Abstract
Outside conversation analysis, the largest programme of empirical enquiry conducted by ethnomethodologists has looked at work practices using ethnographic methods. This area of research has particularly thrived in Britain, partly because it has been funded by technology companies, and supported in computer science departments. In this review, I will discuss the central argument advanced by this collection, which tends to be dismissed both by sociologists and those influenced by sociology in related fields, including organisation studies. I will then look critically at the empirical findings, suggesting that while ethnomethodology is equipped to address any and every aspect of work, in practice, it tends to neglect certain phenomena.
To give a flavour of a complex theoretical argument, the metaphor used in the first chapter by Dave Randall and Wes Sharrock to explain the approach is that conventional sociology is like a movie critic, seeking to reveal something hidden using a standard set of themes, whereas ethnomethodology looks at how the film was actually made. John Hughes and others argue, in relation to ‘power’ in Chapter 8, that ‘sociology is primarily concerned with conceptual wrangles in which, say, a Foucauldian rendition over a Marxist one, becomes the primary purpose of enquiry’ (p. 149). In contrast, ethnomethodologists recognise that these ‘conceptual games’ have no bearings on actual ‘political realities’.
In the conclusion, Graham Button and Sharrock argue that ‘ethnomethodology has no interest in meaning’, at least in the same way as interpretive sociologies or cognitivists, since ‘the recognisability of a social action is tied to the action in the first place’ (p. 212). Approaches in information systems and organisation studies that seem similar in ‘attending to the details of the activities they describe or record’ are problematic because they add an unnecessary theoretical scaffolding. To return to the metaphor, when the critics ask, ‘what is it to do engineering – or any other form of work really’ (my italics), they are like movie critics. Ethnomethodology objects to this kind of theorising. Instead, when studying engineers, it asks, ‘what do they recognise as the real, the abiding, the inexorable, the stubborn, the irreducible practical requirements of doing engineering?’ (p. 225).
Randall and Sharrock note that ‘there is a strong argument to be made for the value of this kind of research’, which ‘has already been demonstrated in a number of organisational and technological contexts’ (p. 18). This claim is problematic, given that other methodologies are seen as equally useful when, for example, designing new technologies. The studies reported do, however, reveal many aspects of what happens at work that are unavailable or concealed in the sociology of work and organisations. They include descriptions of how workflow and a division of labour is managed in a print shop, an engineering company and a steel works company, making decisions on profit and loss in the catering industry, managing customers in a bank and using a variety of documents. In many cases, transcripts are supplied that show people getting through work tasks. But unlike in conversation analysis, the focus is not on the language, or sequential organisation of activities, but the practical circumstances of the work.
Care is needed in complaining about what is missing, partly because no approach should be expected to do everything. One criticism is that these researchers seem to have little interest in conflicts, differences in professional judgement, office politics or personalities (the catering study is a partial exception). In some cases, it feels like looking at work from a distance, perhaps even in a similar way to conversation analysis, in that there is not sufficient ethnographic context. There is also little interest in responses to organisational change, even though this is discussed in meetings, as well as in corridors and by photocopiers, and informally outside work. To give an example, a recent study about leadership in further education (FE) colleges (Iszatt-White et al., 2011) mostly accepts the value of managerial work, whereas there is an alternative view in most workplaces. Since this ethnomethodological programme is funded by technologists and managers, and they have influenced the research questions, this collection does not exhaust the naturalistic study of work.