Telling Tales

This E-book emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference held at the University of New Mexico. The conference was organized to recognize and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of John Van Maanen's seminal Tales of the Field - a book that had, and continues to have, a profound impact on qualitative organizational scholarship. The theme of the conference was appropriately 'Telling Tales', because Van Maanen brought to our attention the idea that our research accounts are as much about our own stories as researchers, as they are truths about the lives of organizational members. He highlighted the possibilities for doing and writing ethnography differently, and asked us to think more reflexively about our work.