Equity-Centered Leadership focuses on ensuring that all employees can succeed in a workplace, regardless of their...
Tag: organizational development
Ethnography for Organizational Change
Organizations are realizing that successful change requires the ability to understand work practices as cultural practices. They need to go beyond the ubiquitous employee survey to develop a more holistic view...
Anticipating Headwinds: Using “Narrative Tacking” to Build an Inclusive Future
This paper proposes a framework for addressing entrenched resistance to change. It borrows a metaphor from sailing to suggest that the best way through unwanted transformations is by “narrative tacking.” Drawing a parallel to how sailors navigate through headwinds by “tacking,” I argue that...
Ethnography to the Rescue of Change Management
It’s not unusual for challenges to arise when organizations and teams undergo transformation. Whether due to natural growth, global expansion, or shift in focus, confusion and misalignment may lead to poor morale and mistrust. In such cases, Human Resources is typically brought in to manage...
Organizational Culture and Change
Praxis is the bringing-to-life of a theory or philosophical position. It is the practical application of lessons learned through study and reflection. It is not simply what you do, it’s why you do it. Thus as the organization that specializes in ethnographic praxis in industry, we are the...
From UI to UX: Building Ethnographic Praxis in a Usability Engineering Culture
In this never before shared case study, we explain how our UX research team increased its scope of work from surface-level UI issues to a full portfolio of user-centered research. We use organizational ethnography and organizational change literature to develop a three phase model of research team...
Ethnographic Expertise as Visionary Catalyst of Collaboration
Recent developments in the scholarship of ethnography, combined with growing recognition of the value of collaboration in business, present industrial ethnography with the opportunity to exercise greater agency and leadership. This paper considers updates to theory and practice of ethnographic...
Concreting Sustainability: Renewing the Cement Industry through Sustainability Implementation
While the cement industry had traditionally been linked to the concepts of modernity and development, the drive towards socially responsible and environmentally friendly business practices has required a revision of the industry mostly in relation to its sustainability programs. This paper...
Design Anthropologists’ Role in SMEs: Unveiling Aptitude and Attitude
Research collaboration and methods development within user-centered design and the emerging discipline of user-driven innovation have traditionally taken place in research institutions and large forward-looking enterprises. Due to this fact, concepts, methodologies, approaches have primarily...
How ‘Doing Ethnography’ Fostered Collaboration in Two Organizations
Case Study—This case study discusses the role ethnography played in fostering collaboration across two organizations during a research project. It explores how the opportunity for collaboration emerged, why it was seized upon, and what it meant for the project. The case study looks at the project...