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.   

My colleague and I have presented our on-going research on ethnographer identity at Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS) 2021.

Negotiation of researcher identity within ethnographic fieldwork: A reflexive account of identity work 

This paper looks at the negotiation of identities within ethnographic fieldwork, in relation to how researchers identify themselves, interpret their relationship with the respondents and manage their fluid position within the field. It explores the changes of self researchers can undergo during research as they conduct individual ‘identity work’ to gain acceptance and attempt to become an ‘insider’ within the organisations they are researching. The paper examines researcher’s multiple identities, the way these can differentiate and distance them from their respondents, and the manipulation of spatial practices they undertake in their identity work as they attempt to (re)position themselves within the research site.

I am delighted to present my on-going research with my research collaborator, Dr. Yu Fu at Lancaster University China Centre (LUCC).

You can see the event page at LUCC here and Youtube video here.

Toward a non-essentialist paradigm of culture: A study of Chinese and Japanese management culture

Speaker: Yu Fu and Zoe Zhu, Lancaster University Management School

Place: Online via Teams, co-hosted with the Lancaster University Confucius Institute

Time: May 25, 2021 11am-12pm (UK time)

This study reviews and compares the Chinese and Japanese national culture values and norms discussed in the management studies to illustrate the importance of non-essentialist paradigm of culture facing the key cross-cultural issues faced by organisations when designing and implementing management policies and practices in East Asia. This paper addresses Nathan’s (2010) call of non-essentialist approach on culture studies by acknowledging the importance of exploring and respecting local culture when developing organisation strategies. A comparative review on the notions in the Confucianism shows the limitation of essentialist scholars who used the functionalist approach on culture. The simplification of culture based on functional and essentialist perspective and the lack of interpretive and non-essentialist analysis on the core of its management culture will result in confusing the corporate ideology (what the company say they do) with the reality (what they actually do). Only through an analysis of the continuity, change, and context of a company, we can better understand the culture behind the mask. Thus, the authors contend that the development of national cultural values and norms and their impact of management policies and practices in Japan and China, needs to be investigated in a dynamic context through a long-term view.

Speaker bios: Yu Fu is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Management School, Lancaster University. She delivers lectures in the areas of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour. Her research interest lies in international HRM, particularly national cultural factors in employment. The main focus of her research is to investigate the impact of Chinese cultural values on the Western Transnational Corporations’ HR policies and practices in their Chinese subsidiaries.

Zoe Zhu is an International Teaching Fellow in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Management School, Lancaster University. She teaches management and marketing in the China campus as well as the Bailrigg campus. As an ethnographer, she is interested in corporate culture in the era of globalization, in particular in the formation, dissemination and interpretation of corporate ideology at Japanese company in East Asia.

先日、エスノグラフィの仲間と共に、パーカーズの「世界はグレーからグリーンへ」ライブ配信のゲストとして、参加させていただきました。

#4　文化人類学のエスノグラファーと、人類の「場」と「創造」について考える

今回は、「エスノグラフィー（エスノ＝民族、グラフィー＝〜を書いたもの）」について説明したのち、ビジネスにおけるエスノグラフィの活用やオンライン・オフラインの場づくりについて話をさせていただきました。

「マネージャーは誰しもがエスノグラファーであるべき」以前、MBAでビオジネスマンに人類学的な思考法を教えていた教授と話をしたとき、実際マネージャーとエスノグラファーに共通点は多くある、という議論をした記憶があります。簡単に言えば、自分の物差しで上司や部下をはかるのではなく、相手を日ごろから観察し、客観的に周囲を見渡しながら、俯瞰的かつ具体的に考えましょう、ということです。

当り前のように聞こえますが、実際実行するのが難しいんですね。これらを完璧に毎日行うことが目的ではなく、自分とは違う人がいるということを認識し、違う意見を持つ人と出会ったとき、うまく釣り合わない同僚に会ったとき、冷静客観的に考えられる思考法が必要ということで、エスノグラフィ的な思考法をお勧めしたいと思います。

以下をクリックすると、当日の動画にアクセスできます（YouTubeにて無料配信）：

好評につき、第2弾開催します！

ゼロから始めるビジネス・エスノグラフィ　〜フィールドワークとインタビュー〜

参加登録はこちらから。

参加登録はこちらから

I am going to be a discussant for an upcoming event entitled Anthropology and/or Practitioner? Plural ontologies in the worlds of Mindfulness and Coaching scheduled on July 15, 14:00-17:30 at Sophia University (Yotsuya Campus).

Download poster here.

Access the link of the organizer here.

I organized a panel entitled “Identity Construction and Management: Implication from Asia” and plan to present a paper “Doing Ethnography in Business: Identity Manipulation and its Implications” at the 8th International Conference on Business Anthropology (June 6-8).

Doing Ethnography in Business:

Identity Manipulation and its Implications

Yi Zhu

 This presentation is an autoethnography of my experiences conducting participant observation in a business organization aiming to examine an ethnographer’s manipulations of identity in the field, its connection to the meaning of Hong Kong society, and its implications on actual business. This presentation analyzes, from the lens of the presenter who was born in Mainland China and educated both in Mainland China and Japan, the process of identity manipulation based on one-and-a-half years of fieldwork in a Japanese multinational retailer in Hong Kong. During my participation in the retail shops as full-time intern, I assumed multiple identities related to nationality, ethnicity and social class, and sometimes I felt necessity to manipulate these identities aiming to build up trustful relationship to get data I needed.

First, I avoided actively promoting my nationality as Mainland Chinese to local employees because I was aware some of them had anti-Mainland sentiment. Data I collected through fieldwork as well as online social network communication showed a glance of the complex identity politics in Hong Kong after the handover. Second, some of my behaviors have confused local employees to identify my ethnic identity. Being educated in Japan for primary school and higher education, some of my behaviors, such as the way of speech and make-ups, inherited various cultural traits from Japan, and this made local employees to identify me as Japanese. On the other hand, since I am also capable of speaking fluent Mandarin with Southern accent, some would identify me as Taiwanese. In some occasions, I tried to strengthen their identification by emphasizing the image they have as Japanese or Taiwanese. Third, I change my social class according to whom I am talking to. Sharing my stories being a post-graduate student at one of the prestige universities in Hong Kong allows me to become friends with management trainees who felt privileged in the company by possessing university degrees. In a meanwhile, when communicating with high school graduates and associate degree students who had grudge against management trainees for feeling inferior, I intended to show I am in fact non-privileged.

This presentation shows the process of identity manipulation and implies that ethnographers sometimes might have to manipulate their identities according to the unique context of the field or to be neutral to avoid workplace politics. Researchers may also need to make good use of their identities as academic fieldworkers to proactively pursue their needs for better research outcomes. This case has several implications for training ethnographers in business. First, an ethnographer needs to be a silent listener. An ethnographer needs to not only avoid getting in the middle of workplace politics, but also to build a trustful relationship with different parties. Second, an ethnographer needs to be neutral in opinion. It is expected for an ethnographer to be “blank” before and while in the field. Third, an ethnographer needs to be less emotionally attached to the organization they are investigating to remain objectivity.