Coursework Assignment
For this coursework you must undertake a small-scale ethnographic research project. The aims of this exercise are to assess your abilities to:
1. undertake a qualitative study using ethnographic techniques;
2. to collect qualitative materials and develop an analysis of these;
3. to develop implications from the qualitative research you have undertaken.
To successfully accomplish the coursework you must:
select a research setting;
undertake at least two separate periods of observational data collection (and where relevant, supplementary data from informal interviews);
make detailed field notes about the setting and the activities you observe;
identify two or three key themes or issues;
organize your observations or findings with respect to these themes or issues;
support the observations or findings with evidence from your field notes (and where
relevant interviews);
discuss the implications of your findings for future research and practice.
We do not wish to restrict the kinds of activity you may study. Therefore, you can choose to observe any organization or social setting. This may be one with which you are familiar or one you are interested in. In previous years students have undertaken studies in a diverse range of settings including those in workplaces, public places and the home. It is also up to the student to identify an aspect of social behavior on which to focus. In the past examples on what students have focussed on include: informal interaction in an office; the work of security staff in an accommodation block;how receptionists greet customers; the ways customers justify returning goods they have bought; customer behaviour in show rooms for luxury goods; conversations with hairdressers, waiting behaviour in stations; how street performers maintain an audience; how visitors to a museum inspect exhibits together; the etiquette of a nightclub queue, how customers in a busy cafe manage to secure a table to sit at and how people co-ordinate the order in which they go through revolving doors.
Note that the analysis should be based primarily on direct observation, but you are allowed to augment these observations with informal interview materials where relevant.
You need to cite academic articles that are specific to your study. You need to find these articles. They need not just come from the Management Studies, but can be associated with other academic fields concerned with your topic of interest (e.g. general fields in social science, psychology, social interaction or technology studies).
Students who have been most successful in the past have focused on interaction, communication and collaboration between people.THE REPORT
The report should include six key sections. The word counts for each section are only guidelines. You are free to organize your report in any way you feel would help present your study. You can include images and figures in the main text of the report. You do not have to provide an appendix and if you only include relevant materials (i.e. additional fragments of data) and not complete sets of field notes or transcripts.
1. Introduction (300 words)
A general description of the setting you have chosen, the topic of interest and why it is important to study.
2. Background Literature (500 words)
Provide a short background to your study drawing on literature related to your topic. Identify one (or more) gaps in the literature that you plan to address. These could be with respect to the topic (e.g. there has been little research in this topic), the approach (e.g. studies of the topic are usually of a different kind) or a the importance of the topic (e.g. it relates to a critical concept, theory or model in management).
3. Method and Approach (300 words)
A description of the research process you have undertaken including:
o how you gained access;
o the observer role(s) you adopted and the reasons for selecting that role;
o how and when your observations were made;
o how you addressed the ethical issues raised by your study;
o any specific problems you needed to solve to gain access and/or collect
data.
4. Analysis (1500 words)
(This should form the greater part of the coursework and will be awarded most of the marks)
You need to focus on one or two key activities and analyse them in depth. You need to identify key themes for your observations to help to structure the analysis and support your analysis with specific data extracts.
In particular, consider
o the details of how those activities are accomplished;complex cases where, for example, the activities are shaped by particular contingencies (local interactions, changing features of the environment or setting);
o whether there are exceptions to the normal practice (and how these are managed);
o why the activity is the activity is accomplished in this way.
5. Discussion (600 words)
Discuss how your findings relate to relevant academic studies of work, organisations or social behaviour. Considering the issue(s) mentioned in Section 2, describe the contributions of your study, for example how it provides a better understanding of the a critical issue, helps refine an existing concept or theory, suggests a critique of a concept or model or implies some innovation required to understand your topic. Consider whether you have any suggestions for future research that arise out of this study?
6. Practical Implications (300 words)
Briefly consider the consequences of your study. This could be in terms of
o the organisation that you have studied (e.g. can it imply a change in practice,
procedures or policy?)
o whether or how you would undertake the study any differently if you had to
do the study again?
o any practical or ethical dilemmas you faced when making your observations.
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