Suchergebnisse

In this case, I describe and discuss methodological decisions made during my research for my PhD dissertation on professionalization and bureaucratization of nongovernmental organizations. With the aim of studying which factors promote or inhibit structural isomorphism, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in five organizations. In this case, I reflect on the ethical and practical problems that I faced. I then provide a list of practical recommendations and solutions to overcome obstacles that organizational ethnographers frequently find in their research. These obstacles have to do with selecting a research topic, selecting case studies, designing a flexible research plan, elaborating a contingency plan, negotiating with gatekeepers, accessing organizations through the ?back door, defining the role of the ethnographer in the studied organization, and preserving informant? confidentiality.

The 2008 economic and political crisis produced a favourable opportunity structure for the emergence of new and innovative left-wing political projects and trade union strategies in Spain, especially in relation to remunicipalisation processes that sought to revert the neoliberal policy making at the local scale. The article deploys a Gramscian analysis on trade union discourse production in order to discern complex process of working-class formation and intra-class conflict in the beach cleaning units of the Andalusian city of Cádiz. Crucially, the oppositional stand defended by one of the largest trade unions in Spain towards remunicipalisation shows that trade unions can act as 'retaining walls' against political change in periods of social upheaval.