How has the work of ethnomethodological researchers such as Bittner and Cicourel contributed to our understanding of the ‘everyday’ practices through which organisation order is constructed and maintained?

Introduction

To begin the essay we will try to define ethnomethodology and then take a look at some ethnomethodological studies. We will then go on to compare ethnomethodology with ‘traditional’ methods of studying organisations, and reveal what is unique about ethnomethodology. Finally we will look into how ethnomethodologists have contributed to our understanding of organisation, and then conclude the essay.

Ethnomethodology was the third approach developed within the social action perspective. The other two approaches within the perspective, included negotiated order theory and strategic choice theory.

A dictionary definition of ethnomethodology implies that it is the study of communication in the language of everyday conversation. The approach was initiated by Harold Garfinkel, who implied that sociology had neglected the study of ethnomethods possessed by members of society and used by them in the ordinary construct of their social lives (Jary & Jary, 1995:258). The approach directs study to understand every day life from the actor’s point of view. It raises questions such as what does the organisation mean to its individual members and how do they (individuals) make sense of their organisational lives? The work of Garfinkel and his colleagues…

Because of the nature of ethnomethodology, that is, it is a study of communication and language, analysis is provided by individuals, through the use of interviews, conversation and dialogue.

Bittner suggests that…

Bittner’s study looked at the peace keeping practices of the police on skid row. He spent one year with police departments at two large cities, including eleven weeks on skid row. The study centres on the cop’s sense of social structure (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:282). The cops were operating in urban areas, which were separated from ‘normal’ society, unemployment, drug abuse and crime were abnormally high. The central role of the cops is that of peace keeping, however, this is undefined in official norms (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:282).

The ultimate sanction for the police is arrest or charge, these are under control of the judiciary. Such sanctions are a resource the police are very reluctant to use, and are seen as a last resort. If they are over used, the system would grind to a halt, as the police and jails would not be able to cope with the amounts of people arrested. Avoiding arrest or charge would also improve economics for the police force. How then, do the cops keep the peace in an area likely to threaten order? We will answer this question later. There are situations that require peacekeeping rather than law enforcement. Those conditions that require peacekeeping are as follows…

Zimmerman’s work is in line with that of Garfinkel and Bittner…

Zimmerman focuses his study how applicants for claims are assessed and selected as eligible or ineligible, by case workers. Initially applicant’s ‘stories’ are perceived as claims, and therefore, are not facts. ‘Stories’ only become facts when evidence is provided, by official papers, such as birth certificates, state records etc. However, ‘stories’ can become facts when they are seen to have no bearing on a persons eligibility (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:285).

The work of Cicourel, is similar to that of Zimmerman’s. Cicourel took part in a four year participant observation study of juvenile delinquency, studying official procedures for dealing with delinquency, and examining the files, reports & conversations of probation officers and police officers. Cicourel shows how probation officers account for delinquency, "in terms of ‘general’ family problems’, for example broken homes, marital strains or weak parental personalities." Researchers of delinquency, also see these factors as contributing to delinquency (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:291).

Ethnomethodology addresses factors that sociology ignores, such as the every day practices of individuals. For many ethnomethodologists, it is not just a development within sociological analysis, but an alternative to it, for example Bottomore (1975) and Burrell and Morgan (1979), (Hassard & Pym, 1990:108). Ethnomethodology contrasts with sociology, in that sociology attempts to provide a theory of organisations, whilst ethnomethodology provides a method of analysis. The work of Bittner on skid row life reveals how the police ‘work things out’ and gain knowledge of how to deal with particular circumstances. Bittner highlights that they operate a sense making or justifying device. Their most important role, that of peacekeeping, is undefined and it is left to them to use their discretion and initiative in problematic situations. The ultimate aim of the policemen is to keep the peace and limit the aggregate total of troubles, to aid this, infringements of the law are dealt with at the cops discretion. For example when dealing with traffic regulation, the police recognise that it is more important to build good relations with the public, rather than to be ‘legalistic’ in traffic control. The law is only implemented, when peace keeping cannot solve the problem. The common sense practices of the cops can also help us understand the practices of individuals in other organisations. For Bittner the actor is not a "passive functionary, but…a creative author whose competence lies in using the concept of organisation to produce rational accounts."

Ethnomethodological studies have revealed that there are underlying goings-on in organisations. On an individual level there are problems and differing expectations. Organisations are not physical, concrete well defined structures, but are socially constructed by their members. The study by Cicourel highlights this…

In other words organisations are structures based upon subjective meanings. Such studies have made us more aware of what the organisation means to its individual members. Including the underlying values and culture.

The ethnomethodologists make us aware that individual members of organisations are important actors in the forming of organisational structure and order. The actors are not just passive, they do in fact play a major role in the construction of organisational reality. Boden’s The Business of Talk (1986) goes as far as to suggest that every day talk between individuals is the primary medium of organisational reality, and organisations are in effect locally constructed through talk. The only reality that organisations possess is that which is given to them by their members. You cannot understand what the organisation is doing unless you look at what the actors are doing within the organisation. Thus the actors views must be taken seriously such as, how do the actors define and live their organisational existence?

