Management School 'Colonial Encounter': Reclaiming Sociological Reduction

Abstract

Management education and knowledge production are global multimillion-pound industries, and management and business schools are the central locations where the production and dissemination of such knowledge and education occur. Typically, management education and knowledge from the North act as role model to the South. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyse the transmission of management education between these two regions. To do so, the establishment of a management school in Brazil in the late 1950s is analysed. The analysis focuses on the (colonial) encounter between U.S. and Brazilian academics. As a result of the analysis, sociological reduction is identified as a critical attitude that facilitates politically the learning of management education from the North at the same time that sociological reduction challenges the role model position of Western management education to the global South.