Manifesto for a post-colonial international business and management studies: A provocation

Abstract

Submitted in the form of a manifesto, this article seeks to make a call to scholars in international management and business studies to embrace post-colonial theory and to allow it to provide an interrogation of the ontological, epistemological, methodological and institutional resources currently dominating the field. Design/methodology/approach A manifesto approach is adopted in providing a series of deliberately provocative principles which it seeks to have the field adopt. Findings The paper finds the field to be currently imprisoned within a limited and limiting paradigmatic and institutional location and offers the resources of post-colonial theory as a way to interrogate and reconfigure it. Research limitations/implications The paper points to the limitations of the field and provides the grounds for a radical reconfiguration across all aspects of its knowledge production, dissemination and research practice. Practical implications The paper offers practical steps which the field can take to reconfigure itself more appropriately in terms of its various research commitments and its institutional frame. Originality/value This article offers an original assessment of the orthodoxy currently controlling and disciplining the field, presented in the relatively novel and challenging form of a manifesto. Keywords Culture, Epistemology, Research methods, Knowledge based management systems, International business