Close Encounters: Ideological Invasion and Complicity on an `International Management' Master's Programme

Abstract

The authors of this article are actively involved as teachers and administrators on a taught `Master's' degree in `International Management' at Oxford Brookes University. In this article, we offer a series of critical reflections on the educational process that has resulted from our close engagement with students on the Brookes MSc. In addition to careful personal introspection, with students' permission we draw on data collected from assignments and observation of tutor-led exercises. The outcome of our observation and reflection is twofold: (1) we find much of the existing international management literature to be considerably lacking, complacent and potentially harmful in a number of respects; (2) we report on the critical insights we have gleaned into the motives of students and tutors on this kind of programme. In response to these criticisms, we suggest educators might fruitfully seek to `repoliticize' their approach. Such re-politicization would entail two strategies: one reflexively intellectual and one directly participative. The educator might strive, for instance, to pay due reflexive deference to the historical, social and geographical context of the knowledge and skills he or she brings to the learning arena. The second strategy necessitates close encounters in the classroom: a meeting of and between tutors and students in an attempt to explore constructively and perhaps even transcend difference.