My colleague and I presented at the 7^th Interdisciplinary Market Studies Workshop, 1-2 June 2023, University of Edinburgh, UK.

Paper title: Product innovation, politics and new imaginaries in the Japanese Pornographic market

My colleagues and I convened the panel and presented at the 15^th Annual Ethnography Symposium, 24 to 26 August 2022, University of Suffolk, UK.

Negotiating the ‘in-between’ within ethnographic fieldwork

This panel discusses the ethnographer’s identity negotiation process during long-term fieldwork illustrating how they shift ‘in-between’ their multiple identities. Based on reflexive accounts of ethnographers who have conducted fieldwork in diverse sites: United States (Yagi), United Kingdom (Suttill), Indonesia (Shimoda) and Hong Kong (Zhu), the aim is to demonstrate how identities are negotiated in relation to the researcher-respondent relationship, which is the basis of effective ethnographic work (Jansson and Nikolaidou 2013). Many studies have discussed the importance of the researcher’s role on data collection (Breen 2007), tactics for rapport building with respondents (Mahoney, 2007), identity politics of difference (Giampapa, 2011) and power dynamics between researcher and participants (Nelson 2020). However, studies on researcher-respondent relationships from the perspectives of how they influence each other, and the complexity of these relationships, are rare within the organisation and management studies literature (Cunliffe & Karunanayake 2013, p. 366). By demonstrating, comparing and contrasting the reflections of ethnographers, we aim to go beyond a specific field site to explore holistically our understanding of researcher identity negotiation and illustrate the factors which influence the identity work of researchers in ethnographic fieldwork.

I presented at the 38^th EGOS Colloquium, 7 to 9 July, 2022, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

Culture change in a globalizing company:

Organization as a political arena for ideology dissemination

This paper is currently under peer review process.

My colleague and I presented at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 2021, 13 to 14 July, online

Beyond the essentialist paradigm of culture: Comparing the role of national culture on management policies and practices in China and Japan

This study focuses on key cross-cultural issues faced by organisations when designing and implementing management policies and practices in China and Japan. The aim of this secondary study is two-fold. The first is to review and compare the Chinese and Japanese national culture values and norms discussed in the management studies, and the second is to examine the role of national culture in managing employees in the context of East Asia. Many studies on the role of national culture tend to compare two cultures with relatively larger differences based on the framework represented by the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, such as United States with Japan or China. Japan and China have long history of cultural exchange in between them (Vyas 2020), but a few studies systematically compared the role of national culture on management. The position of Asia has emerged as a critical aspect of the global/local context along with the increasing flow of globalization within Asia. Based on the examination of Chinese and Japanese culture and their managerial practices, this study echoes what Chen (2010) called as ‘Asia as method’ and to interpret the role of national culture from East Asian perspective to illustrate the transnational culture in business.

This paper also attempts to address Nathan’s (2010) call of non-essentialist approach on culture studies by acknowledging the importance of exploring and respecting local culture when developing sustainable organisation strategies. Various scholars have criticized the oversimplification of the notion of culture portrayed in essentialist management studies and pointed out the importance of using interpretivist and non-essentialist perspective based on long-term observation and in-depth interview on studying culture (see Nakamaki et al. 2016; Moeran 2021). Moreover, the theoretical framework of structure and agency is also adopted to reinforce the consideration of employees as agents when analysing the influence of national culture on management policies and practices, as employees who implementing and practising the policies and practices can also be significant actors in interpreting and shaping them simultaneously.