The significance of unforeseen events in organisational ethnographic inquiry

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance for the practicing ethnographer of responding to unforeseen events that occur during periods of data collection.
Analysis of four unforeseen events occurring during prolonged periods of study amongst workplace cleaners is undertaken and the changes in researcher acceptance resulting from the outcomes of these events are reported.
This article shows how awareness of the possible incidence of unforeseen events and the ability to carefully yet spontaneously manage the ethnographer’s reaction to them can substantially influence the degree of acceptance achieved by the observer within the group under study.
Though the need for an ethnographer to get close to the participants in a study is well documented, detailed examples as described in this article are rare. The documentation of the nature and effects of such episodes and how they unfold serves to enhance the credibility of the research.