The term ‘Ethnography' or its many synonyms often comes up in the context of New Product Development. For example, Cagan and Vogel state that “the most powerful area of new product research is an emerging field of new product ethnography.” (Cagan and Vogel, 2003). Ethnography also plays an important role in our model; therefore, it will be useful to describe the method and its central role.
What is Ethnography?
The term ‘Ethnography' seems to have achieved the dubious status of buzz-word. There are many definitions, depending on who is doing the defining. A good definition of traditional ethnography is—
…the art and science of of describing a group or culture. It is a form of cultural anthropology using fieldwork to observe the group and derive patterns of behavior, belief, and activity (Cagan and Vogel, 2002, p. 183).
No matter what definition you get, there are several signature attributes—
- Observation of people doing whatever it is they do on their own turf —Going out into the “real world” and observing is critical.
- Qualitative in approach —For instance, statistical analyses are not normally performed on the discoveries of studies deemed to be ‘ethnographic.'
- Inductive in nature —does not start with hypotheses
- Interaction with ‘Research Subjects' is encouraged —Many, especially those with legitimate claim to the title of ‘Professional Ethnographer', stress that ‘Participant-Observation' is a necessary attribute of ‘true' ethnography.
- Depth Interviewing (Long-Open-ended Interviews) is often used
- Hypothesis generation and prediction —There is not universal agreement about whether hypothesis generation, based on observations, should be part of ethnography or whether it should be purely descriptive.
