Ethnographic fiction science: Making sense of managerial work and organizational research processes with Caroline and Terry

The story of Caroline and Terry is a tale of a manager and a participant-observer researcher. It is also a tale of organizational politics, gender relations and the relationships between human resource managers and other managers. The story is in part a fiction. But, at the same time, it is a piece of social-science writing. It is 'made up' but it is also 'true'. It uses imagination but is also theoretically informed and draws upon research fieldwork. The story demonstrates how ethnographic research accounts can be written in a way that bridges the genres of creative writing and social science. This 'ethnographic fiction science' has eight characteristics, four of which give it a fictional dimension and four of which make it social scientific.