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    Business Ethnography

Suddenly businesses are starting to utilize a qualitative research technique that has been employed by cultural anthropologists for decades, namely the fine art of ethnography.  To begin, I am all in favor of using the paradigm of ethnographic research within the business context.  When done correctly, I expect it to make a large contribution to the intellectual capital surrounding business and consumer choice behavior.  However, there are caveats that the buyer of such research should know, and the practitioner should keep in mind when proposing or doing the research.

This section examines what I mean when I say to my clients that most of today's business ethnographies are really quasi ethnographies.  Most business ethnographies cannot be full simply because pragmatically we are limited in time and money with what we can do while in the field.  So, here we will discuss the pluses and minuses of ethnographic research for business.  My degrees are in anthropology, and thus I have appreciation and large doses of experience dealing with these research issues.  Feel free to augment or disagree with anything I write herein.   Just drop me a note and I'll include your perspectives as points of discussion in these pages, with full attribution.  Might as well!  After all, we are here to educate and learn from one another. 

First a summary, then the full discussion.

In Summary

In the discussion below, we will not cover all that needs to be covered, but it's a good start.  For now realize that:

• most business ethnographic work will be constrained by either time or budget, and usually both; 
• traditional participant observation, while still available as an ethnographic fieldwork staple, will be difficult to employ;
• on site interviews will be the data gathering staple and be well worthwhile, especially if the way is prepared by the activities of the key informant;
• group interviews can and should also be accomplished on site, with individuals who comprise the next higher order of social observation, such as the family or community, as the participants; and
• by being on site the researcher will be able to do much more questioning and observing that is contextual in nature, especially since the environment will not be as artificial as, say, a focus group facility 

Background

The use of in situ observational techniques, which to some degree defines the work of ethnographers, is well established in urban social science work, although relatively new in business.   I believe, however, that business ethnography is fast becoming a critical tool in the understanding of both consumer and business-to-business decision making behavior, so even though it is relatively new to business, it will become an trusted arrow in our research quiver in very short order. 

Given that it is new and that many researchers seem to be jumping up and down, shouting that they, too, can do ethnography, it is paramount that we all, both practitioner and buyer, be careful out there.  What is often being billed as ethnography is in fact more quasi than real.  Let's examine what I mean by that. 

We all agree that the anthropologist’s version of an ethnography differs from what is often feasible and practicable of the business researcher, both in terms of time and resource.  Business certainly needs reliable and in-depth qualitative information, but usually on a much shorter timeframe and smaller budget than would be the case with a full ethnography.  Many of the products my clients attempt to study change so rapidly that studying their usage over a period of a year or two, while certainly interesting and perhaps eye opening and informative, would have little impact on fast paced product design.

On the other hand, some companies are not interested so much in specific short term product development as they are in how social and cultural behavior might influence future product innovation, design, packaging, distribution, and other long term product issues.  Such companies as Toyota, Sony, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, to name the obvious, have ethnographers on staff who are responsible for large scale, multinational and multicultural studies on individual and social behaviors relative to their products.  One often quoted study by Intel has led them to develop the so-called Community India PC, a low cost computer that was designed only after extensive ethnographic research.

Ethnography is generally characterized by two critical research approaches.

1. On site or in situ observation, often unobtrusive, and carried out over a period of time sufficient for a detailed description of the social body of interest; and
   
   
2. Data gathering techniques that rely not so much on a pre-defined set of questions, but more on conversations within which the scientist embeds his or her queries. (In many cases, such as my work with NE Fishermen and the Slave Indians of the NW Territories, ethnographers do employ structured questionnaires, but only after s/he has garnered sufficient information to write a credible question. After all, until the ethnographer has an understanding of the social situation, the language in use, the formal and informal rules and structures that guide and limit behavior, it is much more difficult for an informed questionnaire to be developed. As for any research, one can always gain data through a structured questionnaire, but will the questions make any sense to the respondent? An ethnographer is there to learn, primarily, through observational techniques and questions that are more open ended.)

Other data is collected, of course, especially data that helps define the socioeconomic milieu within which individuals make decisions.

In Situ Observation

Note that I did not say "participant observation." 

Most ethnographic research, business or anthropological, assumes that the researcher goes on site, however "on site" is defined.  One project I did for a chemical company had me hanging onto catwalks at their Mobile, Alabama plant, while I observed the interaction between company engineers and the local crew.  Another project had me in police stations.  So "on site" can be almost anywhere.  Participating, however, is usually not done within business ethnography, unless the researcher is at a home for an extended period of time, or has specifically requested s/he be able to participate.  In all cases, though, the researcher is "in place," and that's my point.  One does not usually have the time to participate, if you will.  Most of the time you will be lucky enough to ask questions. 

In Situ observation does set the ethnography apart from other qualitative methodologies, such as the ubiquitous focus group.  As Baltimore Research states:  "...ethnography places respondents back into their natural habitat for an observational interview in which such nuances of product use and shopping experience may be more promptly acknowledged and documented by either respondent or interviewer. The interaction between interviewer and respondent in an ethnographic study is relatively intimate compared to a traditional focus group."  Very well written.  Visit their site for more information. 

