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

216 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––pragmatic utility for these elites as they sought to shape strategic direction (Samra-Fredericks,1996, 2003).The biggest problem was gaining access to such elites. As far back as 1986 initial attemptswere made but the companies continued to express reservations since recording in ‘real time’was perceived to be too invasive. Finally, after a series of protracted negotiations with anotherset of companies over several months, high level access was granted to two organizations.Armed with a tape recorder I finally entered the ‘field’ and as I write this chapter, two furthertalk-based ethnographies in the ‘Technology, Media, Telecoms’ sector are nearing theirconclusion. In all cases, from just ‘being there’ over a period of time, elites’ interests, goals,likes and dislikes and how they talked and presented themselves more generally was also beingnoted. It is because of this fieldwork component that the issue of ‘transcript-extrinsic data’(Nelson, 1994) arises.CA, evidence and transcript-extrinsic dataGiven CA’s ‘strong bias against a priori speculation about the orientations and motives ofspeakers’ (Heritage, 1984), what CA demands is that the analyst demonstrates that suchmatters were orientated to by the participants in some way. Yet, to ‘warrant’ the analysts’inferences and demonstrate how ‘contextual’ ‘facts’ are ‘connected to a particular conversation’(see Zimmerman, 1988: 418; Jacobs, 1988) remains a challenge. Wieder (1988: 453) hassuggested that the process of actual analysis can be seen as one of continually making the ‘tacitexplicit’. In terms of the analysts’ tacit knowledge informing analyses, Zimmerman (1988:449) adds that the ‘initial purchase on some phenomena may be gained on intuitive grounds,but this is merely the beginning’. It is then ‘worked up’ through a process of searching acrossa number of conversations. The suggestion is that it is possible, through ‘empirical control overinference’, for the analyst to support the claim that the participants actually display particularunderstandings of a conversational event by presenting collections of conversational materialswhich can be compared. Whilst on one level, this process was broadly adopted in my research(see Samra-Fredericks (1998: 170–1) especially Table 9.1), concerns over CA havingpositivistic tendencies seem to arise from this apparent emphasis upon rigour/control to ‘getat’ what really happened, as well as the need for comparisons to warrant the analysts’ claims.Inevitably, the indexical properties of language use and speakers’ biography of prior dealingscomplicates matters further.The inherent philosophical and methodological issues are not easily resolved, but a briefdiscussion on the role of ‘transcript-extrinsic data’ (Nelson, 1994) is called for. Moerman(1988) demonstrated that to identify and account for an action (during a turn at talk) wesometimes need to know speakers’ intentions and this may have to be gleaned from ‘transcriptextrinsicdata’. Here, ethnography would provide the researcher with a ‘local knowledge’(Geertz, 1993) which ‘fills in’ the gaps which is what speakers routinely do anyway. It is whereparticipants’ prior dealings or experiences do provide a ‘frame’ or a set of backgroundexpectancies which furnish meanings, knowledge about another’s interests and so on andwhich are not always readily apparent or available to the analyst who is primarily focused upon‘transcript-intrinsic data’. Garfinkel’s (1967) studies also showed that shared knowledges/experiences result in many things being left unsaid but known. I felt that access to this‘knowing’ required immersion in the elites’ everyday lived experiences. Consequently, I agreethat: