing of agents’ conceptualizations with a ‘macro-

regress’ to the social structures in which they are located.

Critical realist ethnography provides a means of examining and theorizing about the connections between micro-practices and macro-structures. Realists note that research in the social world has

to acknowledge the nature of social systems as open systems and that theory development cannot

be approached in the same way as in closed systems. (Sayer 1992, Layder 1993). For realists, theimpossibility of constructing the conditions of closure in the social sciences means that the social

sciences are primarily explanatory and not predictive. Explanation and prediction are

symmetrical only under conditions of closure. For the critical realist ethnographer the intellectual

journey in the field moves on two tracks (Tsoukas 1989). On the first hand it is ‘ up in the

clouds’, dealing with abstract and theoretical conceptualization of the issue at hand. By contrast,

the second track is ‘down to earth’ looking for the specific differences within and across cases,


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investigating the existing contingencies and their interaction with the postulated mechanisms.

Empirically, ideographic studies help elucidate the specific, contingent manner in which a certain

mix of causal powers has been formed and activated.

Issues raised in the Practice of Ethnography in International Business Research and in

researching the multinational

One key issue that requires reflection in any ethnographic research project is the issue of

representation. Whilst this is not specific to research in IB/IM, consideration of this issue is

central in the context of IB/IM researchRepresentation of and relations with those we research. In the opening article in the firstedition of the journal ‘ethnography’, Willis and Trondman (2000) speak on the knowledge

produced in social science, arguing that too much of the knowledge produced has become more

or less irrelevant to the ‘nitty gritty’ of how social actors experience and attempt to penetrate and

shape their conditions of existence. Whilst ethnographers seek to delve into and share with thereader of the ethnographic text this nitty gritty of social life, there is considerable debate over theways in which representation is made in the text (for example Abu-Lughod 2000). The ‘nitty

gritty’ of everyday life cannot be presented as raw unmediated data argues Willis and Trondman(2000), this is the empiricist fallacy- that data in some way speaks for itself. The principle of

reflexivity recognizes that texts, do not, simply and transparently report an independent order of

reality. Rather the texts themselves are implicated in the work of reality construction. In thisway the ethnographic text requires a reflexive awareness of its own writing, the possibilities and

limits of its own language and a principled exploration of its modes of representation.Ethnographic writing (Clifford/Marcus 1986) is determined contextually (it draws from and

creates meaningful social mileux), rhetorically (it uses and is used by expressive conventions),

institutionally (one writes with and against specific traditions, disciplines and audiences)generically (an ethnography is usually distinguished from a novel or a travel account), politically

(the authority to represent cultural realities is unequally shared and at times contested) andhistorically (all the above constraints and conventions are changing).

Wray-Bliss (2002) in commenting on critical interpretive organizational research raises the issue

of the researcher, as interdependent, rather than independent of the researched.

Here there is the ethical issue of the researcher as critiquing and commenting on, rather than co-constructing and contributing to the lives of those researched, giving a problematic effect of the

authorization of the ‘expert’ academic and subordination of the researched. Wray Bliss notes forexample that ‘methodology’ in empirical critical management studies texts tends to be limited to

minimal, technical, descriptions which rarely extend beyond listing formal methods, duration ofthe researchers stay in the field and brief backgrounds to the organization in which the research

was conducted.

As Van Maanen (1988) notes, such technical/ temporal details reinforce the impression of the

‘expert’ researcher deploying the latest formal research methods and technologies. Here there is

the issue of the writer presenting argument as though she or he has tacit superiority and can see

something the researched cannot – or at least cannot find a way not to reproduce it in their labor

and identities. There is the issue of the researcher choosing what to select for a write up and in

choosing what to ‘hear’- the issue of interpretation/ re-interpretation by the researcher - what


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we perceive as researchers is selective- to re-affirm prior expectations/ theories. In representing

‘the Other’ one strategy to avoid such concerns is to provide the opportunity for those being

researched to write their own texts or to make a contribution to shaping the texts produced by the

ethnographer, reading through drafts and giving voice to their own interpretations of events. Inresearch on the multinational organization concepts from postcolonial analysis can also sensitize

the researcher and writer to the issues of power relations between researcher and researched asdiscussed in the following section.

