Module one: Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic Research






Monday, february 22nd 2010 by Alejandra Cano


Summary

As we know most of the people in the world has different manners and ways to see the world, the reason is because they are from different locations around the world, they have different appearances and physical features as well according to the nation that they belong to.

The Ethnographic Method analizes all the aspects that are related to the life style of the people; such as behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, the way of dressing and so on. 'Typically, the ethnographer focuses on a community (not necessarily geographic, considering also work, leisure, and other communities), selecting informants who are known to have an overview of the activities of the community.' http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/ethno.htm - Ethnographic research.


It is useful also to find out behaviors and perceptions, depending on what people use, what they do and what they say in a determined context.


This fieldwork that 'descirbes a particular culture' - Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson, 2000 is really important to consider when you are going to start an alliance between your company and another that belongs to another nation. It means to another culture. The point is that if you want to have international relations with people you have to know at first how their culture works or even your business would go down easily.



Perspectives:

This study has different perspectives:

1. Holistic Perspective: it is explained according to how members of the group understand a picture and make it comprehensive interrelated with a context.

2. Multiple perspectives and realities: it is the non-judgmental perspectives like:

a. Insider´s perspective: is the way to understand situations and behaviors, to feel part of a group and understand what happen and why. It is the Participation observation ethnographic_research.pdf pag. 2. it is when you do not belong to a group but you are inside to see how everything works.

b. Native perspectives: it is useful to understand why people do what they do, use and say. It is when you belong to the group and you feel part of the group.

3. Emic vs Ethic perspectives: two perspectives to understand the cultural system. The Emic perspective studies all the intrinsic cultural distinctions that are meaninful to the members of a society like supernatural beliefs. That means how the members percieve the world.

The ethic perspective studies all the extrinsic concepts and categories that have meaning for scientific observers like the growth of the population per year. http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/adjuntos/descargar.do?id=1760619 slide 14. That means how the non-members perceive the behaviors related to the culture that belongs the group.


Also this study of all of these behaviors can be more comprehensive considering other aspects that belong to them as a group and those give to the research reasons to understand since another point of view, like:


a. symbols and rituals


b. Sciences of application


c. Techniques-Interviews

d. Resources-data




Current Questions:


¿How Ethnographic research can be used for international business?

Nowadays ethnographic research has become as an important tool in the study of international business. Because with the topic of Globalization most companies want to internationalize making new customers abroad and growing as much faster as they can, it is when the ethnographic method have an important role, is when people worry about the other´s culture. They try to make a deep study of their behaviors, traditions, attitudes in order to know how they could focuse their products to be sold to them.

Examples:

a. Virtual Teams : it is a group of people that joint in order to work together between many countries this job could be a distance but they have to know about each other culture and through internet they can have a good communication.


b. Global Enterprise Experience : it is a nice tool to meet people around the world, work with them giving solutions to many issues at the same time knowing about each other like different kinds of management depending on the culture as an example.



Some useful links:




http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.freshminds.co.uk/research/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/faces-cartoon.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.freshminds.co.uk/research/%3Fp%3D156&usg=__Gz6QB_cQHO05uoQ3BeQBJRtxwGk=&h=370&w=462&sz=75&hl=es&start=4&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=daE39ddlNnuiSM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dethnographic%2Bresearch%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R2ADBF_es%26tbs%3Disch:1


http://www.geebiz.org/