CONTRIBUTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS FROM A POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Bruhn, Nádia Campos Pereira; Viglioni, Marco Túlio Dinali; Alcântara, Juciara Nunes de; Figueira, Mariane; Calegario, Cristina Lelis Leal

doi:10.1590/S0034-759020230404

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ARTICLES • Rev. adm. empres. 63 (4) • 2023 • https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-759020230404 linkcopy

CONTRIBUTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS FROM A POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Aportes de los negocios internacionales desde una perspectiva poscolonial: una revisión crítica

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

The mainstream literature on international business has played a key role in an asymmetric international process by prioritizing hegemonic power and dominance of developed countries. Practices of this Imperialism, especially by multinational companies, are traditionally rooted in colonial legacies. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical research on international business from the critical perspective of post-colonialism. The findings show that multinational enterprises possess advantages over their host country, suggesting further traces of dominance between colonizers and former colonies. Specifically, findings show that topics around language, slavery, control mechanisms, imperialism, and capitalism are dominant in the field of international business, suggesting a strong effect of historical colonialism on international business activities. The critical analysis grounded on post-colonial and international business perspectives draw attention to some neglected, if not untouched, strands with substantial gaps in the prevalent knowledge, opening new avenues for future research.

Keywords:
International Business; multinationals; colonialism; post-colonialism; postcolonial theory

