ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to critically reflect on ethnography as a research methodology after it was deployed to explore human resource management issues surrounding the training and induction of volunteers at the Northern University Games (NUG), Australia. Initially, ethnography as a method describes, and its limited application in event volunteering research is highlighted. The core purpose is to critically reflect on how an ethnographic approach was deployed to investigate an under-researched facet of event management: training and induction of volunteers. Ethnography as a method for event researchers is relatively under-utilized. There follows an overview of the empirical study upon which this critical refection is based, along with the data collection methods adopted for this study. Finally, the chapter concludes with a reflection on adopting an ethnographic design in this case study context, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages, challenges and limitations and opportunities for future application of this approach in event volunteering studies.
