Abstract

Based on dialogic discussion of an empirical case study narrative, the paper provides a ‘better practice’ commentary to help hearing researchers include deaf workers as research participants. We argue that more attention should be paid to the concept of research inclusion in all organizational research in order to anticipate and operationalize research methods that allow for a full diversity of research participants to be included. We draw on Bakhtin’s theory for a dialogic exchange between two hearing researchers who provide a reflexive narrative about including deaf workers in a research study, and a deaf academic and a sign language interpreter who provide professional and personal commentary upon it. The under-employment, and thus workplace absence, of particular sociodemographic groups such as deaf sign language users can lead to taken-for-granted assumptions about adequate research methods for participant recruitment and data collection in studies of organizations and work sites. We fill a gap in the organizational research methods literature by exploring the methodological concept of research inclusion from the perspective of different disciplines, bringing organization research into dialogue with deaf and interpreting studies and health and medical research. We address research inclusion specifically in relation to working with deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users, and
provide hearing researchers with practical methodological advice to help overcome barriers for deaf workers’ participation in organizational research. The article works towards a greater level of research inclusion for an ‘under-served group’ that has tended to be marginalised both in employment and in mainstream studies of work and employment.