Joan Winn
Kamila Kinyon

Joan Winn is Professor of Management in the Daniels College of Business. She has published extensively in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and the Case Research Journal. Her teaching includes courses in strategic management, human resources management, and leadership and organizational dynamics.

Kamila Kinyon: Id like to start by asking you about your teaching of writing to business students. For example, I am interested in the ethnography assignment that you assign. Could you discuss the nature of this writing assignment?
Joan Winn: For the organizational dynamics course, my students do a culture audit of a company, which requires that they study an organization as an anthropologist would do, observing the informal rules of human interaction. They study the use of language, humor, and ritual, and how people conduct business in this organization, which might be very different from how those individuals would behave in a different context. Students in my human resources management class are required to examine the human resource management policies of an organization. Their research is focused on the congruence between official policies and how they are implemented, and how they contribute to the strategy and success of the organization. On the undergrad level, I have had students do strategic analyses of companies by going to a local company to look at formal strategies, at plans and documents and mission statements, and at how people implement them. There is a lot of work that different classes do that includes hanging around a real organization to see what is going on to grasp how companies put into practice those concepts that we talk about.

Are students familiar with how to write qualitative research papers when they come into your class, or do you need to teach students how to compose this type of research?
I dont teach writing so much as I teach critical thinking. Writing is a reflection of a thought process. I try to teach students to organize their thinking into cohesive parts. Its this logical thought process that directs students to pick things apart to do an analysis, to synthesize and put things together, that leads to rational conclusions: and now this suggests X So it really is more a thought process rather than a writing process. This is an issue for all of us in education: How do you teach people to think? Students want directions about how to structure a paper, and sometimes lose sight of the goal of the project. I dont want to impose my style of writing, but I want each student to assess who he or she is writing for. If I am your audience, how will you write your text? Can I see your inferences and your logical links? You need to convey to the receiver what it is that you know and write in a way that effectively shares this knowledge. I try to convey to them that any piece of writing is about this. Who you are writing for is always central, even if you write a personal journal or online blog.

What relationship do you see between the types of ethnographic studies that you assign to students and your own ethnographic research?
Certainly thats a love of mine, going into organizations and talking to people and observing things, looking at consistencies and inconsistencies, how individuals interact and create a collective whole. So, yes, perhaps this is how this fits in with the type of research that I like to do. The research I was doing as a graduate student used archival data, mostly quantitative information, and it was only when I delved into the inner workings of what was going on that research became truly interesting to me. Maybe its because I have a social science background that I really like that interface with the on-the-ground of implement[ing] things that are conceptualized and put on paper. I dont really know which came first, doing the projects and seeing what students came up with, or my understanding and knowing the joy of investigating things myself and having these aha experiences now I understand how that model fits. So I cant say where that comes from, but certainly it fits with what I like to do.

Could you talk about your writing process? What is the process of collecting ethnographic data and then transforming this data into a publishable article?
I actually do workshops on that, so I dont think I can consolidate this into a short sound bite. I will tell you that my daughter is a writer, a journalist, and was a good writer from a young age. But she taught me when she was probably eleven or twelve to waste paper. You can make perfect sentences, sometimes you can even construct good paragraphs, but you need to read hard copy to actually absorb it and figure out where you are going. And I tell this to my students, because they so love doing things on a computer. I went to a presentation by a man who wrote his fifth book. He said, Im a writer and I understand the process. My editor was not happy with this second edition (of a successful book), and I realized it was because I was trying to do it on the computer. I needed to see the totality. I needed to see the concept from start to finish. Whatever we write, whatever data we report, we need to view it n a larger context. Is it important to know if this person had a family? Is it important to know what town he grew up in? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What details do you need to know? Do they influence your assumptions? Are they important to your conclusion? I need to see the flow of words as it actually fits together. Whenever we write, we have to think of the level of detail needed to convey our intended meaning. Mark Twain once told a friend, I wanted to write a short letter, but I didnt have time, so I wrote you a long letter. When we write, we need to ask, Why am I telling you this? What is it that I need to tell you, so when you get to the end you say aha instead of huh? Its not that practice makes perfect, revision makes perfect. Its very tough. Try on new styles, new methods of information collection and analysis, new ways of seeing and saying things. Really, I dont teach content; I teach how to analyze information I dont know, for the current batch of twenty-somethings, if theyll be able to revise effectively on a screen. It may just be a learned skill, something that is a matter of different generations growing up with different toys, or it may be inherent in how the mind works. I dont have any answer for that. I do know for myself that every time I print out something I thought was perfect, I notice errors or inconsistencies.

Do you ever repurpose your writing for different audiences? What is that process like?
A good writer (or speaker) thinks about what someone wants to hear, what they expect. As you know, in academia, research colleagues want to know your methodology. Community people or business people may be more interested in what you found rather than how you found it. They want to know how it relates to them and how they can put it into practice. You have to do an audience analysis: Who am I talking to? What do they need to learn?

What are some of your other areas of research?
Im interested in individual and group differences, cultural differences, and the impact on culture and environment on organizations and organizational processes. Most of my research is focused on business start ups and business development: how people form, grow, and sustain organizations. Right now Im looking at external constraints on entrepreneurship. How do people navigate unfriendly territories? There are countries that dont support entrepreneurial activities, and yet these activities exist. How do you sustain entrepreneurial endeavors in a hostile environment? In the United States, people are very accepting of new products and new enterprises. How do people conceive, plan, envision, and execute new business ideas? Is the creative process different with different external pressures? Does a competitive and supportive arena require different behaviors and mindsets than a controlled or hostile arena?

Ive noticed you do some of your research with collaborators. What is it like to work with collaborators?
I certainly prefer to work collaboratively. If you find someone who shares your world view and work style but contributes a different perspective, skill set, or experiences, then you have a match made in heaven because you are looking at diversity of thought and skills and finding some way to bring this all together. Even stuff Ive done solo, its really nice to bounce off colleagues. When you exchange ideas and do wordsmithing together, and reframe each others thoughts and restructure each others writing, that is a joy. We go into academia because we love to learn. We really are perpetual students. We can learn from students and colleagues and from each other. What a wonderful job we have!

The problem student-collaborators often face is how to allocate percentages and tasks in a way that that feels equitable, since too often pieces of the project are disjointed and diverse. When you work with a collaborator, you need to build on each other so that it is our work, and that can take a long time. Too often, student projects become separate sections, with one person designated to glue it all together. You need to set realistic milestones and deadlines, so that you have feedback from each other along the way. If you can take time to step back and look at the project as a whole, true learning can take place.

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