Research
My research explores two broad themes: 1) meaningful work and 2) creativity in organizations. I explore how individuals and groups navigate the tensions, challenge, and struggles which come from pursuing meaning and developing original ideas. I’m especially interested in how these phenomena play out over time (e.g. across projects, over a career). My research generally relies on qualitative field methods.
You can find my current CV here.
Working with an eminent mentor can provide numerous career benefits, yet it can also cast a long shadow. How do individuals move foward with the skills imprinted by their mentor while still crafting their own unique career? In this study, published with Spencer Harrison and Bess Rouse, explore we explore this tension, which we call teh paradox of promise. Using career narratives from former Eames Office employees, we theory how individuals construct career narratives to account for their connection to a famous mentor. In press draft available here.
Understanding tradition-novelty tensions in craft (Organization Studies)
Heritage crafts—craft occupations with storied histories that provide value through connection to tradition—can be surprisingly resilient, often re-emerging despite periods of decline. However, this endurance is neither simple nor automatic, and can seem puzzling in the face of modernizing forces, such as advancing technology. Using a paradox lens, I suggest that craftspeople’s responses to the tension between novelty and tradition are key to the endurance of heritage craft over time. Although the existing literature has begun to explore these tensions, we have lacked an overarching theoretical framework to explain how heritage crafts can overcome cycles of decline and resurgence. I present a conceptual framework for understanding how craft workers can effectively navigate tradition-novelty tensions, creating virtuous cycles which enable growth. I outline three strategies, preserving, segmenting, and synthesizing, which are influenced by a variety of enabling factors (e.g. individual characteristics, environmental factors). Additionally, I theorize three factors—revaluing heritage, developing reputation, and exposure to new domains—which dynamically shape how craftspeople move between strategies over time. My framework builds theory around the endurance of craft over time, stability and change in tradition, and creativity in highly traditional occupations.
Dehumanization and the meaning of work in the National Football League (2nd R&R, Administrative Science Quarterly)
Meaningful Work and Creativity: Mapping out a Way Forward (book chapter)
This chapter by Mike Pratt and I drills down into a recent addition to the componential model—in 2016—which infused the componential model with theory around meaningfulness. This chapter expands upon this insight to explore two new lines of inquiry: (1) uncovering conditions that motivate different orientations to be creative; and (2) understanding how creative persistence may unfold in the long term. Full text available here: https://gregfetzerphd.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Fetzer-Pratt-Creavity-and-Meaningful-Work-final.docx
An Introduction to Video Methods in Organizational Research (Organizational Research Methods)
Video has become a methodological tool of choice for many researchers in social science, but video methods are relatively new to the field of organization studies. This article is an introduction to video methods. First, we situate video methods relative to other kinds of research, suggesting that video recordings and analyses can be used to replace or supplement other approaches, not only observational studies but also retrospective methods such as interviews and surveys. Second, we describe and discuss various features of video data in relation to ontological assumptions that researchers may bring to their research design. Video involves both opportunities and pitfalls for researchers, who ought to use video methods in ways that are consistent with their assumptions about the world and human activity. Third, we take a critical look at video methods by reporting progress that has been made while acknowledging gaps and work that remains to be done. Our critical considerations point repeatedly at articles in this special issue, which represent recent and important advances in video methods. Full text available here: https://gregfetzerphd.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/lebaron-et-al-2017-an-introduction-to-video-methods-in-organizational-research.pdf