Video reflexive ethnography : a creative approach to understand and promote brilliant organisational experiences

This paper provides a theoretical and methodological account of the interweaving of video reflexive ethnography (VRE) with positive organisational scholarship (POS) in health service management research. Drawing on an empirical study, the paper exemplifies the creative use of VRE to understand and promote brilliant organisational experiences in a community-based palliative care service. Framing the study in this way shaped what was possible, and what emerged. The study was impelled by a quest to extend health service management research beyond the conventional approach of finding-and-fixing issues to supposedly close the elusive 'chasm' between research and practice (Institute of Medicine, 2001). Consider for instance, patient safety research, which largely focuses on fixing medical errors and reducing the likelihood of adverse events (Rafter et al., 2014). Nowhere is the emphasis on negativity more immediate than perhaps in the care of people who are dying.