Trials and Tribulations of Gaining and Maintaining Entry into the formal organizations in India: Lessons from the field

Abstract

Bargaining and maintaining ‘entry’ in sites (organisations) of
academic research studies has always been a challenge for academic scholars.
Each of the scholars adopts different approaches to get around these problems
of gaining entry. However, they rarely document their experiences on the field,
with some exceptions in the discipline of sociology and social anthropology. A
review of literature on ‘gaining entry’ into formal organisations in Indian
context indicates that little has been written in the domain of organisation
studies in India as most scholars do not seem to document or disseminate their
experience of gaining and maintaining access while referring to how they
collected data from the field. This article is an attempt in that direction where
we have presented our individual accounts of the challenges we faced while
trying to gain and maintain access in the sites of our research studies. We have
suggested some ways on how to face these challenges without being ejected out
of the sites. We hope that this article would help the readers to understand
better and appreciate the trials and tribulations of gaining and maintaining
‘entry’ in research sites, thereby also encouraging others to disseminate their
experience and knowhow leading to debate and discussion.