Doing ethnography in a paranoid organization: An autoethnographic account

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine what we can learn from an autoethnographical
approach about public administration. In this context it presents and discusses the advantages and
disadvantages of autoethnography.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a case study of E-rail, a European national
rail service subject to extensive negative press coverage. The autoethnographic accounts, based
on interviews, observations, phone calls, e-mails, and other informal interactions with the organizational
members, highlight the researcher’s entry to and exit of the organization.
Findings – The paper mobilizes fieldwork access negotiation and trust building with participants as
empirical material in its own right, arguing that challenges involving “being in the field” should be
explored to provide new types of knowledge about the organizational phenomenon under study – in
this case the rise of organizational paranoia.
Originality/value – This paper uses autoethnography, which is rare in public administration studies,
and discusses the distinct features of autoethnography as an ethnographic approach to public
organizations. It argues that autoethnographic accounts of fieldwork relationship highlight
and challenge the boundaries of the kind of research questions we might ask – and the kind of
answers we might provide – about public administration.