Uncovering the Management Process: An Ethnographic Approach1
通过民族志方法研究英国西米德兰兹服装行业的小企业，揭示管理过程的复杂性和张力，挑战了关于小企业管理实践的普遍看法，并展示了民族志在管理研究中的潜力。
The continuing controversy over the extent to which labour management has been transformed in recent years has sustained considerable interest in the basic issue of how management regulates the employment relationship. However, two curious features of these burgeoning discussions are the neglect of small firms and the rarity of intensive fieldwork methods of investigation. This paper examines particular methodological issues arising from an ethnographic study of the small firm‐dominated West Midlands clothing sector (Ram, 1994). The ethnographic approach was crucial to the unravelling of the complexities and tensions inherent in the management process. Insights generated by the method allow prevailing views of managerial practices in such settings to be questioned; and more generally, highlight the potential of ethnography as a means of management research.