Transnational Institutions and Local Actors in Management Development Debates in the Global South

Recent research on the global development of management education and training has moved the focus from studying how US ideas and models were received in Western Europe to studying processes outside the most industrialized part of the world. This session connects to this new stream of research by exploring the transnational exchange of management knowledge and models for management education and development with a focus on North Africa, Latin America, and India. Seen from these regions, local actors received inspiration and ideas from several foreign sources in addition to the US business schools and the Ford Foundation that traditionally have been in focus. The models for management education extended far beyond the idea of introducing MBA, and management training and development, productivity centers, and non-degree education were mentioned more often than the MBA. “Local actors” appears as wide concept, comprising government, business leaders, business families, elite networks, religious groups and labor unions, to mention some. The power balance between these, and between local actors and foreign actors in the transnational process varied a lot. The content of these processes could be described in different ways, and not only as the introduction to management techniques and theories, but also as socialization process into management positions or as legitimization of power in a new postcolonial context.
This session will explore and discuss how this picture of diversity and complexity that appears when we move the focus to the Global South challenges dominating ideas within research on the development of management education, development and training.