Ethnostatistics: Qualitative Foundations for Quantitative Research (Qualitative Research Methods)

Averages, ratios, means, modes, medians, tests of significance and best fit...these are now part of our everyday discourse. Yet statistics seemingly threaten to bury us under their sheer weight. Indeed, social science contributes a good deal to the proliferation of statistics while contributing relatively little to our understanding of just how such statistics are produced and used by their makers and consumers. Ethnostatistics, a term coined by Gephart, refers to the study of the social production and use of statistics. He suggests statistics can be used to produce more effective, reflexive social research. After examining the domain, examples, and levels of ethnostatistics, the author outlines a 3-level approach for producing, testing, and examining statistics. "Gephart presents his concept and examples more crisply and systematically than is usual in qualitative sociological writing. This is an implicit and welcome merging of the ′two sociologies.′" --Contemporary Sociology

Robert P. Gephart Jr. is a professor of strategic management and organization at the University of Alberta’s School of Business in Edmonton, Canada. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1979. Dr. Gephart has published in several important journals including the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Organization Studies, Organizational Research Methods, and Qualitative Sociology. He is also the author of Ethnostatistics: Qualitative Foundations for Quantitative Research (SAGE, 1988) and a coeditor of Postmodern Management and Organization Theory (SAGE, 1996). Dr. Gephart served as an associate editor of Organizational Research Methods and serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal and the Academy of Management Review. He received the 2015 SAGE Distinguished Career Award from the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management. His current research interests include ethnostatistics, risk sensemaking, and organizational change management.