Retelling Tales of the Field: In Search of Organizational Ethnography 20 Years On

The special issue arose from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference, held at the University of New Mexico, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of John Van Maanen’s (1988) book Tales of the Field. The theme of the conference, Telling Tales, reflected two of the core issues in the book—the need to think about the ways in which we carry out (our methods) and write up ethnographic work. This introductory paper sets the scene for the four papers to follow by giving an overview of ethnography: what ethnographic work entails, a brief history, issues to consider when doing ethnography, and offers a range of references for potential ethnographers. In addition, it introduces the four authors and situates their ‘‘tales’’ within the broader ethnographic context.