In this episode, we talk with Angèle Christin about the challenges and opportunities of studying influencers and social media platforms. The context for this conversation is her latest research, a digital ethnography for a new book on the algorithmic labor of influencers and influencer marketing on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The conversation is packed with insights on gaining access to a phenomenon that happens online in private spaces (including a story on how Angèle became an influencer herself); the promises of designing research on niches or fields in the social media space; and pract ..read more

This time we welcome Anissa Pomiès to the Atelier and talk with her about methodological opportunities and challenges of studying materiality, the things that are pervasive in life but have been for long-time eluding researchers. In this conversation, Anissa reflects on her research on taste and coffee making, where she found it was central to take objects seriously—since they were taken as such by informants in that context. She also shares some tips on organizing the analysis of images, videos, and artifacts and using a broader range of senses to collect data. Anissa Pomiès is an Assistant ..read more

In this episode with Prof. Christine Beckman and Prof. Melissa Mazmanian, we talk about the promises and challenges involved in conducting research in intimate spaces, such as in people’s homes, instead of the workplace, where most organization and management research usually takes place. Christine and Melissa reflect on the research for their recent book “Dreams of the Overworked” where they explored nine families in California and what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of growing expectations about one’s productivity amplified by smart devices. Christine and Melissa share tips on ..read more

In this episode with Professor Stine Grodal, we explored the promises and challenges of archival research. We discussed Stine’s use of archival methods in contexts such as nanotechnologies or the tobacco or hearing aid industry. Stine reflects on the kinds of research questions best addressed with archival data and provides specific sampling and analytical strategies researchers can take to approach archival datasets. She also shares advice on where to look for archival data, how to start, when to combine archival research with other research methods, and the benefits of being creative in our ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Professor Renate Meyer in which she reflects on the value of visual data for gaining unique research insights and the theoretical basis of such an approach. We talked about the tools and methods she and her colleagues have used to investigate a range of topics in the diffusion and institutionalization of organizational concepts and the challenges of interpretation and dealing with large amounts of data during analysis. Renate Meyer is Professor of Organization Studies and Head of the Institute for Organization Studies at WU Vienna. She works in the ar ..read more

This episode features a conversation of members and friends of the atelier together with Professor Diane Bailey. We discuss her ethnographic research on work and interdependence in technical settings. In our conversation, Diane reflects on the challenges of observing and documenting technical work and suggests strategies for studying new forms of technology. Diane Bailey is Geri Gay Professor of Communication at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences of Cornell University. She earned her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at the University of California, Berkeley. D ..read more

This episode features a conversation of members and friends of the atelier with Professor Steve Barley about doing ethnographies of work and occupations. In particular, we discussed his research about technicians and long-term interest in grounding organization research in the study of work and technology. In the chat, Steve shares his experience in managing collective ethnographic projects and his forecast of future themes in the study of work, technology, and organizations. Steve Barley is the Christian A. Felipe Professor in the College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Steve earned his ..read more

This episode explores the comparative case method—as developed by Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt—with Professor Pinar Ozcan. This research strategy involves using one or more cases to create theoretical constructs, propositions and/or midrange theory from case-based, empirical evidence. In the conversation, we touched on the strengths and perils of such an approach for management research, some tricks to collect and analyze data across multiple cases, and some general challenges of becoming an inductive researcher. Our guest, Pinar Ozcan is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Saïd ..read more

In this episode, we talk with Professor Siobhan O’Mahony about digital ethnography. Siobhan’s work explores how technical and creative communities organize for innovation. She has examined high technology contractors, open source programmers, artists, music producers, internet startups, and product development teams. In this conversation, she shared some great insights from her experience studying the Linux and Anonymous communities, such as how to navigate large volumes of online information, the role of research questions to arrive at robust findings, and the hidden benefits of doing fieldwo ..read more

In this conversation with Dr Sarah Sachs, we explored the challenges involved in studying algorithms at work. Sarah’s research examines how data analytic technologies are reconfiguring work and organizations. Her dissertation “The Algorithm at Work: The Reconfiguration of Work and Expertise in the Making of Similarity in Art Data” is an ethnography of team practice in the DNArt project. In the episode, we talked about the work involved in making algorithms work, the strengths and limits of studying how organizations and people work with and around new technologies, and the challenges of sampli ..read more