It could be argued that conversation in today’s organisations is becoming less and less direct, with employees relying more and more on information and communication technologies. It would be interesting to study e-mail as a form of conversation. Whenever someone receives an e-mail there is a strong urge to read it and you feel obliged to reply almost instantly. If someone is sat at a computer all day e-mail cannot be ignored, therefore, it is a very powerful form of conversation. There are even cases of people claiming or accused of being addicted to e-mail! Videoconferencing is another modern form of conversation that takes place in organisations, people will react differently to images and sounds coming from a computer, compared to fact-to-face conversation.

Ethnomethodological research is unique in that it gets close to the subject matter, however, this is perhaps one of its major downfalls. It does the job well at the micro level, but this strength is its weakness. Ethnomethodology is self-restricted by being too narrow and limited to be used effectively at a macro level. However, the aim of ethnomethodology is not necessarily to explain what goes on at the macro level. It has achieved what it set out to do and that was to help us achieve a more realistic understanding of organisations on a micro level. Another problem with ethnomethodology is that it is not really an explanatory tool, rather it is a descriptive tool. It does not offer a theory to how organisations should construct and order and maintain themselves. What it does do is to encourage organisations to analyse and make sense of what is going on at an individual level. This limits its use in a practical way, for example to help managers manage organisations. On the other hand it enhances academics and managers ability to understand and study organisations.

The studies by Bittner and Cicourel are not carried out in work organisations, therefore, may be limited in trying to apply them to work organisations. However, studies carried out by Zimmerman (1971:see above) and Silverman and Jones (1976) have taken place in work organisations. Silverman and Jones studied the process of staff selection within a large organisation., "their main concern is how interviews are built around verbal/non verbal exchanges, and…how candidates…are assessed by typifications (e.g. ‘abrasive’, ‘acceptable’)" (Hassard & Pym, 1990:106). A transcript was obtained from a conversation between a ‘senior’ member of the selection board and a newcomer to the selection process. Silverman identifies how the two members use ‘talk’ to locate their position in hierarchies (Silverman in McKinlay, 1977:298), the reader of the conversation is able to develop a notion of hierarchy by understanding the conversation. Zimmerman, and Silverman and Jones take everyday actions and events, and study them to such a degree in order to make sense of what is going on at the individual level. "Instead of viewing the organisation as a structure of explicit and accepted prescriptions, they make us aware of the conflicting role orientations. They emphasise the creative nature of organisation" (Hassard and Pym, 1990:107). These studies offer an entirely different approach to understanding organisations and their members.

Cicourel’s study suggests that the assembling of statistics and files are an important feature of organisations (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:291). In fact they produce organisations! Impressions are formed, they then become authoritative accounts, and in effect organisation history is continually in the making. For the ethnomethodologists, accounts explain the rationality behind the decision making process. Their work implies that people use common sense in dealing with activities. They are not rule bound, therefore, they question what they are doing as opposed to being a part of an unquestioning bureaucracy.

Ethnomethodology is useful for discovering underlying problems of organisations, a good example of this would be studying recruitment. Close analysis of interviews and assessment could reveal bias and prejudices held by the selection board. If prejudices could be identified, they could then possibly be irradiated or avoided, this could benefit the organisation as the right applicant, which otherwise may have not have been selected, could be chosen.

The ethnomethodologists realised a need to move from conventional and formal organisation analysis towards a more micro and informal level of focus.

Bittner, Cicourel, Zimmerman, and Silverman and Jones suggested that we should examine the sense of organisation structure in which actors operate, and interpret the actions of actors. They have helped us to understand that there is more going on, in the every day practices of organisations, than meets the eye. Individuals are active agents, which think and act depending on the situation. Such actions construct organisation, and they can become the organisations history and future at the same time. By using ethnomethodological techniques to study organisations, researchers can understand what people are doing, by accounting for their actions.

As an approach to understanding everyday organisational practices, ethnomethodology is useful for looking into why individuals do what they do and reasons for their actions. But this detailed and enlightening "single minded focus" (Reed, 1985:56) on the actors within organisations, is ehtnomethodologies biggest downfall. What allows it to be intricate and detailed also limits its scope to be used on a more macro level. As mentioned earlier some ethnomethodologists suggested it as an alternative to mainstream sociology and organisation studies. However, in order to understand organisations on a wider level, it is important to use this technique in conjunction with other methods of organisation studies.

The ethnomethodologists’ provide a new way of studying which have helped us understand everyday practices through which organisation order is constructed and maintained. However, a move away from more ‘traditional’ sociology and organisation studies, is not called for, it would be detrimental to suggest that mainstream organisation studies such as systems theory are ‘wrong’, or ‘unrealistic’ (Silverman, in McKinlay, 1975:300). Ethnomethodological researchers have contributed to how organisation order is constructed and maintained, however, like any other form of study it should be taken on with caution. To use ethnomethodology to study organisations on a macro level would just not work. Ethnomethodology has improved our understanding of everyday practices, but ultimately it needs to be used in conjunction with other organisation theories to reap the greatest benefit.