Time 

Time is research money.  Most professional anthropologists / ethnologists need to make a living, so will charge what they need to charge to do so.  To set up an on-site interview, to get to the location, then to observe usually involves more time than most on-site executive one-on-one interviews, so for those buying such services, you get some idea what that charge would be. 

You usually do not have the luxury of an extended amount of time, especially for "participant observation."  For example, when thinking about studying how decisions are made about household entertainment, is half a day of observation, coupled with an interview, enough per household?  Certainly this is not a length of time that will truly uncover the “decision making habits” of a family or an individual (which is another question that always needs to be asked, and that is, what is to be the social unit of analysis).   Half a day on site will, at best, enable the researcher to engage in a show-and-tell with one or more family members.   This would clearly gain information, but it would be unclear just how filtered the information would be, and thus what social dynamics within the family and beyond are missed due to lack of observational time.   For example, where do the children in the family obtain their current "entertainment" content suggestions, if that were the topic, as well as the knowledge to integrate diverse media over which they receive the content?   Is it in the home, at school, in the video arcade?   Will the family talk openly in front of one another?   The list that argues for a longer time within the household goes on and on.  Furthermore, just how many social units of analysis does one need?  With long term observation and participation, it is impractical to observe a large number of families, given most research budgets and availability of researchers. 

Social Unit of Analysis

Even an anthropologist cannot go into a social setting without an explicit recognition as to the social unit of analysis.  Will it be the person, the household, the extended family, the entire village, the region?  What is the level of social investigation and why? 

For example, let us take the hypothetical research topic introduced above, decision making about current "entertainment" content within the family unit.  What level is appropriate here?  If the question has to do with total household entertainment consumption and how the media units (such as a TV) are apportioned, then perhaps the ethnologist needs to use the household as the unit of analysis.   There are several reasons for this:  

1. Entertainment content is delivered to the household and is thus a household resource to be used, discarded, voted upon, and so on.  
   
   
2. How an individual at home seeks out new content may be heavily influenced by how the household is structured, in terms of activities, rules, education, religious predilection, the technology available, the location of technology, the list goes on.

Of course it may turn out that how one seeks new content may be solely at the discretion of the individual user, and has little if anything to do with the influences of the social construct that is the home.   It may, for younger users, have more to do with whom is on an IM list, or how their school treats the use of broadband for communications and learning. For the working adult, it may be because of innovations brought home from the work place.   But to nominate the household does not discount the individual. 

Yet, if it is the household, how many individuals within each household must be interviewed?  Observed?  Their interactions observed?  How many households?  Of a certain type?  Whew!  Dollars!  Many dollars! 

An example of how to get out of the dilemma

There are ways to beat back the dual resource problem of time and (lack of) budget.  One such example is a landmark ethnographic study that I implemented having to do with a community and individual household adoption of innovative technology, in this case ISDN over fiber-to-the-home. This was a landmark study because these two technologies were radically new to business, let alone consumers, with very little content backing their introduction. The objective was to determine what types of uses a test community could find for the technologies, how the community and households reacted to their introduction, what lessons could be learned for future rollouts of similar technology, and what practical information could be brought back to the developers and service personnel. 

The tasks for the ethnographer were multifold:

• Enter the community and quickly gain the trust of individuals and households that were involved in the technology rollout;
• Determine the best approach for the ethnographer to utilize such that interaction with individual members in each household was acceptable (privacy issues, safety, respect);
• Provide key respondents within households the tools necessary to help with the day-to-day data gathering that would become the foundation for further questioning about:
  
  
  • the adoption of the new technologies
  • new uses that were being discovered or new content that the households hoped would be provided
  
  
• Carry out both one-on-one and community interviews.

This project took several months to complete and included interviews at the household, community, business and regulatory levels. When it was over it gave the telephony industry a wealth of data on how to successfully introduce new technologies to the home, both from a procedural perspective as well as the necessary content required to get such new services adopted.   This study was successful because of a critical component in the ethnologists’ methodological tool kit – the Key Informant.

Because there was a person within each household assigned to gather background information, the research time on-site was substantially reduced.   This enabled researchers to more quickly capture a complex social decision making process coupled with new technology adoption, all through self observation and recording, as well as the use of on-site questioning, individually and in groups.   Without the key informant, the amount of resources, both time and personnel, would have made the research impossible to accomplish. 

In Summary

We have not covered everything that needs to be covered, but it's a good start.  For now realize that:

• most business ethnographic work will be constrained by either time or budget, and usually both; 
• traditional participant observation, while still available as an ethnographic fieldwork staple, will be difficult to employ;
• on site interviews will be the data gathering staple and be well worthwhile, especially if the way is prepared by the activities of the key informant;
• group interviews can and should also be accomplished on site, with individuals who comprise the next higher order of social observation, such as the family or community, as the participants; and
• by being on site the researcher will be able to do much more questioning and observing that is contextual in nature, especially since the environment will not be as artificial as, say, a focus group facility