Organizational Ethnography

Plagiarism is not acceptable and will be reported to the Ethical Committee. As an immediate consequence the perpetrator fails the course without a possibility of resubmission.

My office hours:

Wednesdays 10:00, please send me an email if you want to come!

Learning objectives

Knowledge

To understand the basic patterns of culture creation
To understand how communication patterns develop and how they can be researched
To be acquainted with contemporary ideas and models and theories of organization and understand how they can be studied as social processes

Skills

To be able to apply qualitative methods to suitable research areas
To develop proactive skills with regard to culture creation and innovation
To be able to perform diagnosis of organization’s cultural system

Social competencies:

To develop sociological and organizational imagination
To develop competence in proactive problem solving with regard to social subsystems of organizations
To develop competence in systems thinking

Key concepts

Organizations, culture, symbols. Sociological and organizational imagination. Organizational symbolism. Qualitative methods. Ethnographic perspective.

Type of classes

Lectures and seminars.

How to pass the course

Class participation is obligatory for the seminars
Group project presented in class. Presentation of small group research project carried out by means of a specific method. Possible media: traditional ppt presentation, theatrical performance (with interpretation and comments), film created by the students (with interpretation and comments), own visual arts presentation, dance in own choreography (with interpretation and comments), own music (with interpretation and comments), etc. Participants: 3-4 students per group.
Written report - research summary (3 pages max).
All lectures are in English. The students decide themselves if they want to present their projects in English or in Polish, as well as about the language of the final exam (possible choices: Polish, English, Swedish, French). Please provide a presentation in English summarizing your main points so that all students can follow and understand what you are saying (if in another language than English)

Selected written reports published here.

Reviews of presentations are now up! here

Final exam resit (poprawka) - 2.09.2019, 14:00, room 3.103

Course schedule

Lectures

Tuesdays, 13:15-14:45

room 1.111

26 February
Studying culture.

12 March
Narratives.
26 March
Research methods: Non-participant and direct observation
Participant observation.
Kostera, Monika (2007) "Observation" in: Monika Kostera, Organizational ethnography: Methods and inspirations. (Translation from Polish by Dominika Latusek). Lund: Studentlitteratur (pdf).
Recommended literature (covert observation): Anna Rogowska (2011) "Rekturacja jako proces komunikacji" w: Monika Kostera (red.) Etnografia organizacji: Badania polskich firm i instytucji. Gdańsk, GWP, s.
9 April
Research methods: Interview.
Kostera, Monika (2007) "Interview", in: Monika Kostera, Organizational ethnography: Methods and inspirations. (Translation from Polish by Dominika Latusek). Lund: Studentlitteratur (pdf).
Guest presentation by Piotr Ołdak, Kamila Brodzińska and Katarzyna Wilczek
30 April
Research methods: Text analysis.
Kostera, Monika (2007) "Text analysis" and "Notes", in: Monika Kostera, Organizational ethnography: Methods and inspirations. (Translation from Polish by Dominika Latusek). Lund: Studentlitteratur (pdf).
14 May
Research methods: Visual ethnography
Interpretation and Quality Assurance
Samantha Warren, (2012) "Having an eye for it: aesthetics, ethnography and the senses", Journal of
Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 1 Issue: 1, pp.107-118
28 May
Research methods: Studying imagination through archetypes.
Narrative collage
11 June
Summary and final assessment

Seminars

Tuesdays, 13:15-14:45

room 1.111

5 March
How do prepare and present an ethnographic project (for this course as well as for other purposes)
19 March
Seminar: Symbolization
2 April
Seminar: Foretelling the future... (institutionalization)
14:15-14:45 Guest presentation of students' project by Magdalena Iwaniuk: "How to live together being different?"
16 April
Presentations: Non-participant observation
7 May
13:15-14:00 Guest lecture: prof. Tuomo Peltonen, "The Origins of Organizing"
Presentations: Direct observation
Pdf z wykładu prof. Peltonena
21 May
Presentations: Interview
4 June
Presentation: Visual ethnography.

Readings

Kostera, Monika (2003) Antropologia organizacji. Warszawa: PWN.
alternatively: Kostera, Monika (2007) Organizational ethnography. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Additional recommended readings

Czarniawska, Barbara (2010) Trochę inna teoria organizacji. Warszawa: Polext.
Kostera, Monika i Martyna Śliwa (2012) Zarządzanie w XXI wieku. Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer.
Glinka, Beata i Monika Kostera (2016) (red.) Nowe kierunki w organizacji i zarządzaniu. Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer.
Kostera, Monika (2011) (red.) Etnografia organizacji. Gdańsk: GWP.
Mencwel, Andrzej (2007) Wyobraźnia antropologiczna. Warszawa: UW.
Willis, Paul (2005) Wyobraźnia antropologiczna. Kraków: UJ.

alternatively, in English:
Agar, Michael (1986) Speaking of ethnography. Newbury Park - London - New Delhi: Sage.
Czarniawska, Barbara (2014) Form field to desk. London: SAGE.
Denzin, Norman K. (1992) Symbolic interactionism and cultural studies: The politics of interpretation. Oxford - Cambridge USA: Blackwell.
Pachirat, Timothy (2018) Among wolves: Ethnography and the immersive study of power. London: Routledge.
Silverman, David (1993/1994) Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text, and interaction. London - Thousand Oaks - New Delhi: Sage.
Silverman, David (2000) Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook. London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi: Sage.

Other resources

Contact

Consultations

Back

Back to Index