Researching Organisations in Transition Economies: Ethics of Fieldwork. SAGE Research Methods Video: Research Ethics & Integrity

This video offers a reflective account on the fieldwork experience and ethical dilemmas I encountered in case study research investigating enterprise restructuring and workplace relations in the Former Soviet Union. I will draw out problems and solutions to ethnography in a post socialist context and identify recommendations for research practice. To begin with, I will consider explain the research objectives directed at investigating organisational change, management practices and labour process in post-socialist enterprises. The general aim was to develop a critique of institutionalist and managerialist views of soviet and post-soviet organisation, which dominated and are still prevalent in western literature. Choice of ethnographic methods will follow, including participant and non-participant observation, interviewing with workers managers and local analysts. The body of the video will focus on detailed cases of fieldwork dilemmas and tactics developed to overcome them. This account of methods will not follow a standard textbook sequence because it arises from real-life experience and aims at practical advice