Ethnographic Theorizing in Human Resource Management: From Theory-as-Design to Theory-in-Use

Abstract

Research on human resource management (HRM) has generated influential frameworks for explaining the relationships between HR practices and organizational outcomes. Existing accounts offer less insight into how the frameworks informing those practices acquire meaning, authority, and practical traction in organizational settings. We conceptualize this as a gap betweentheory-as-designandtheory-in-useand develop ethnographic theorizing as a mode of examining the use-life of selected design-oriented HRM frameworks. Our contribution is twofold. First, we specify how sustained immersion, temporal depth, embodied co-presence, and relational obligation enable researchers to follow frameworks as they are enacted and negotiated. Second, we develop three recursively related analytic moves for theory development—Complement, Complicate,andReframe—through which ethnographic evidence can elaborate, qualify, or revise existing theoretical accounts. We demonstrate this approach through two ethnographic studies of HR analytics in different organizations. The comparison shows how legitimacy work, identity negotiation, and meaning-making shaped the enactment of data-driven HRM in these settings. The paper thus offers a structured approach for studying how established HRM frameworks operate in use and for assessing when situated evidence warrants changes to their constructs, relationships, or boundary conditions. In addition, we discuss implications for HRM theory, research design, and practice.