Innovative PhD dissertations at Harvard use ethnographic methods to understand organizational culture

Three innovative PhD dissertations have been published at the Harvard Business School’s Doctoral Program on Organizational Behavior that use ethnography and qualitative research to understand and map organizational culture: Curtis K. Chan Chan’s research examines how organizational culture can be double-edged-that is, how a strategic, intentional use of an organizational cultural resource can have both intended and unintended effects. In a two-year ethnographic study of consultants at a strategy consultancy, incorporating interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis, he induces a process model that shows how the ambiguity of a cultural expression can allow it to be double-edged.