Manifesto for a postcolonial international business and management studies: A provocation

Abstract: Purpose – 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.