Alex Faria

Internationalization of management, neoliberalism and the Latin America challenge

Purpose – This paper aims to problematize the lack of different worldviews on international management (IM), and the virtual silence in Latin America regarding this field within the context of the ongoing crisis of neoliberal policies and discourse.Design/methodology/approach – This paper embraces a decolonial Latin American perspective based on developments in international relations (IR). A major reason for this dialogue is that critical debates within IR have been overlooked by both mainstream and critical literature on management, despite the intrinsic relation between decolonial arguments and IR and the increasing importance of management, and IM, within the realm of international relations to both “centers” and “peripheries”.Findings – The interdisciplinary dialogue put forward in this paper goes beyond those borders established by the “center” and imposed on subalterns. Accordingly then, this might be taken as a particular way of putting into practice a decolonial Latin American perspective. It aim...

Introduction to the special issue on “Critical international management and international critical management: perspectives from Latin America”

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to problematise the emerging interest on international management from a critical point of view, considering the potential contribution of Latin American perspectives and to introduce the content of the special issue on “Critical international management and international critical management: perspectives from Latin America”.Design/methodology/approach – The paper shows the relevance acquired recently by international management and the international advance of critical management studies, but also demonstrates their inherent limitations because of their universalistic standpoint that inhibit them to consider the governance issues of international management that are obvious from a Latin American standpoint.Findings – The paper finds the relevance of some Latin American perspectives to break down the universalistic point of view of IM and CMS introducing a “pluriversalistic” geopolitical position to consider alternate projects to neoliberal globalisation contributing ...

The Chandler–Furtado case: A de-colonial re-framing of a North/South (dis)encounter

Abstract This paper shows that, although an encounter between the ideas of Alfred Chandler (from the USA) and Celso Furtado (from Brazil) within the Cold War period could have avoided the crisis of legitimacy faced by strategic management, it was only Chandler who became a universal authority in this field. Chandler and Furtado approached corporations and governments from different perspectives for more than 50 years, and this partially explains the disencounter between them. Although the contemporaneous crises of both US hegemony and strategic management suggest that a multipolar and pluriversal field of strategy is needed, influential authors from the USA have overlooked history and stood for the reinforcement of North/South coloniality to tackle global problems, which they enunciate from a universal and unilateral standpoint. A de-colonial historical analysis of the (dis)encounter between these two authors is undertaken by two Brazilian authors, in this paper, to show that their works are inseparable parts of the same phenomenon, in the same way as modernity and coloniality are. We develop a framework with three levels of analysis to re-frame such a North/South (dis)encounter: at the macro level, the grand narrative of the Cold War; at the meso level, the subaltern knowledges produced by the Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean (ECLAC) and by Celso Furtado; and at the micro level the national identity espoused by each author. We argue that the Chandler–Furtado encounter we produce in this paper helps create conditions for the development of a multipolar and pluriversal field of strategy in the post-Cold War period, which moves beyond the North/South divide.

Can the Subaltern Teach? Performativity Otherwise Through Anthropophagy ☆ ☆The title is inspired by Spivak “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1985).

Abstract Purpose We engage in a particular way the Anglo-American claim that a more performative Critical Management Studies (CMS) is needed to foster transformations in the “world out there” by putting into practice our learnings from a case study at Galpao Aplauso (GA), an NGO located in Brazil, which main role is to (re)socialize dispossessed youngsters through a critical methodology informed by anthropophagy. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon an engaged investigation informed by both performative CMS and decoloniality from Latin America we embody a performative CMS “otherwise.” Through the engagement with GA, and corresponding disengagement with our institutions, we propose decolonial anthropophagy as a way to move beyond Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism and decolonial work monopolized by full-time academics. Findings From a decolonial perspective it is shown that the performative turn within CMS could be used as a way of bringing “critical development” and “critical knowledge” to “subalterns” and the “rest of the world” from a perspective of coloniality. An anthropofagic perspective on decoloniality and critique shows that “subalterns” have much to teach us and our institutions and represents a way to decolonize theory-practice and academic-nonacademic divides. Originality/value The critical-decolonial anthropophagic perspective put forward in this chapter may represent an opportunity for CMS to move beyond much of its Eurocentric traditions, thus enlarging its geographic and cultural references. It may offer CMS an alternative critical performativity concept from the South which enables CMS to become a “re/disconnector,” instead of a connector, between the Euro-American traditions and the “rest of the world,” and making things happen “otherwise.”

International management, business and relations in Latin America

Purpose – This paper aims to draw on international relations (IR) literature to analyze, from a critical standpoint, recent developments in international business (IB) and international management (IM) in the USA, and the emerging debate between mainstream and critical researchers in Anglo‐American literature. It also aims to show that these important undertakings overshadow the political role of international disciplines and constrain the development of a critical perspective in IB from Latin America.Design/methodology/approach – Based on an interdisciplinary approach, this paper addresses the main debates on IR regarding the “international” and the control of international fields of knowledge by the great powers to foster a critical perspective in IB from Latin America.Findings – Critique from a universal perspective which does not differentiate IB and IM in the Anglo‐American literature is important, but constrains the appraisal of specific national and regional issues that are of vital importance to t...

Rethinking the bottom of the pyramid: A critical perspective from an emerging economy

Drawing upon the decolonial theorizing from Latin America, this article examines the odd trajectory of globalization of the bottom-of-pyramid (BoP) approach. Rather than a future-oriented cosmopolitan business design aimed to overcome poverty challenges in the developing world, this article shows that the BoP approach rearticulates, within an era of neoliberal capitalism, the rhetoric of salvation and progress, which was inaugurated by the darker side of modernity over five centuries ago with the discovery/conquest of America. Analysis shows that the BoP approach has evolved through underinvestigated interplay involving the market-oriented and the warfare-oriented facets of US-led neoliberalism and the radicalization of the longue durée of asymmetric dynamics involving decoloniality, hybridisms, and the darker sides of modernity. The authors argue that the globalization of the BoP approach in emerging economies embodies not only the radicalization of global coloniality but also a potential transition toward a pluriversal world in which many worlds, knowledges, and histories could coexist.

What strategic management has to do with capitalism(s)

The many debates on capitalism within the context of continuous crises of neoliberal globalization, although unsurprisingly overlooked by the literature on strategic management (SM), are of central...