ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

The Ethnographic research is based on analyzing the life style of a group of people, therefore it includes external and internal perspectives, which are useful to find behaviours and perspectives within the analyzed group. It is important to establish what they use, what they say and also what they do. But I will go ahead and add, also, a fourth pattern to be analyzed, which is, what they think, in terms of their precognitions and beliefs.

When analyzing a group of people, it is important to know what purpose it serves, or who makes the research, his intentions and his motives to fulfil the research. There is a big law about it and it is: “Neither too broad nor too narrow”, which means that the focus should be, adjusted to the necessity of its researcher and the permission the researched one gives.

By basic approach, the research must be free of judgmental perspective, which means, that prejudices should be put aside when encountering the topic. There are two main perspectives to be dealt with in this research: Emic, which are the intrinsic cultural distinctions that are meaningful to the members of a given society; and Etic, or the extrinsic concepts and categories that have meaning for scientific observers.

The application of the Ethnographic research is important in the field of social sciences. And shall we also establish that Ethnographic research is not a method but a Market research approach with many techniques used among.

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Ethnography, Class presentation, http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/

Ethnographic research is important for big companies to think ahead when entering a new business environment. For example in this picture we can see how Pizza hut researchers plan their field of work in a crowed Asian pacific typical city.

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/pizzahut.jpg



Never to be forgotten, by means of this picture, that we are over six billion others in this world and Ethnographic research should immerse itself in the cultures of every group of people analyzed to produce a clear and a diverse result regarding our differences.

http://designthinking.ideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/6-billion-others.jpg



A SYNTHESIS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

In this article, written by MICHAEL GENZUK, PH.D., of University of Southern California Centre for Multilingual, Multicultural Research, basically it is exposed Ethnography as a Social science research method. This relies strongly on very near personal experience and participation, making ethnographic researchers artist in the field of multiculturalism. Also, they must become part of the field they are studying and focusing on. Sometimes, even, learning the language of the group studied to be able to interpretate truly its behavioural aspects.

Common ethnographic research possesses three ways of collecting data: interviews, observation, and documents. Which produces: quotations, descriptions, and excerpts of documents, which, therefore results in one big result: Narrative description.

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A synthesis of ethnographic research, Michael Genzuk, Ph.D., University of southern California centre for multilingual, multicultural research.

QUESTION

Find and explain in your blog 2 examples of how ethnographic research can be used for international business.

1. Ethnographic research could have properly been used when Mac Donald´s entered India´s Market, and had to cut back on their beef products and replace them with some kind of innovating substitutes.



http://passportforthesoul.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/mcdonalds-india1.jpg

As the majority of the world knows, Indians consider cows to be sacred, and Mac Donald´s had to change its products to non beef made ones.



http://cwlor.com/images/photos/07/MaharajaMac.jpg

Therefore they have adapted the organizational scope to products that suit the Indian market without hurting its beliefs. This was done through basic Ethnographic research.

2. Another example could be when an International negotiator learns another language to be ready to travel to that country or region and immerse himself into that culture; this will grant him the opportunity of doing Intelligence market research easily and more effectively in order to encounter what people want in that market, and what shall be successful.

USEFUL LINKS

http://books.google.com/books?id=-QNKT0RJO8kC&dq=ethnographic+research&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=wEGdS_KwE8P58Abt0sGrDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CCkQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=ethnographic%20research&f=false

In this link, we can find a book about Ethnographic research, from the author Stephen L Schensul.

http://www.ethnographicresearch.com/

In this link, we can find an enterprise that offers Ethnographic research along with a diverse group of sociologists and anthropologists.