Confidential Gossip and Organization Studies

This essay sets out the case for regarding confidential gossip as a significant concept in the study of organizations. It develops the more general concept of gossip by combining it with concepts of organizational secrecy in order to propose confidential gossip as a distinctive communicative practice. As a communicative practice, it is to be understood as playing a particular role within the communicative constitution of organizations. That particularity arises from the special nature of any communication regarded as secret, which includes the fact that such communication is liable to be regarded as containing the ‘real truth’ or ‘insider knowledge’. Thus it may be regarded as more than ‘just gossip’ and also as more significant than formal communication. This role is explored, as well as the methodological and ethical challenges of studying confidential gossip empirically

Some Uses and Potentials of Qualitative Methods in Planning

Planners use methods borrowed from many disciplines. These are usually modified and adapted to meet planner's needs to acquire and sift through many diverse information sources helpful in dealing with complex problems. The quantitative methods which planners use are well known, well established in practice, and acknowledged by most as tools of the planners' trade. In contrast to this, most planners also use qualitative methods but these are rarely explicitly acknowledged.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68912/2/10.1177_0739456X8600600110.pd

Qualitative methodology : firstand involvement with the social world/ William J. Filstead (edt.)

xi, 352 hal.; 21 cm

Qualitative methodology : firstand involvement with the social world/ William J. Filstead (edt.)

xi, 352 hal.; 21 cm