In recent years the approach to social theory known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been adopted within a range of social science fields. Despite its popularity, ANT is considered a controversial approach in that it appears to promote a sociological perspective that lacks substantive political critique. This is argued to be particularly true in ANT’s ‘translations’ in management and organization studies (MOS). In this article, we argue that the ‘ANT and After’ literature offers the potential to develop such a political critique. In particular we suggest it presents the opportunity to develop an approach that de-naturalizes organization(s), has the ability to deliver critical performativity, and at the same time offer a reflexive approach to management and organizational knowledge. Using organizational examples, we argue that ANT and After can offer insights relevant to the development of a critical perspective on MOS, notably through its advocacy of a ‘political ontology’ of organizing.

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This article presents an archival history of the relationship between the US Ford Foundation (FF), and Brazil's pre-eminent business school, EAESP (the São Paulo School of Business Administration), and assesses its lessons for today. Contributing to the literatures on the FF and the Americanization of management education, we show how the aspirations of Thomas Carroll, a leader in post-War management education, for the FF's idealized, and still prevalent, form of 'scientific' business school were thwarted in Brazil. We also show that Carroll secretly engaged with the US-supported Brazilian military dictatorship, suggesting the FF was actively supportive of US foreign policy in Latin America. Yet while Brazilian EAESP actors shaped the school according to their own priorities, and ignored Carroll's, they managed to spend the FF's money. Broader understandings of the FF as a 'dominating' power in management education must therefore be nuanced, taking this subversion into account.More generally, this 'first wave' case in the internationalization of management education has lessons for today's management educators, particularly given the burgeoning interest in global management and global management education. Not least, we argue, historic, as well as cultural, reflexivity is an essential requirement of the global management educator.

Gaining access in fieldwork is crucial to the success of research, and may often be problematic because it involves working in complex social situations. This paper examines the intricacies of access, conceptualizing it as a fluid, temporal and political process that requires sensitivity to social issues and to potential ethical choices faced by both researchers and organization members. Our contribution lies in offering ways in which researchers can reflexively negotiate the challenges of access by: 1. Underscoring the complex and relational nature of access by conceptualizing three relational perspectives -instrumental, transactional and relational -proposing the latter as a strategy for developing a diplomatic sensitivity to the politics of access; 2. Explicating the political, ethical and emergent nature of access by framing it as an ongoing process of immersion, backstage dramas, and deception; and 3. Offering a number of relational micropractices to help researchers negotiate the complexities of access. We illustrate the challenges of gaining and maintaining access through examples from the literature and from Rafael's attempts to gain access to carry out fieldwork in a Police Force.

Chamamos de produtivismo uma ênfase exacerbada na produção de uma grande quantidade de algo que possui pouca substância, o foco em se fazer o máximo de uma coisa "enlatada", com pouco conteúdo e consequente valorização da quantidade como se fosse qualidade. Em nossa breve intervenção neste espaço, queremos falar dos efeitos do produtivismo acadêmico em dois âmbitos: na formação dos alunos na graduação e no mundo da pesquisa. Formação de AlunosUm dos efeitos do produtivismo ocorre na "base da pirâmide" (sem trocadilhos!) e na produção desenfreada de diplomados que pouco ou nada sabem. O número de matriculados no ensino superior cresceu 110% em dez anos, e a Administração é o curso com o maior número de matriculados (cerca de um milhão e cem mil alunos). Temos, no país, aproximadamente, 250.000 professores da área. Tão preocupados que estamos com a Capes, pouco olhamos para esta realidade. Já em 1999, em parceria com o amigo Ricardo Bresler, escrevi um artigo intitulado A McDonaldização do Ensino (ALCADIPANI e BRESLER, 1999). No texto, comentávamos sobre a expansão das faculdades-negócio e da inserção da lógica fordista no mundo acadêmico. Hoje, há um grupo educacional brasileiro que está para se transformar na instituição de ensino superior com o maior número de alunos do mundo. Tal grupo vende ensino minimizando "inputs" e maximizando "outputs" (diplomados). Cursos enlatados, professores mal remunerados, livros-texto de baixa qualidade a rodo. O grupo educacional em questão mostra que o Brasil virou o paraíso das escolas fast food e que estamos produzindo à baciada bacharéis em administração sem a menor substância. Para se ter uma ideia, dia destes soube que um professor de um curso como este ganha cerca de R$ 20,00 a hora-aula, poucos deles são CLT. Precisam dar muitas aulas para ter um salário que lhes forneça as mínimas condições. E, infelizmente, nestas condições, é impossível ser um bom professor e é impossível dar alguma formação para estes estudantes. Os fast foods do ensino "enchem a burra" com o dinheiro alheio vendendo diploma à prestação. Impera a lógica de mercado mais rasteira e mais nefasta possível. A maioria de nós assiste a isso sem muito falar. O processo se naturalizou. Na verdade, não se trata de fordismo aplicado à educação, pois, se fizesse carros como estas escolas formam os alunos, a Ford jamais teria sido uma empresa de sucesso,

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The spread of Lean management has fuelled debates over the changing nature of workplace domination. While Lean discourses often espouse a 'human relations' approach, research has suggested the proliferation of coercion systems and questioned whether Lean is instead shorthand for cost-cutting and new forms of domination. The varied interpretations of Lean have explained the heterogeneity of worker responses, including forms of resistance. Our ethnography explores this heterogeneity by examining the implementation of Lean in a printing factory and tracing the emergence of shopfloor opposition. Various tactics were devised by workers, ranging from tangible procedures such as sabotage and working-to-rule to more subtle forms reflecting irony and contempt. We argue that the distinctive manifestations of domination emerging during the Lean programme stimulated particular forms of worker reaction, which are explained through fieldwork illustrations. Overall, we produce a theoretical explanation of domination and resistance that builds upon and extends the extant scholarship.

A pesar do seu desenvolvimento como campo científico nos últimos 70 anos, caracterizado pela pluralidade de abordagens epistemológicas e metodológicas, é possível argumentar que a área de Estudos Organizacionais paulatinamente distanciou-se daquilo que as pessoas fazem cotidianamente no trabalho e assim passou a teorizar e modelar as organizações de forma abstrata. Com o intuito de reverter esse movimento, pode-se argumentar que há atualmente no campo uma tentativa de se retomar a realidade vivida pelas pessoas nas organizações como unidade de análise. Tal preocupação traz consideráveis questões epistemológicas que ainda foram pouco discutidas. Assumindo a importância desta virada e a relevância dos escritos de Theodore Schatzki para lidar com essas questões, o presente artigo pretende contribuir com o esforço de se compreender as práticas nas organizações discutindo o que são práticas, como elas se organizam, o que são os arranjos materiais e o que seriam as organizações nessa abordagem. Palavras-chave: Práticas sociais. Processo de organizar. Estudos organizacionais.Abstract D espite its development as a scientific field in the last 70 years, characterized by the plurality of epistemological and methodological approaches, it is possible to argue that Organizational Studies gradually distanced himself from what people actually do in the doing of work and consequently focused on theorizing and modeling organizations in a abstract way. In order to reverse this trend, it can be argued that there is in the field an attempt to reground our studies of organizational practices in terms of phenomena that are actually done. This concern brings considerable epistemological issues that were not still discussed sufficiently. Assuming the importance of this practice turn and the relevance of Theodore Schatzki´s contributions to deal with these issues, this paper contributes to the understanding of practices in organizations discussing what practices are, how they are organized, what material arrangements are and what would the organizations be in this approach