Test Questions & Answers Ch19 - Ethnography And Participant

Chapter 19 - Ethnography and participant observation

Test Bank

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 01

01) Ethnography and participant observation are easy to distinguish.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 02

02) What distinguishes organisational ethnography from other types of ethnography?

a. Concerned with social relations that are non-goal orientated

b. Concerned with social relations that are orientated toward goal-directed activities in structured workplace situations

c. Concerned with the study of transnational corporations

d. None of the above

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 03

03) In ethnography, gaining access to the social setting is one of the least difficult steps.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 04

04) It is considered unethical to use friends, contacts or colleagues to gain access to conduct ethnographic research in an organization.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 05

05) The ethnographer is much more likely to be in an overt rather than covert role owing to ethical considerations.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 06

06) Identify two ethical transgressions associated with a covert ethnographic study. Please select all that apply.

a. Informed consent

b. Ruptured friendships

c. Practice of research

d. Interpretive reflexivity

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 07

07) Negotiation of access will always finish once you have made contact and gained an entrée to the organisation.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 08

08) Which of the following is not a concern that group members may have about an ethnographic researcher?

• People will have suspicions about you, perhaps seeing you as an instrument of top management (it is very common for members of organizations to believe that researchers are placed there to check up on them or even to mistake them for other people). For example, Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) describe how one of the interviewers in the Hawthorne studies was mistaken for a rate setter.
• Another example is provided by Freeman (2000), who found that her research access was halted because of fears that she was a corporate spy, sent by a competitor organization to poach members of the workforce.
• People will worry that what they say or do may get back to bosses or to colleagues. Van Maanen (1991a) notes from his research on the police that, when conducting ethnographic research among officers, you are likely to observe activities that may be deeply discrediting and even illegal. Your credibility among police officers will be determined by your reactions to situations and events that are known to be di cult for individuals.

If they have these worries, they may go along with your research, but in fact sabotage it, engaging in deceptions, misinformation, and not allowing access to ‘back regions’ (Goffman 1959).

a. That they are there to spy on the employees

b. That anything they say to them will get back to the bosses

c. That they are sent by a competitor

d. That they have a criminal record

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 09

09) Which of the following can you do to smooth the path of ongoing access in an ethnographic study? Please select all that apply.

• Play up your credentials—your past work and experience; your knowledge of the organization and/or its sector; your understanding of organization members’ problems—and be prepared for tests of either competence or credibility. For example, Perlow (1997) observes that a critical factor in gaining the support of engineers at the Ditto corporation was that she came from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as ‘there is no institution that the engineers we studied hold in higher regard’ (1997: 142).
• Pass tests—be non-judgemental when things are said to you about informal activities or about the organization; make sure information given to you does not get back to others, whether bosses or peers. M. Parker (2000) describes how, when at the end of his fieldwork he submitted his report to management, an uncomplimentary comment about the managing director was traced back to an insufficiently anonymized source. Parker subsequently came in for a humiliating grilling from three of the company directors. He claims that this event probably damaged the manager’s reputation in the organization and the manager’s trust in him.

a. Play up to your credentials

b. Pretend to be somebody you are not

c. Pass loyalty tests

d. Bribe your participants

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 10

10) Which of the following is not a role of an ethnographer?

1. Complete participant. According to Gold, the complete participant is a fully functioning member of the social setting and his or her true identity is not known to members. As such, the complete participant is a covert observer, like D. Roy (1958) and Dalton (1959).
2. Participant-as-observer. This role is the same as the complete participant one, but members of the social setting are aware of the researcher’s status as a researcher. The ethnographer is engaged in regular interaction with people and participates in their daily lives and is open about their research. In organizational ethnography this frequently involves taking up either paid or unpaid employment in the research set- ting, as did Delbridge (1998) in his study of contemporary manufacturing under TQM and Sharpe (1997) in her study of Japanese work practices in a UK-based car manufacturing plant.
3. Observer-as-participant. In this role, the researcher is mainly an interviewer. There is some observation, but very little of it involves any participation. Many of the studies covered in Chapter 20 are of this type
4. Complete observer. The researcher does not interact with people. According to Gold, people do not have to take the researcher into account. This kind of role relies on forms of observation that are unobtrusive in character. For example, in studies at the Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne plant, investigators spent a total of six months observing the informal social relationships between operators in the Bank Wiring Observation Room. Investigations involved an observer, who maintained a role as ‘disinterested spectator’ with the aim of observing and describing what was going on. Observation involved certain general rules: the investigator should not give orders or answer any questions that necessitated the assumption of authority; he should not enter voluntarily into any argument and generally should remain as non-committal as possible; he should not force himself into any conversation or appear anxious to overhear; he should never violate confidences or give information to supervisors; and he should not by his manner of speech or behaviour ‘set himself o from the group’ (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939: 388–9).

However, most writers would take the view that, since ethnography entails immersion in a social setting and fairly prolonged involvement, the complete observer role should not be considered as participant observation or ethnography at all, since participation is likely to be more or less entirely missing. Some writers might also question whether research based on the observer-as-participant role can genuinely be regarded as ethnography, but, since it is likely that certain situations are unlikely to be amenable to the immersion that is a key ingredient of the method, it could be argued that to dismiss it totally as an approach to ethnography is rather restrictive. It is significant in this context that Gold referred to the four roles in relation to conducting ‘fieldwork’, which has the potential for a broader meaning than either participant observation or ethnography.

Section Reference: 19.4 Roles for ethnographers

a. Complete participant

b. Non-complete participant

c. Observer-as-participant

d. Complete observer

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 11

11) Going native refers to when an ethnographer loses their sense of being a researcher and becomes wrapped up in the world view of the people they are studying, to such an extent that they are willing to engage in unethical behaviour.

a. True

Section Reference: 19.4 Roles for ethnographers

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 12

12) Which of the following is not a category of field notes for an ethnographic study?

• Mental notes: particularly useful when it is inappropriate to be seen taking notes.
• Jotted notes (also called scratch notes): very brief notes written down on pieces of paper or in small notebooks to jog one’s memory about events that should be writ- ten up later. Lofland and Lofland (1995: 90) refer to these as being made up of ‘little phrases, quotes, key words, and the like’. They need to be jotted down inconspicuously, preferably out of sight, since detailed note-taking in front of people may make them self- conscious. Crang (1994) refers to his use of scratch notes in his study of waiting staff in a restaurant (see Research in focus 19.11).
• Full field notes: as soon as possible, make detailed notes, which will be your main data source.

a. Mental notes

b. Billed notes

c. Jotted notes

d. Full field notes

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 13

13) Postmodernism is most associated with which turn in the context of the social sciences?

a. Positivistic turn

b. Poetic turn

c. Numerical turn

d. Linguistic turn

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 14

14) Which of the following would not typically be considered a data collection source in an ethnographic study?

1. Ethnographic observations: primarily this involved observing diversity training sessions, internal meetings, a diversity conference, and diversity training for HR professionals delivered by external consultants;
2. In-depth ethnographic interviews: with diversity consultants and trainers, personnel and HR directors, diversity managers, and participants in diversity workshops:
3. Examination of documents: related to the diversity management process, including brochures, videos, training exercises, and cases.

a. Questionnaire

b. Observation

c. Interview

d. Documents

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 19 - Question 15

15) Autoethnography involves writing the study exclusively from the position of others and the researcher tries as much as possible to exclude themselves from the account.

a. True

b. False