Paradoxes, Dyads, and Tensions in Business: A Book Review of Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Environments: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities

By using a dyad approach of having two authors write about a topic from differing perspectives, the book presents a real world perspective of the innate challenges of corporate ethnography and is authentic as a result. These dyads address the issues of the balance of technology and traditional ethnographic tools; past and future; speed and depth; theory and practicality; insider and outsider; and, big data and human evolution. I intentionally use the word "with" to separate the dyad topics instead of "versus" because the book presents a "with not versus" approach to the dyads in the writing. Keywords: Ethnography, Business, Corporate Research, DyadI was drawn to Brigitte Jordan's 2014 edited book, Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Environments: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities, because it addresses the issue of corporate ethnography and because of the significant overlap into my lived experience. My multidimensional life includes my current role in corporate training management where I use ethnographic and qualitative tools on a daily basis. My background also includes an MBA, multiple professional certifications, and many years of business experience. In contrast, in the academic space I am an adjunct professor and active qualitative researcher.Continuing with the dyad theme that attempts to capture the paradoxes and tension within corporate ethnography, I have selected a dyadic approach to review this book - one section will consider the material from the perspective of a qualitative researcher and the other section will consider the material from the corporate perspective.Qualitative Researcher / Ethnographer PerspectiveEditor Jones suggests, "This book occupies the white space between theory and practice" (p. 20). I would pose that the book extends into both theory and practice, as well as addressing the continuum between the two. This interaction between theory and practice is a theme that is referenced in a general sense throughout the book. Dyad 4 (Chapters 7 and 8) overtly discusses the balance and optimization between theory and practice and highlights the important aspects of each.In her introduction, Jones suggests that although most corporate ethnographers are not anthropologists, the roots of corporate ethnography are connected to anthropology (p. 7). Realizing that business and the corporation are systems-based and one of the strengths of anthropology is the ability to effectively study systems, the connection between these two realms is significant. Dyad 2 (Chapters 3 and 4) discusses the systems and system development within corporate ethnography from both a legacy and a future-oriented perspective. The shared theories provide the framework and practice provides the pragmatic implementation and validation. These theories can establish "a community of practice" (p. 139) and can establish "the future" (p. 141).In addition to the theoretical orientation, the book is highly practical in many ways including the effective use of examples, directions (e.g., how-to), and reality checks (p. 51, 62- 73). Dyad 1 (Chapters 2 and 3) discusses the pragmatic place of technology in corporate ethnographic research. Additionally, the book speaks to many of the real world interactions between ethnography and the business space. For example, corporate ethnographers aren't always called ethnographers and sometime they don't write ethnographies (p. 164). In contrast, there are those in the corporate space who are not trained formally trained ethnographers who are performing corporate ethnography, however formal training can be highly beneficial (p. 61). This blurred line leads us from the qualitative perspective to the corporate perspective.Corporate PerspectiveThe practice of corporate ethnography is significant to intentionally becoming a thought leader in a market segment (p. 125). Congruently, many elements of ethnography have been integrated throughout the corporate environment in many ways. …