Etnografia como estratégia investigativa da cultura organizacional para a sustentabilidade

Abstract

The knowledge of management skills regarding sustainable development gained importance in recent times in several areas. The concept of organizational culture has acquired importance on the academic literature. In many political reports, education is described as a tool for promoting sustainable development. A new organizational culture depends on the knowledge acquisition and sharing. There is great opportunity for research on organizational culture towards sustainability, since existing studies are still scarce. Qualitative research is presented as the most appropriate approach to raise cultural aspects. This paper aims to examine the characteristics of ethnographic observation to verify whether it is the appropriate approach to investigate and characterize organizational culture for sustainability. To apply ethnography as research method for the organizational culture, it is recommended to establish two epistemological premises. It was limited to analyzing ethnographic research as a proper method to investigate sustainability. The paper did not aim to map a culture of sustainability, its characteristics and the requirements for a cultural transformation. It concludes that ethnography is suitable to the proposal by its very nature, since it results in a dense description of the phenomenon.