essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION–––––––––– 159In my everyday dealings with the strikers, I consciously projected an image of myself asan earnest, sympathetic, if slightly naïve, student who was grateful for the opportunity to learnfrom their experience. I set out to gain the strikers’ affection and respect by spending longhours on the picket line and participating in such mundane, off-duty activities as gambling,drinking in pubs, sharing jokes and tall stories, and accompanying them into situationsinvolving elements of physical or legal risk.The fact that I am a working-class male with a pronounced northern accent undoubtedlyinfluenced the strikers’ willingness to accept me into their ranks. Rightly or wrongly, Iassumed it necessary for me to demonstrate more personal commitment to the dispute thanthe majority of actual strikers in order to ensure their continuing trust and support. Picketorganizers regularly exploited this attitude, knowing full well that they could always dependon me to ‘make the numbers look respectable’ whenever volunteers were scarce.Much of the data I collected were derived from direct observation or the contents ofinformal interviews. I knew of no ready formula to indicate the type of informant I shouldpreferably talk to, or where I should ideally locate myself to observe the most ‘important’action. I merely settled in one location sufficiently long enough to engage in longconversations with separate gangs of pickets, or to watch a particular episode of activity runits course, before moving on to where I suspected, or had already been informed, that the nextimportant round of activity was imminent.My note-taking usually occurred in the lulls between major bouts of activity. Pickets soon grewaccustomed to this practice and, in due course, helped to maintain its accuracy by cross-checkingmy recollection of events against their own (a form of voluntary triangulation). Far from resentingor objecting to this activity, many pickets seemed to regard my interest as a form of flattery andlooked forward to reading the final chronicle. My notes most typically took the form of scribbleddown words or phrases or, less commonly, verbatim quotes, which I expanded when enteringthem into my log book at the end of the day.I supplemented this basic approach by collecting all forms of documentation issued duringthe strike (for example, letters, strike bulletins, propaganda leaflets), and selected local andnational media coverage (including radio bulletins which my wife recorded on my behalf).I deliberately avoided any contact with management during the strike to offset any risk ofjeopardizing my relationship with the strikers. I also decided not to inform full-timeTGWU officials of my involvement until the strike was over because I was afraid they mightconsider me a meddler and instruct their members not to cooperate. Subsequently, however,I conducted interviews with representatives of Ansells management and the TGWU. As aresult of these meetings, I amassed huge quantities of documentary material (for example,formal correspondence and minutes of union–management meetings spanning twodecades).By immersing myself so deeply in the strike, I found it possible to comprehend how theworkers interpreted their situation, and how their collective definitions of reality had beenshaped by their own subjective history. It was fascinating to observe, for example, howmanagement’s ultimatum to the strikers was collectively understood in terms of a shared,cognitive schema – the BL script – which characterized their behaviour as an imitation of thestrategy used by Sir Michael Edwardes to undermine trade union power at BL Cars.According to this definition, the strike represented an all-or-nothing struggle for the survivalof the trade union organization: