CO-PRODUCTION OF MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE IN/FROM EMERGING COUNTRIES AND SOCIETIES

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an era of decolonization and empire, the management field embraced the US-led neoliberal counterrevolution and challenged the Eurocentric theory-practice hierarchy to produced relevant knowledge through managed learning theories. This contested reformist and market-centric management revolution (MR) against the threat of “reverse relevance” fostered by emerging/resurging barbarians subalternizes Southern theories-practices of the multifaceted field of development administration-management (DA) and de-develops the global majority by privileging large corporations and transnational elites. MR expanded in the 1990s through a post-Washington Consensus social perspective based on re-Westernalizing whitening appropriation-containment dynamics of developmental neoliberalisms and Southern counter-hegemonic movements informed by dewesternization and decolonial dynamics which challenge-reaffirm racial capitalism structures. In an Age of Development, MR was re-organized in the 2000s in response to “irresponsible” hybridisms in emerging countries and societies triggered by Southern learning-unlearning-relearning dynamics. This article investigates the Southern co-production of relevant knowledge in Brazil through subversive complicity, focused on a privileged organization-school nexus. Analysis shows how managers and researchers (re)mobilize Southern theories-practices to co-produce relevant knowledge from a transformational-reformist perspective. In the end, the article presents discussions and suggestions for collectively re-appropriating Southern relevant knowledge engaged with the ‘other’ in emerging/resurging societies in both the South and North.