Conceptual tools to support analysis of processes within and across the boundaries of

multinationals. In introducing the concept of the ‘transnational social space’ of the

multinational, Morgan (2001) provides a lens though which to study the movement of ideas, people, resources and practices across national boundaries and around different institutional

contexts, highlighting in analysis the ways in which the transnational social space of the

multinational is embedded in a transnational political economy and transnational regulatory

system. This in turn encourages sensitivity to questions of power and control within themultinational. It is in this conceptual space that I wish to argue that the analysis may draw onconceptual tools taken from postcolonial theory to sensitize the analysis of process. It can be

argued that writers coming from a postcolonial tradition provide an entry point and foci ofanalysis into the study of multinationals that privilege specific concerns and questions in the

study of processes surrounding management practices and control systems. Similarly to Burawoy

(2000) in his extended case method discussed later, analytical concepts from postcolonial theorycan enrich the analysis of control within organizations by sensitizing the analysis of control

‘systems’ to the dynamics and processes of domination and resistance within and across thefields of the multinational, and the ‘hegemony’ of one group over another within the

transnational space of the multinational. It encourages attention to the discursive processes by

which headquarter-subsidiary relations are played out through the expatriate managers andsubsidiary employees. It encourages attention to the ways in which the subsidiary is ‘readied’ for

the transfer of management practices and the ways in which various constituents of thesubsidiary hybridize, transform and indiginize demands from the headquarters so as to create a

space for local agency. It also encourages attention to the ways in which processes ofambivalence to headquarter control play out in day-to-day resistance, and sensitizes the

researcher to the contested terrain in which the internationalizing organization operates. (Bhabha

1994, Prasad and Prasad 2003).

Within the transnational social space of the multinational, headquarter processes of control overthe subsidiary may be conceptually compared with the deep ambivalence of colonial discourse.

As Bhabha (1994) notes what characterizes colonial discourse is not monolithic homogeneity, but heterogeneity, fragmentation, contradictions, inconsistencies and incongruities. Consequently

colonial discourse fails to establish hegemonic control and opens up spaces for resistance in the

oppositional space on the part of the colonized. In my own research within the subsidiary of aJapanese multinational a postcolonial reading sensitizes analysis to the discursive processes by

which the headquarters sought to persuade local managers and workers to adopt new control

systems and work practices. The ethnographic study within work teams highlighted the ways in

which the teamleader is placed between the shop floor and the expatriate managers in the

‘demand for narrative’ by which the managers seek to ascertain the extent to which new values

have been adopted. From the shop floor it was clear that whilst the team leader may engage in


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acts of sly civility and evasions (Bhabha 1994) to the demand for narrative, the team workers

acts of resistance took on a more direct and active form of confrontation. The team meetings

provided an interesting event in which to examine ‘hybridity’, the process of cultural

‘translation’ in which messages from the expatriates are translated by local managers and feddown by the teamleader to the shop floor. The role of the expatriate manager in ‘readying’ the

subsidiary for the transfer of management practices can be seen. Processes of ‘ambivalence’ toheadquarters hegemonic control play out in the day-to-day social relations within the

transnational social space.

The above short discussion seeks to illustrate how a postcolonial lens can contribute conceptual

tools for the analysis of social relations within the transnational social space of the multinational.It encourages attention to the subjective experiences of individuals and socialized aspirations of

groups and communities who engage with or interface with the multinational. It encourages

attention to the transna tional and often gendered cultural differences and the significance of

different forms of knowledge for different communities. In the analysis of processes the lensencourages examination of the ways in which race, gender, class and ethnicities, shape bothidentities of self and the experience of work within the multinational.

