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

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–––––––––––––– CRITICAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS IN ORGANIZATIONS –––––––––– 185letter to 40 companies was negligible and the organizations were recruited through personalnetworking. The material reported here is from the case of a bank that had undergone recentorganizational change. The company had recently received survey results they described asworrying. In response to a questionnaire over half the employees claimed to have been bullied.It was not clear why the question had been asked, but once it had been raised the organizationfelt the need to respond. Formal consent for the research was obtained from the directors andfrom the union.Gathering accountsThe research began with individual interviews with policy makers and the collection andanalysis of the company’s documents on bullying. The company offered a definition ofbullying and issued videos that gave examples of bullying and how to respond to it.Focus groups were used to encourage participation from a large proportion of employeesand to allow participants to discuss and interrogate terms with minimal intervention from theresearcher. The research was presented as a project on ‘relationships at work’ and bullying wasintroduced as a term used in the media to describe some work relationships. Participants wereasked whether they would apply the term to any relationship in the workplace and how theywould define it. The researcher did not offer a definition. The discussions were recorded andtranscribed for discourse analysis (Potter and Wetherell, 1987). Participants are identified bysex and order in which they spoke (for example, F3 is the third woman to speak in this group).The researcher is identified by initials.Analysing accountsWe will first examine the official company definition that was frequently referred to bymanagers and then draw on some of the material from the focus groups. Both researchers readall the organizational material. First, all mentions of the term bullying in the transcripts wereidentified in a broad, thematic content analysis. This allowed selection of sections of textwhere participants were using the term or discussing examples of use of the term. Eachresearcher read the transcripts independently, highlighting areas of interest.The initial analysis of transcripts focused specifically on language and meaning. Weexamined how the term bullying was used, how different participants define bullying, and theexamples that they give. Our approach examined both the consistencies and contradictionsin the ways that participants use discourses of bullying. Employees draw on the same discoursesidentified by school researchers, but also apply the term in novel ways to describe their ownexperiences at work.We went on to consider the implications of different definitions of bullying for powerrelations within the organization. We examined who was speaking and who was heard andinterrogated the different interests that might be served by different accounts.Finally, we were repeatedly returning to what the implications of the research were for allour participants and for our own role within it. We considered how material could be fed backto the organizations and what impact it may have on organization practices.In practice, of course, the analysis jumped between levels and progressed erratically. Weargued about interpretations, checked tapes, went back to the literature and to the transcriptsagain.
186 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––In the company policy, bullying is defined as:personal criticism or abuse, either in public or in private, which humiliates an individualand undermines self-esteem and confidence. It is therefore distinct from the way we allfeel at times when we are under pressure for example to meet tight deadlines orparticular targets or those occasions when we make a mistake and are legitimatelycalled to account for this, in private with our supervisor or manager. The point aboutbullying behaviour is that it is not constructive criticism which will assist an individualin the future – it is quite the opposite.Primarily, this definition legislates for what bullying is and is not. It seems to deny ambiguity.Secondly, it describes bullying as clearly negative. Thirdly, it is framed in terms of a manager’sbehaviour towards a subordinate. That is, it is defined as an interaction between twoindividuals in which one person has a negative impact on another. Normal acceptablebehaviour by a manager or supervisor (legitimately calling to account, constructive criticism)is differentiated from the unacceptable. That this should be necessary suggests that there maybe room for confusion. The implication is that bullying is likely to take place within thisrelationship and this is supported by research on incidence of bullying. The use of first personplural can be seen as distancing ‘us’ from those who bully, or indeed are bullied. A furthermessage is that all of ‘us’ will be under pressure to meet deadlines at some point and that allof ‘us’ will be called to account when ‘we’ make mistakes. Managers are differentiated fromthe managed and simultaneously united as members of a group. Both bullies and the bulliedare positioned as outside ‘our’ group.The definition individualizes bullying, not only by stressing that it is personal criticism (notbeing legitimately called to account), but also by defining it in terms of an individual response.Bullying humiliates, undermines self-esteem and confidence and does not assist an individualin future; if individuals can overcome any such threat to self esteem, by this definition theyhave not been bullied. The bullied individual is differentiated from the ‘we’ who all feel underpressure and may be legitimately called to account by our superiors; these are normalized aslegitimate.Thus the definition claims to speak for all, manipulates meaning to defend organizationpower groups and legitimize management action, individualizes those who experiencebullying and demonizes bullying by associating it with negative, unhelpful and illegitimatebehaviour. In offering this kind of definition the organization appears to offer increased claritybut still allows great ambiguity.Context: school or workFocus group participants are sophisticated in the ways in which they examine the differentapproaches to bullying. In employee accounts, the meaning of bullying is not homogeneousor clear. Participants struggle between different interpretative frameworks in order to defineand describe bullying. They interrogate such issues as whether bullying could be objectivelydefined by specifying behaviours or whether it is subjectively defined by individual responseor intention.Participants draw on the notion of bullying in a school in an attempt to define and explainwhat is happening in their work place. However, the repertoire is found to be of limited use.School bullying is regarded as clearly defined, whereas work bullying depends on perception:
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ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO QUALITATIVE METH
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This book is dedicated to our child
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viii ---------- CONTENTS ----------
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Notes on ContributorsJohn Benington
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AcknowledgementsIt has been 10 year
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2 ---------- QUALITATIVE METHODS IN
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10 ---------- QUALITATIVE METHODS I
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4 ---- Life Histories -------------
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8 ---- The Twenty Statements Test -
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9 ---- Qualitative Research Diaries
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100 ---------- QUALITATIVE METHODS
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tended to get shovedin the backgrou
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10 ---- Stories in Organizational R
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20 ---- Grounded Theory in Organiza
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Quote Code in open coding Concept T
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Table 20.2 Examples of open coding,
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Table 20.3Collective stressors and
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21 ---- Using Templates in the Them
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Table 22.1Matrix 1: descriptive sum
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Table 22.1 cont1.1 Analysis by colu
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Table 22.2DebbieAndrewMatrix 2: con
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Table 22.2cont.Allan Petrol scam Wa
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23 ---- Preserving, Sharing and Reu
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25 ---- Ethnography ---------------
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27 ---- Soft Systems Analysis: Refl
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30 ---- The Future Conference -----
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