If you enjoy Pacanowsky’s work, we recommend “Postscript: A Small-Town Cop: Communication In, Out, and About a Crisis,” Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach, ed. Linda Putnam and Michael Pacanowsky (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983), 261-82. 

Paul Schrodt provides an empirical examination of the relationship between group and individual identity in “The Relationship Between Organizational Identification and Organizational Culture: Employee Perceptions of Culture and Identification in a Retail Sales Organization,” Communication Studies, Vol. 53, 2002, pp. 189-202.

As Linda Smircich's comments suggest, the tension between pragmatically based research and ethnography free of management constraints and agendas is a significant issue in the field of organizational communication.  Nick Trujillo's “Corporate Philosophy and Professional Baseball: (Re)defining the Texas Rangers,” Case Studies in Organizational Communication, ed. Beverly Davenport Sypher (New York: Guilford, 1990), 87-110, exemplifies the tension.  Although the article is presented as a scholarly case study of the team, it also functions as a public-relations piece for its management, celebrating the efforts of top officers to alter the corporation's culture.  Trujillo, who co-authored several pieces with Pacanowsky, demonstrates the difficulty of serving two masters.  We particularly recommend this piece for those interested in athletic organizations. 

Organizational Stories

Rosemary A. Brander, Margo Paterson, and Yolande E. Chan, “Fostering Change in Organizational Culture Using a Critical Ethnographic Approach,” The Qualitative Report, Vol. 17, 2012, pp. 1-27.

Barbara Czarniawska, Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity, University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Paul Collier, “The Cultural Foundations of Economic Failure: A Conceptual Toolkit,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 126, 2016, pp. 5-24.

Anne-Laure Fayard and John Van Maanen, “Making Culture Visible: Reflections on Corporate Ethnography,” Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 4, 2015, pp. 4-27.

Angela A. Kaiser. “Faith-Based Organizations: A Vehicle for Cross-Cultural Relationship Building.” Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work 34 (3), 2015, pp. 265–84.

Jacqueline Milne, David Greenfield, and Jeffrey Braithwaite. “An Ethnographic Investigation of Junior Doctors’ Capacities to Practice Interprofessionally in Three Teaching Hospitals,” Journal of Interprofessional Care, Vol. 29 (4), 2015, pp. 347–53.

Cristian Odagiu and Marius Pi?urlea, “Organizational Change Management: A Cultural Approach,” Proceedings of the Scientific Conference AFASES, May 2012, pp. 157-163.

Applied contexts

Sienna Caspar, Pamela A. Ratner, Alison Phinney, and Karen MacKinnon. “The Influence of Organizational Systems on Information Exchange in Long-Term Care Facilities,” Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 26 (7), 2016, pp. 951–65.

Diane Gavin, “Starbucks Exceptionalism: An Institutional Ethnographic Exploration of Coffee Culture in America,” Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Vol. 4, 2013, pp. 44-58.

John Gribas and Cal W. Downs, “Metaphoric Manifestations of Talking ‘Team’ with Team Novices,” Communication Studies, Vol. 53, 2002, pp. 112-28.

Holmes, Janet. “Making Transitions: The Role of Interaction in Joining a Workplace Community of Practice,” Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), Vol. 9 (2). 2015, pp. 77–92

Sherwyn P. Morreale and Pamela S. Shockley-Zalabak, “Organizational Trust in Cultures with a History of Distrust: A Qualitative Study of Polish and Russian Leaders’ Perspectives and Experiences,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, Vol. 44, 2015, pp. 27-43.

Heather C. Trepal, Ioana Boie, and Victoria E. Kress, “A Relational Cultural Approach to Working with Clients with Eating Disorders,” Journal of Counseling & Development, Vol. 90, 2012, pp. 346-356.
 

 Clifford Geertz

Check out Geertz’s autobiographical piece, which provides a summary both of his career and the field of cultural anthropology in general: Clifford Geertz, “An Inconstant Profession: The Anthropological Life in Interesting Times,” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31, 2002, pp. 1-19.

Other pieces of note:

Beth Eddy, “Learning to Understand Others: The Pragmatic Rhetoric of Ethnography and Religious Ethics in Clifford Geertz’s Works and Lives,” Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, Vol. 22, 2014, pp. 137-157.

Clifford Geertz, “Shifting Aims, Moving Targets: On the Anthropology of Religion,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 11, 2005, pp. 1-15.

Clifford Geertz, “What is a state if it is not a sovereign? Reflections on Politics in Complicated Places,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 45, 2004, pp. 577- 594.

Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Language, Truth, and Religious Belief: Studies in Twentieth-Century Theory and Method in Religion, Nancy K. Frankenberry and Hans H. Penner (eds.), Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, pp. 176-217.

J. K. Gibson-Graham, “Rethinking the Economy with Thick Description and Weak Theory,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 55, 2014, pp. S147-S153.

Michael G. Peletz, “Transgenderism and Gender Pluralism in Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 47, 2006, pp. 309-340.

Ethnography

Elizabeth K. Eger. “Co-Constructing Organizational Identity and Culture With Those We Serve: An Ethnography of a Transgender Nonprofit Organization Communicating Family Identity and Identification,” International Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 58 (2), 2021, p.  254–81

Miriam Dempsey Page, “Clifford Geertz and Beyond: The Interpretive Interview/Essay and Reflexive Ethnography,” 1997, available online at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED408618.pdf

Eric D. Teman and Maria K. E. Lahman, “Broom Closet or Fish Bowl? An Ethnographic Exploration of a University Queer Center and Oneself,” Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 18, 2012, pp. 341-354.

Benjamin Triana. “Ethnography of a Sustainable Agriculture Program: A Case Study of a Social Movement’s Inception and Growth on a University Campus,” Environmental Education Research, Vol. 22 (2), 2016, pp. 248–70.

Saskia Witteborn, Trudy Milburn, T., and Evelyn Y. Ho, “The Ethnography of Communication as Applied Methodology: Insights from Three Case Studies,” Journal of Applied Communication Research, Vol. 41, 2013, pp. 188-194.