So far in this chapter I have introduced my own professional background; I have unfolded my epistemic stance and I have outlined how I have engaged with the empirical subject of my dissertation. In the remained of this chapter I will, on the basis of my epistemic stance and the methods I have applied, discuss the most important methodological considerations related to doing ethnographic field work, including, but not limited to, the role of the researcher.
Observing the Unobservable
When conducting ethnographic field studies of globally dispersed teams a fundamental challenge relating to the observations occur: Given the nature of the collaboration a large part of the communication between the dispersed parties is difficult, if not impossible, to observe. While it is indeed possible to observe video meetings and phone conferences by being present at one of the locations (and thus missing out on what happens outside the reach of the technology used, such as conversations with the phone muted) and also possible to observe physical meetings, the same cannot be said about one-on-one phone conversations, emails and instant messaging. That is, a large proportion of what defines the collaboration as globally distributed is by and large unobservable.
During recent years there has been attempts to conduct virtual ethnography (Randall et al., 2007) where the “screen life” of the actors is being recorded and subsequently analyzed. I have not engaged in such a practice for a number of reasons: First, it requires a technological setup, which, I assessed, would not be accepted by the IT-security departments in the two organizations I have been engaging with. Additionally, I speculate that if they would accept it, it would take a lot of time and effort to
negotiate this access, which would take time away from other relevant observation studies and probably impose a delay on the start of my ethnographic field studies.
Second, I am of the conviction that virtual ethnography with regards to the privacy of the actors and their level of comfort differs significantly from ordinary participant observation; as everything they do on their computers will be documented. This stands in stark contrast to the type of participant observation I have been engaged with as I, as a human observer, can document using my own vocabulary – in text or speech – and thus the documentation will always be a matter of interpretation and with limited possibility to revisit what actually happened. This, I argue is significantly different than participant observation where I would for instance videotape the room I am observing. In my opinion this distinction is important and resembles the commonly discussed topic of CCTV, where there is a vast group arguing against the use of such technologies, arguing it is surveillance. Placing a police officer at the same spot on the other hand is not regarded as surveillance, but rather framed positively, as protection.
Third, and most importantly, I argue that the incompleteness that follows the lack of ability (and wish) to follow all the digital traces of the actors, is in fact much similar to ordinary co-located observation studies, insofar actors in a co-located environment, also talk on the phone, use instant messages and emails with co-located colleagues, and engage in discussions outside the physical reach of the participant observer eyes and ears. In such cases, I suspect that no one would advise that the participant observer takes measures to vade in on such communication!
While I argue that there are able reasons for not engaging in virtual ethnography this, however, does not reject that it is indeed a challenge: Virtual communication is paramount in distributed teams and if one is not about to engage in virtual ethnography one has to obtain an understanding of such communication in a different way. What I have done is to make elaborate field notes of what is being talked about and how the actor’s behave (i.e. do they show frustration, aggression, seem relaxed etc.) when
talking on the phone within the reach of my ears and eyes. Furthermore, I have made it significant themes in both interviews and through informal conversations to gain an understanding of the actor’s use of technology. By and large their use of technology is quite simple: The vast majority of communicative tasks are done through phone meetings (which I have observed in significant amounts); via email or through the use of standard reporting tools. That is, only very few actors engage in instant messaging and phone conversations with their counterpart in the other organizations. Thus, the benefit of actually engaging in virtual ethnography would quite possibly be low and not justify the amount of preparation, negotiation, technological implementation and the possible risk of being conceived of as surveillance. In the analytical part of this dissertation I will get back to the use of technology in much greater detail.
The Emergence of Themes: Asking about Trust – without Asking about Trust
Although I adhere to a hermeneutical epistemological stance and thus reject the idea most predominant within grounded theory that researchers should discover (Strauss &
Corbin, 1998) empirical phenomena and subsequently theorize without a pre-defined theoretical perspective, as I do not believe that this is at all possible, I do agree with grounded theorists to a certain extent in that the researcher should make a substantial effort in avoiding that a personal, professional and academic interest is imposed upon the actors in the field, as there is a risk that this forced agenda is given more attention than it maybe deserves. That is, if I as a researcher approach the actors in the field with a clearly defined agenda of researching trust and trustworthiness, there is a chance that they overemphasize the relevance of trust to accommodate me.
From the outset of my fieldwork this challenge has been at the top of my mind and as a consequence I chose to deliberately describe my research interests towards the actors in a very broad way. That is, though my primary interest is to study trust and trustworthiness I have made a point of not directly asking about trust during interviews
and informal conversations, in order not to force an agenda of trust onto the interviewees. In some cases the actors themselves have started to talk about trust when asked about for instance the collaboration and the relationships, and I have used these opportunities to explore the topic deeper. Also, inspired by Meyer et al. (1995) I have enquired about the antecedents to trust – ability, integrity and benevolence – and asked actors to elaborate on their assessments of these three constructs during both interviews and informal conversations.
