Participant-led video diaries

Rebecca Whiting, Helen Roby, Gillian Symon, and Petros Chamakiotis develop an unconventional research design using video methods, asking participants to produce their own video diaries, a process which is then followed by narrative interviews. This approach generates multi-modal data: audio, visual, and textual, and involves adopting a qualitative perspective, and a social constructionist epistemology. This participant-led research design allows researchers to investigate a range of issues that are not often recalled in interviews or surveys, by capturing naturally occurring, real-time events and activities, and micro-interactions including non-verbal behaviours. Although video methods are used in other disciplines, they are rare in organizational research. The approach is illustrated by a study which explored how digital technologies affect our ability to manage switches across work-life boundaries. Analysis of participants’ video diaries illustrates the theoretical and reflexive insights that can be gained from this method. The problems and pitfalls encountered in this study are also considered.