Management and Organizational Studies 3420F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Ethnography, User-Generated Content, Mobile Phone

• School: Western University
• Department: Management and Organizational Studies
• Course: Management and Organizational Studies 3420F/G
• Professor: Bonnie Simpson

Document Summary

A systematic process of recording patterns of occurrences or behaviours without normally communicating with the people involved. Conditions for observation: needed information must be observable or inferable, behaviour must be repetitive, frequent, or predictable, behaviour must of relatively short duration. Researchers at harvard studying the relationship between productivity and work environment. Key finding: individuals may change their behaviour due to the attention they are receiving from the experiment, rather than because of any manipulation of independent variables. Recent research downplays strength of relationship, but still important consideration. Note: if ppl know theyre being watched theres going to be a change in behaviour. First hand info without much bias relative to others. Answers from people that might not be able or willing to answer (kids) Can only examine behaviour and physical characteristics (no motives, attitudes, feelings: can make inferences, but we don"t know why. What you do now isn"t always an indicator of future behaviour.