Coming “home” to do glocal engaged scholarship? A reflexive account of managing competing commitments during an organizational ethnography

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the author’s status as an international academic wanting to maintain “local” research relationships in the author’s country of origin both improved and derailed the process of conducting an organizational ethnography. Design/methodology/approach Using visual representations of the research design process inspired by Maxwell’s (2013) model, the paper traces the evolution of a glocal engaged scholarship project and the personal, professional, and commitments that pulled the researcher and the research project in competing directions. Findings The first iteration of the project showed that, despite geographical nomadism, the author was firmly anchored to professional norms and methodological choices, with these attachments to values, principles, and practices constituting a global academic “home.” As the project unfolded, local organizational needs and desires that called into question the researcher’s local organizational knowledge and methodological choices destabilized the author’s sense of home, creating a situation of “away-ness” that acted as a catalyst for reflexivity about the project and relationships with organizational partners. Originality/value By overturning a view of home as being rooted in a particular locale and homelessness as being nomadic, this confessional tale problematizes the idea that some organizational ethnographers and projects are local while others are foreign.