Authors(s)	Journal	Key points/main findings
Banerjee and Linstead (2001)	Organization	The emergence of a global culture marks the transformation to a culture of consumption, in which successful management of diversity effectively perpetuates global colonialism.
Cairns (2005)	CPoIB	Exposes challenges exemplars of “good” management practice from the managerial literature through engagement with a range of discipline-specific texts.
French and Wokutch (2005)	Business Ethics Quarterly	Child workers in the shoe industry are integrated into the global order. Efforts to end this work have been frustrated by locals; Americans see it as hazardous conductions, while locals see it as a benign activity.
Daye (2009)	Journal of Business Ethics	MNCs in Fiji should conduct their business in ways that genuinely add economic value, avoid doing social harm.
Kaplinsky and Morris (2009)	European Journal of Development Research	Sub-Saharan African countries should maximize the opportunities by adopting a similarly integrated and focused response to Chinese investors who seek to draw on natural resources.
Westwood and Jack (2007)	CPoIB	It finds the field is currently imprisoned within a limited and limiting paradigmatic and institutional location.
Faria et al. (2010)	CPoIB	The interdisciplinary dialogue goes beyond borders established by the “center” and imposed on subalterns. This might be taken as a particular way of putting into practice a decolonial Latin perspective.
Guedes and Faria (2010)	CPoIB	Critique from a universal perspective that does not differentiate IB and IM in the Anglo-American literature is important but constrains the appraisal of national and regional.
Ibarra-Colado et al. (2010)	CPoIB	Introduce Latin perspectives to break down the universalistic point of view of CMS, introducing a “pluriversalistic” geopolitical position to consider alternate projects to neoliberal globalization.
Mandiola (2010)	CPoIB	Proposes a new articulation of the liberation concept as a resistance response facing a new form of oppression within current Latin affairs.
McKenna (2011)	Organization	The discourse of (neo)colonialism in the construction of the Other within the context of a view of China and India as developing and progressing, albeit North American leaders condemn their exploitative social and economic systems.
Roberts and Dörrenbächer (2012)	CPoIB	Taking stock of recent reflections on the future of IB is useful in determining possible topics for future contributions to CPoIB.
Selmier and Oh (2012)	Business Horizons	Language in international business shows a hierarchy, with English the most inexpensive among major trade languages.
Boussebaa and Morgan (2014)	CPoIB	There is a lack of “criticality” in context/power research and lack of attention to the neo-imperial character of MNCs with specific regard to their management and organization.
Boussebaa et al. (2014)	Journal of International Business Studies	Corporate Englishization does not merely overcome or, conversely, worsen transnational communication problems; it also (re)produces colonial-style power relations between the “Anglo-sphere” and the “Rest”.
Geppert and Dörrenbächer (2014)	International Journal of Management Reviews	It is necessary a more micro-political perspective and focusing on the micro-foundations of power relations in MNCs.
Aguilera et al. (2017)	Journal of World Business	Latin America is generating new ideas that contribute to a better understanding of how the home country shapes the behavior of firms.
Barnard et al. (2017)	Management and Organization Review	Firms in Africa face challenges (i.e., extreme conditions) and opportunities (laboratory for modifying current theories).
Boussebaa and Brown (2017)	Organization Studies	Englishization is a process of normalization, surveillance, and conformist identity work, serving as a tool to discipline local selves in line with the imperative of international competitiveness.
Liou and Rao-Nicholson (2017)	International Business Review	Colonial ties have a negative impact on the long-term operating performance of South African acquirers.
Meyer (2017)	Multinational Business Review	Two sets of concerns of the anti-globalization movement: the unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization and emergent constraints on national sovereignty.
Michailova et al. (2017)	Global Strategy Journal	Ethnocentrism can exist in IB and is necessary to rethink ethnocentrism in IB and show implications for global strategy research.
Mol et al. (2017)	Global Strategy Journal	Africa received limited attention in the past and now offers an opportunity to challenge existing theories.
Stevens and Newenham-Kahindi (2017)	Global Strategy Journal	Home-country legitimacy with the host country is in affecting Chinese MNCs in East Africa in the face of the political risk.
Abdelrehim et al. (2018)	Business History	There is a persistence of colonial modes of organization after decolonization in South Asia.
Abugre (2018)	CPoIB	Rent and resource-seeking used by MNCs are central to “manufactured” risks, and this negatively creates an impact on post-independent Africa.
Adams et al. (2018)	CPoIB	Risks (i.e., language, culture from MNCs) arising from business practices that rent and resource-seeking strategies used by MNCs negatively impact post-independent Africa.
Alcaraz and Salamanca (2018)	Review of International Business and Strategy	International migration that goes from the EU and North America to the Latin region is related to the firms’ internationalization and their location.
Stringer and Michailova (2018)	Multinational Business Review	Modern slavery in GVCs is a complex challenge to MNCs’ governance, opening routes that enable modern slavery.
Wanderley and Celano (2018)	CPoIB	There is a postcolonial relationship between Brazilian MNC as the holder of power of resources in Bolivia, even though Brazil never colonized Bolivia.
Reyes et al. (2019)	Multinational Business Review	While foreign firms are cautious of spillover to host country firms, the OFDI within Latin America shows a historical dependence on commodities and natural resources.
Burmester et al. (2019)	CpoIB	Modern slavery is a multi-level governance challenge. Understanding the MNCs’ different roles in governance may contribute to reducing the incidence of modern slavery.
Cairns (2019)	CPoIB	The author supports IB research and activity that is underpinned by thinking to inform action for the good of society at large.
Dörrenbächer and Gammelgaard (2019)	CPoIB	Critical IB research can be broken into five main topics: positioning critical IB research, postcolonial IB studies, effects of IB activities, financialization and the global financial crisis and “Black IB” and corporate social responsibility.
Meouloud et al. (2019)	Management and Organization Review	Francophone African firms’ internationalizing first to France, a lingering influence of colonial ties.
Fatehi and Taasoobshirazi (2020)	Thunderbird International Business Review	Modern economic and financial problems of capitalism made it very clear that unbridled capitalism may not produce the proclaimed prosperity.
Glaister et al. (2020)	Management International Review	Prior colonial ties are positively related to IFDI from colonizers to former colonies.
Sayed and Agndal (2020)	Culture and Organization	Socio-ideological and technocratic mechanisms of control allow subsidiary workers to elevate status while still cementing their role as dominated in the global hierarchy, silencing any resistance.
Storgaard et al. (2020)	Organization Studies	Neocolonialism is a means through which identity is worked on at MNC headquarters.
Osei et al. (2020)	CPoIB	Colonial ties have limited influence on the flow of FDI to Ghana, despite the institutional legacies between colonizers and colonies.
Yeganeh (2020)	CPoIB	Large MNCs aggravate the rising economic inequality in different ways, contributing to social and financial instability.
Boussebaa (2021)	CPoIB	Cross-cultural management and culture-sensitive studies of IB almost exclusively focused on cultural differences, whereas little attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of corporate-driven cultural globalization.
Das (2021)	CPoIB	Acquirers from China pursue strategic asset-seeking, creeping, and control-seeking acquisitions during the pandemic and pre-pandemic.
Dörrenbächer et al. (2021)	CPoIB	Offers contributions of three clusters, “re-reading the crisis,” “crisis protectionism,” and “firm strategies during the pandemic”.
Konara and Wei (2021)	International Marketing Review	Language has a negative effect on subsidiary performance, while cultural distance on performance becomes stronger when the language difference is smaller (i.e., English).
Iwashita (2022)	International Business Review	MNCs need to use the parent country's language not only because of ethnicity but also by their post-colonial views.
Jacob et al. (2022)	European Management Review	MNCs from developed countries strategically manage their institutional context.
Sayed and Agndal (2022)	CPoIB	Provided three tools of neo-colonial control based on information systems adopted by offshore outsourcing of R&D work.
Robb and Michailova (2023)	Review of International Business and Strategy	Identified four MNC narratives and three approaches to responding to modern slavery.

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