The Possibilities of Ethnography – Future Directions and Challenges

Linking the local to the global within a critical realist framework

Burawoy (2000) discusses the role of ethnography in seeking to understand global issues and begins by asking how ethnography can be ‘global’. How can it be anything but micro and a-

historical? How can the study of everyday life grasp lofty processes that transcend national boundaries? This paper builds on the ideas of Burawoy in arguing that there is a place for

ethnography in understanding and explaining comparative processes of change and inertia within

organizations within a global context. Burawoy (2000: 2) notes that working from the top downMeyer et al (1997) have argued ‘that the modern world society causes the diffusion of common

institutional models and patterns of legitimacy among nation states but say little on the link between models and norms on the one hand and concrete practices on the other. Instead of

theorizing the link between models and practices they talk of their ‘decoupling’ making itdifficult to understand concrete variation within the same formal structures. Similarly Burawoy

argues that whilst neo-institutionalists do not deny the diversity between forms of democracy,

they leave ethnographers who work from the ground upwards without theoretical tools to delveinto the connections between micro-practices and macro–structures. In this way Burawoy argues

that ethnographers appeared to have no theoretical hoist out of the local.

However global ethnographers cannot be outside the global processes they study. In this wayglobal ethnographers have to rethink the meaning of fieldwork, from being bound to a single

place and time. As noted by Burawoy (2000: 4) ‘even when our participants (ethnographers) do

not themselves stretch across the globe, and it was only the participants imaginations thatconnected them to the global, our ethnography was no less multi-sited… we sought to

understand the incessant movement of our subjects.

Within a critical realist framework the depthful ontology encourages a focus on structures and

mechanisms within open systems. Global forces of change within and across institutional


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contexts become part of the research study in examining the link between micro-level

experiences and practices and macro level contexts

In a study of Japanese and Korean expatriate managers as members of transnational communitiesthe expatriate managers provided a window into the complex set of social relationships that

existed between head office and subsidiary and the ways in which this transnational social spacewas a field where the interplay of rival groups within the firm took place. The groups in turn

drew on resources embedded in local, national and supranational institutional contexts such as

capital, skills and knowledge, networks, access to scarce resources and political influence.

(Morgan 2001). In depth interviews with expatriates provided insights into the meaning of the

expatriate assignment for them and the ways in which they perceived themselves as part of socialstructures that cut across the boundaries of the firm and nation.

For Burawoy (2001: 148) global ethnography speaks first and foremost to those left behind on

the ground, whilst more privileged academic communities may through their jet setting paint a picture of a new community of transnational connections and of globalization as a ‘veritableforce of nature’ – as juggernaut sweeping up everything lying in its path. For these cosmopolites,

ethnography the focused attention to detail and process – is replaced by tourism, tripping aroundfrom site to site. In global ethnography there is a commitment to showing that time –space

compression or time-space distanciation are not universal as the cosmopolites would claim. It

shows globalization to be a very uneven process, and most important an artifact manufacturedand received in the local. Globalization is produced and consumed not in thin air… but in real

organizations, institutions and communities. From this point of view the global becomesethnographic. Burawoy argues that the global can become ethnographic in two ways

(2001:149). Firstly, through its experience, reception or consumption. Here one studies the

experience of ‘globalization’, to insist that the effects of ‘globalization’ are not homogeneous andubiquitous but specific and concrete. Secondly from the standpoint of its production,

‘globalization’ can be researched through the way it is constituted in the local, in specificinstitutions, agencies and organizations such as multinationals and international regulatory

agencies.

In global ethnography, multi- sited research aims not to contrast the perspectives from each site

but to build a montage, that lends greater insight into the whole. Differences amongst cases canshow different perspectives or epistemologies. From different sites you may get divergent

visions of globalization, for example from the headquarters of the multinational, the foreignsubsidiary local workers in a rural community, and the international regulatory agencies. Global

ethnography seeks to understand how the experience of ‘globalization’ is produced in specificlocalities and how that productive process is a contested and thus a political accomplishment.