During the time where I did participant observation four sub-themes emerged and became important aspects of my dissertation. These four sub-themes, which I devote each a chapter to, were not based on pre-determined theoretical interests from my part, but are to a certain extent guided by my practice experience within the IT-outsourcing industry and to a certain extent guided by what I – in lack of better words – would call
“obvious subjects”. First, distance is an inherent feature in cross-locational collaboration by definition and thus the topic of “what technologies to use and how” is in a sense natural. Second, control is tightly coupled to trust. Thus, the topic of control was in my mind at a very early stage, but ended up being overwhelmingly more significant than I had first imagined. Third, culture was something that the client-side actors repeatedly brought to the table. Throughout the first months of participant observation I was repeatedly confronted with the client-side actors’ perception about the role of culture – that is, national culture – and therefore, this became one of the dissertation’s central themes. Fourth, boundary spanning was a theoretical theme that I was convinced from the outset would become central, but also a theme which the actor’s themselves, without me prompting for it, addressed repeatedly. Due to the organizational setup of the collaboration, including hierarchies, processes and governance structures I also regard boundary spanning a “obvious subject” alongside use of technology as the actors – due to the organizational setup – experience that the collaboration happens through these boundary spanners.
Striking a Balance between ‘Remaining Neutral’ and ‘Giving Back’?
The researchers neutrality has been a reoccurring theme throughout my fieldwork, where I, on several occasions have experienced how difficult it is to remain neutral, while at the same time being open to giving something back to the actors, who are investing their time in talking to me. When I worked on “closing the deal” with HCL and Berlingske Media I assessed that emphasizing my background within the IT-outsourcing industry would contribute positively to their willingness to allow me to conduct an ethnographic study in the respective companies. I succeeded in obtaining the access I wanted and I believe that my industry background has helped me gain initial confidence at the managerial level in both organizations and that this has opened up doors for me that would otherwise have been difficult, or maybe even impossible, to crack open. But it was indeed at a cost. For example, before a conference call with a handful of HCL account managers, which was arranged in order to help me get access to their clients, the Managing Director of HCL in Denmark wrote this to the account managers: “The research will help us immensely in optimizing our delivery approach with Danish clients (…) if we can make sure Thomas gets access to the information he needs”. A similar line of reasoning was expressed by the senior management at Berlingske Media, who clearly expected that I would not “only” contribute with a research project, but also with practical insights that would be immediately usable. For instance, at one point in time the Director of IT-operations at Berlingske Media told me that he would like my input on re-designing the governance of the outsourcing engagement – something that was clearly out of scope, seen from the perspective of my doctoral research, which I explained to him and he accepted.
Early in my observation studies two incidents prompted my attention towards the challenge of remaining neutral: First, I attended a meeting at the client-side office with participation from the client organization only. The agenda was do discuss how certain administrative processes could be made more efficient. In the middle of the meeting
another client-side actor enters the meeting room to convey that there were significant problems with the DNS, which, in this instance meant that no one could access their email. This was the second time this problem occurred (first time with significantly more severe consequences, which I will get back to in the analytical part of the dissertation) and allegedly caused by a human error, from the same person who caused the first instance of the problem. The focus of the meeting participants changed completely: The right people were in the room and this was an urgent matter – I stuck around to see the intensity grow. Half an out later the problem was sorted out and operations were back to normal. During this half hour the actors had repeatedly been on the phone with the vendor-side actors at the OMC to solve the problem. Finally, they could relax. One of them asks with a very tired voice “How the hell can he make that mistake twice” (Field Notes 20130213). Then he looks up and around the room.
No one says anything. Finally, he looks at me and I can’t help myself cracking a joke:
“At least he is consistent” (ibid.), I said. Everybody in the room laughed and while I think that this remark contributed positively to my acceptance in the group and helped grow confidence, it was hardly a suitable comment to make by someone who is their to observe participants in a neutral fashion.
The second incident occurred a few weeks later, where one of the vendor-side actors asked me curiously: “Are you their guy or ours”(Field Notes 20130226). While I assess that the question was not posed because the actor felt uncomfortable in any way, it still made me think a lot about how I should position myself when engaging with the empirical actors. Together, these two incidents made it crystal clear to me that it required a conscious effort to remain neutral, both in terms of refraining from comments like the one above, but also but repeatedly making sure that the actors were aware that I was “no one’s guy”, but rather a researcher pre-occupied with understanding their practice as it unfolds, rather than making value judgments about
what works well, what does not, who is right and who is not. Throughout the remained of my field research I have repeatedly mentioned this to the actors.
