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Organizational Research Methods
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Ethnostatistics and Organizational Research Methodologies

An Introduction

Robert P. Gephart, Jr.

University of Alberta

Ethnostatistics is the empirical study of how professional scholars construct and use statistics and numerals in scholarly research. This article provides an overview of the objectives, contents, and contributions of the current theme issue. The nature and relevance of ethnostatistics to organizational issues are discussed. Three levels of ethnostatistics are identified and explained— constructing statistics, statistics at work, and the rhetoric of statistics. The contributions the theme issue provides to these three levels of ethnostatistics are discussed. Foundational perspectives that have shaped ethnostatistics are explored to highlight important assumptions of the field and to distinguish ethnostatistics from related fields. The theme issue broadens the field of ethnostatistics to address statistical practices used by business professionals for organizational purposes. The article concludes by arguing that the field of ethnostatistics needs to develop rapidly at this point in time to address the emerging centrality and importance that statistics hold for everyday organizational life.

Key Words: social construction of numbers • interpretive perspectives • rhetoric of statistics • enumerology • statistical validity

Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 9, No. 4, 417-431 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1094428106290199
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