Gille and O’Riain (2002) note that place still provides a foundation for global ethnographers, but

as a location from within which ethnographers can explore the socio -political projects that areremaking social relations and places. Methodologically there is a re-conceptualization of place

in light of the multiple connections cutting across places for example of immigrants, migrants,

expatriate managers and transnational entrepreneurs within the multinational.

The local site is historically produced in interaction with a variety of external connections. Places

do not have the kinds of boundaries that warrant a simple counter-position to the outside. The

identity of a place is not homogeneous and yet places are unique, their specificity residing in the


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distinct mixture of local and wider social relations. Thus places matter in global ethnography, but

instead of a comprehensive account of a self- contained set of social relations, the ethnographer

uses the location to also understand the social relations that extend beyond it . An ethnographic

approach to globalization requires the understanding of locally, socially and culturally specificways in which people understand the place of their locality in the global scheme of things, and

the actions they take to shape that place. Gille and O’Riain (2002) note how key questions facingthe ethnographer include the choice of sites to study and the choice of which events and

processes to use in shaping the ethnographic narrative. Conceiving of ethnographic sites as

internally heterogeneous and connected to other places by a myriad of social relations requires

that the ethnographer examine the character of the social relations in the field itself.

Becoming part of a site remains a critical part of ethnography – the issue of gaining entry – but

the very nature of that membership changes for the ethnographer as it changes for those around

her or him. Place becomes a launching bad out into networks, backwards into histo ry and

ultimately into the politics of place itself. A key challenge in ethnographic research acrossmultiple sites arises if the sites are themselves in tension with each other. An example ininternational management research could be in research focusing on the sites of two firms about

to merge during a takeover by the stronger partner. Negotiating multiple access and managingrelationships in such contexts can take their toll and highlight the ethnographic concern of for

whom the ethnographer should speak. On representation Burawoy (1991) notes that the purpose

of fieldwork is not to strip ourselves of our biases, for that is an illusory goal, nor to celebratethese biases as the authorial voice of the ethnographer, but rather to discover and perhaps change

our biases through interaction with others. In this way an ‘I-You’ relation between observers and participants replaces a ‘we’ relation of false togetherness and an ‘I- they’ relation in which the I

often becomes invisible. In the extended case method Burawoy argues in the terms of C. Wright

Mill’s (1959) sociological imagination, to connect ‘the personal troubles of the milieu’, to the public issues of social structure. In this way participant observation can examine the macro

world through the waythe latter shapes and in turn is shaped and conditioned by the microworld.

DISCUSSION

The paper argues that the potential of critical realist and global ethnography to contribute in the

field of IB/IM remains relatively untapped. As Burawoy (2000) notes the ethnographer has the possibility of gaining a privileged insight into the lived experience of globalization – whether it

be for the migrant factory workers around the subsidiaries of the multinational, or the salariedexpatriates from the headquarters. The relevance of such research in the study of the

multinational is significant, in terms of the importance of an understanding of ‘global’ processes, the link between the local and the global, and the processes within the ‘transnational

social space’ (Morgan 2001) of the multinational in which ideas, people, resources and practices

cross national boundaries and institutional contexts with corresponding conflicts and struggles.The experience of change for example in business systems, internationalization of organizations

and ‘globalization’ is an empirical question that requires the researcher to be sensitive to the

ways in which for example gender, race, ethnicity, and status for example as ‘colonizer’ or

‘colonized’ also shape the unders tanding and experience of social relations within the

transnational social space of the multinational. Ethnographic approaches have the potential to


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provide a processual understanding that brings into focus such issues to increase understanding

of conflict, tension, and the experience of work within firms in the ‘new global context’.

The sociological imagination of the critical realist ethnographer sensitizes the researcher to look

at the relation between micro level experiences and outcomes of actors and the macro levelstructures and processes of continuity and change.

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