Remaining neutral is indeed not easy, especially not in situations, where I have felt that I could contribute to the benefit of not just one party, but to the benefit of the outsourcing engagement. I have done my best to refrain from interfering, but nevertheless found it appropriate on some occasions. One of these occasions was when I accompanied the client-side delegation during their visit at the OMC in Chennai, India. The Ganesh Chaturthi Festival – arguably, the most important Hindu festival in South India – coincided with the visit at the OMC and the vendor-side management had invited the client-side delegation to accompany them to one of the sites for the celebration of this festival. As these sites are extremely crowded during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival the client-side delegation had been advised to leave their belongings in the car. After attending the festivities one of the client-side actors went with one of the vendor-side manager to a mall, where she ended up buying a quite expensive saree, which is a traditional Indian dress. Incidentally, she had moved to the other car to go to the mall, but had forgotten her wallet in the first car and the vendor-side manager offered to pay the saree, which she accepted. The following day she had withdrawn money to pay back, what she had perceived as a loan, but the vendor-side manager refused to take the money and told her that it was his pleasure buying her the saree.
Later that evening I accompanied the client-side delegation for dinner and during that dinner she told her colleagues what had happened. She clearly felt bad about the situation and mentioned several times that she felt bad that he paid for the saree, especially because she speculated that it was a very expensive gift relative to his income. I followed the discussion for a while without saying anything, but it was clear to me that she really felt bad about the situation. Finally, I decided to remedy the situation and I told her, based on my own past experiences working with Indian IT-vendors, that I was convinced that his employer would reimburse him for the saree and
that such gifts are customary. That seemed to ease her mind. But while such an intervention on one side can be regarded as a nice gesture towards her it is arguably also an interference, which affects the interplay between the actors. By interfering I had changed a situation where the client-side actor felt gratitude, bad conscience and perhaps a feeling of “owing him one” by exposing that this is customary and arguably a highly calculative gesture. I had interfered – but given that she felt really bad about the situation, I felt I some sort of moral obligation to do so. In this case the moral obligation towards another person, outweighed the moral obligation to remain neutral.
Was it the right choice? I do not know!
Another occasion where remaining neutral has been a dilemma occurred first on February 26th 2013 approximately three weeks after I initiated my observation studies.
Throughout my fieldwork I have repeatedly been in similar situations. Thus, this situation is just one example of challenge I have had numerous times. On that particular day an excerpt of my field notes read:
After the meeting [the client-side service manager] asked me what I would do in the particular situation. He enquired about two things: One example is that [the vendor-side change manager] is not clearing up changes in remedy [which is the system that is used for handling incidents and changes to the IT-infrastructure], which means that changes that has been accepted still “hang” in the system. [The client-side service manager] has asked [the vendor-side change manager] repeatedly, he said. One time he asked [the vendor-side change manager] to clear it up and gave five examples. Result was that [the vendor-side change manager] got rid of the five, but nothing else. The other subject we discussed was that [the client-side service manager] does not think that [the vendor-side change manager] is preparing the change meetings well enough. All the stuff that the change manager is supposed to do with regards to making sure that there is an impact analysis and that standard information is provided is not done, according to [the client-side service manager] []
What [the client-side service manager] asked me [after the call had ended, but while we were still in the meeting room with other meeting participants] was this:
“Thomas, I assume that you know something about this. How do I cope with him?
How do I make him understand what he has to do?” I was a bit surprised about his question, as he had not approached me like this before. And I did not want to give a too in-depth and concrete answer, in order to keep a distance, to avoid
“doing consulting”. I explained that based on my experience getting offshore consultants to be proactive is often difficult, as they are not trained that way;
many are used to following orders and that’s it. Both [the vendor-side Danish service manager] and [the client-side service manager] found this to be a good word: ‘Proactive’. I suggested that instead of writing emails with specific items that should be removed he should instead take steps to implement a process that put’s it clear that it is [the vendor-side change manager’s] job and that he would be measured on it, for instance by measuring process adherence once a week.
They both found this to be a good idea and agreed that [the vendor-side Danish service manager] would be in charge of implement such a process.
With regards to the other problem – the perception that [the vendor-side change manager] does not prepare well before the meetings – I suggested that it may be because he is not aware that it her job and what they expect of him; or that it may be because he does not have the legitimacy among the technicians to tell them that they need to make impact analysis and so on. [The client-side service manager] said that it is a “standard ITIL thing”. He is very much using a rationalistic approach (“read the ITIL framework and you know it’s your job”) and my explanation about legitimacy seemed to be wasted on him. (Field Notes 20130226)
The above excerpts serves as an example of a situation I have been in numerous times
The above excerpts serves as an example of a situation I have been in numerous times