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

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–––––––––––––– CRITICAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS IN ORGANIZATIONS –––––––––– 189This participant challenges the objectivity of the system through questioning the measures andprocesses used to assess performance. There is no reward for ‘an objective good performance’as it depends where an individual falls on the imposed bell curve within their team. In otherwords, a whole team can never be ‘excellent performers’ as performance is treated as normallydistributed within a specific team. Measurement, or the lack of it, becomes bullying in twosenses: the lack of appropriate measures, and imposing a technological artefact (normaldistribution) that is regarded as being unfair.In sum, employees acknowledge the roots of bullying at school but distinguish this fromtheir experience at work. Classic bullying, the kind that occurs within schools amongstchildren, is seen to be interpersonal in its nature. Organizational bullying, they argue is lessstraightforward and more subtle. It consists of organizational practices such as ignoringemployee voice in negotiation, target setting, performance management and the pay andappraisal system. These systems are seen as inherently unfair.CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Critical analysis concentrates on challenging forms of domination and revealing contradictionsbetween rhetorics of equality and discrimination (Morrow, 1994). In attempting both toacknowledge different accounts and to highlight power imbalances we are oscillating betweenpostmodern relativism and critical realism. The serious issue underlying these arguments ishow, if you are subjecting everything to critique, you can justify a position that argues that‘real’ social inequalities exist, that we can identify them and that we have a duty to challengethem (Edwards et al., 1995; Parker, 1999). For Habermas, clarifying the ways that languageis used can reveal the operation of power and open systems to challenge. We positionedourselves to represent those employees who were not heard in the organization. In doing so,we demonstrate that a term represented by management as protecting individual employeeinterests may be adopted by those employees to describe their own oppression by managementas a group.Throughout the analysis we were painfully aware of the implications of our reporting. First,we had to confront how we were going to report findings back to the managers in theorganization who had sponsored the research. We had to balance issues of clarity and fidelityto the data with the need to preserve confidentiality. Our hopes of having an impact onmaterial organizational practices, were disappointed when a director greeted our feedbackwith the words, ‘Given our tremendous performance and profit over the last financial year,we must be doing something right. And if they call that bullying, perhaps we should do moreof it.’ This raises issues of how far critical researchers can challenge the organizations that theystudy.Secondly, and of greater concern, is the issue of how to present our work withoutundermining the position of those who experienced an extremely abusive, threatening,interpersonal relationship at work. In describing how employees use language, we weresometimes seen as denying that ‘real’ bullying happened. Demonstrating how an emotionalterm is used by different interest groups can appear to belittle the experience.In raising the profile of the mundane, there is a danger of deflating the value of the extreme.This dilution of emotive terms demonstrates the delicacy and significance of labelling anddefinition in creating meaning.
190 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––Thirdly, academic peers were concerned that we were appropriating the term bullying andneglecting existing research on definition, measurement and frequency of bullying. Ourresearch however, was not concerned with owning a specific definition of bullying, but withthe functions the term fulfils for different groups.CONCLUSION ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Our critical analysis highlights the messy and ambiguous use of a contested term, exposes thepower relations inherent in definition and labelling, and demonstrates that research does nottake place in a political vacuum. However, in attempting to raise the interests of a neglectedgroup of employees we encountered two problems. First, we doubt that this specific researchimproved the position of the participants; secondly, in focusing on one group, we neglectothers. This returns us to fundamental reflections on whose interest the research served andhow far research can be liberating. In other words, while the critical agenda may serve theinterests of researchers, it is less clear that it serves the interests of other stakeholders.Ultimately, our responsibility is to represent the position of those who have not been heardin this debate and who contributed to our research, that is, employees in organizations.FURTHER READING ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Alvesson and Deetz’s (2000) guide to Doing Critical Management Research is the most usefulgeneral overview. The journals Organization, Organization Studies and the Journal of ManagementStudies are the most likely sources of critical research although they rarely give detail of methodor analysis. Habermas (1984) is undoubtedly fundamental to critical theory, and is helpful tothose wishing to explore the theoretical background of this chapter further.REFERENCES ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Alvesson, M. (1996) Communication, Power and Organisations, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Alvesson, M. (1998) ‘Gender relations and identity at work: a case study of masculinities and femininities in an advertisingagency’, Human Relations, 51 (8): 969–1005.Alvesson, M. and Deetz, S. (2000) Doing Critical Management Research, London: Sage.Ashforth, B.E. and Humphrey, R.H. (1997) ‘The ubiquity and potency of labelling in organizations’, Organization Science, 8 (1):43–58.Collinson, D.L. (2002) ‘A response to Wray-Bliss: revisiting the shop floor’, Organization, 9(1): 41–50.Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln,Y.S. (1998) (eds) The Landscape of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks: Sage.Edwards, D., Ashmore, M. and Potter, J. (1995) ‘Death and furniture: the rhetoric, politics and theology of bottom line argumentsagainst relativism’, History of Human Sciences, 8 (2): 25–49.Fournier, V. and Grey, C. (2000) ‘At the critical moment: conditions and prospects for critical management studies’, HumanRelations, 53(1): 7–32.Friere, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Herder and Herder.Griffin, C. (1985) Typical Girls? Young Women from School to the Job Market, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Boston, MA: BeaconPress.Henriques, J., Hollway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C. and Walkerdine, V. (1984) Changing the Subject: Psychology, Social Regulationand Subjectivity, London: Methuen.Jackall, R. (1988) Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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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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