Chilean management education: rhetoric of pragmatism, consumerism, individualism and elitism

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the character and the role of higher education in business in relation to the wider institutional and structural contexts within which they function. Being loyal to that widespread background, business schools in Chile have become efficient providers of appropriate goods and services for their respective clients and consumers, behaving more like corporations and businesses rather than educational institutions. From this perspective, business education's alignment with the wider political and socio-economic shifts associated with the developments of market economies and economic globalization is a necessary reflection. In this paper we will provide an account of our problematization of management education practices in Chile. This practice was pictured as one of the main characters at the forefront of the Chilean neo-liberal revolution during the final years of the last century. In particular, we will unravel more closely the chain of signifiers articulating the meaning of Chilean higher business education. This articulation is recuperated mainly around how those involved in the management education practice talk about (our)themselves. As well as specialised press writings, some academic accounts and fragments from our own 'ethnographic' involvement are used for this purpose. Particular attention is paid to the social, political and fantasmatic logics (GLYNOS; HOWARTH, 2007) as key elements of our own explanation of this practice, which in turn informs our critical standpoint.

Coprodução De Conhecimento Em Gestão Em (A Partir De) Países E Sociedades Emergentes

“…O capital liberal transnacional impulsiona uma frente de dinâmicas ultraofensivas suportadas por uma RG expansionista que informa o experimento extraterritorial da contrarrevolução neoliberal no Chile. O experimento ajuda a desmantelar simultaneamente no Sul e Norte o bem-sucedido sistema universidade-comunicações insurgente dos 1950-60s e ao crescente ameaça de "relevância reversa" por meio de violenta imposição do gerencialismo individualista-elitista-consumerista (Cotroneo & Costa, 2010). Nos anos 1980, a recessão econômica contrarrevolucionária focada no Terceiro Mundo e na América Negra arquitetada por Paul Volcker à frente do Federal Reserve reafirma disputas divisoras/fragmentadoras e coalizões capitalistas protagonizadas por países emergentes da Organização de Países Exportadores de Petróleo (OPEP) e pela oligarquia financista-supremacista-racista dos EUA (Allen, 2001).…”

“…A RG rearticula dinâmicas coloniais-raciais de apropriaçãocontenção de teorias-práticas de aprendizagem-desaprendizagem-reaprendizagem sulistas, no Sul e no Norte, protagonizadas pela universidade neoliberal da desigualdade colonial/patriarcal/ capitalista e da intolerância à liberdade acadêmica (Melamed, 2016;Santos, 2018). Escolas de negócios reafirmam a branquitude hegemônica por meio de racismo multicultural (McLaren, 1997;Melamed, 2006) e renovação das teorias contrainsurgentes de aprendizagem gerenciada criadas nos anos 1940 por Kurt Lewin (Schein, 1996) ao prometer liberdade de escolha para estudantes pacificados e violentamente transformados em consumidores despolitizados e individualizados (Cotroneo & Costa, 2010).…”

Co-Production of Management Knowledge in/From Emerging Countries and Societies

“…Transnational liberal capital championed a front of ultra-offensive dynamics supported by an expansionist MR that informs the extraterritorial experiment of the neoliberal counterrevolution in Chile. The experiment helps to simultaneously dismantle the successful insurgent universitycommunications system in the South and North and the growing threat of "reverse relevance" through violent imposition of individualist-elitist-consumerist managerialism (Cotroneo & Costa, 2010). In the 1980s, the counterrevolutionary economic recession in/against the Third World and Black America is engineered by Paul Volcker at the head of the Federal Reserve reinforced divisive/fragmenting disputes and capitalist coalitions carried out by emerging countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and by the US financial supremacist oligarchy (Allen, 2001).…”

“…MR renews colonial-racial dynamics of appropriation-containment of Southern theories-practices of learning-unlearning-relearning, in the South and the North, led by the neoliberal university of inequality (colonial/patriarchal/capitalist) and intolerance to academic freedom (Melamed, 2016;Santos, 2018). Business schools reaffirm hegemonic whiteness through multicultural racism (McLaren, 1997;Melamed, 2006) and renew counterinsurgent theories of managed learning created in the 1940s by Kurt Lewin (Schein, 1996) by promising freedom of choice for pacified students violently transformed into depoliticized and individualized consumers (Cotroneo & Costa, 2010).…”

Instructional leader or school manager? The evolution of the principal's role in Chile

“…Haciendo una analogía con un iceberg, podemos comprender mejor el impacto que ha tenido la implementación de estos cambios estructurales en el mundo. Lo que es rápidamente observable en la superficie del iceberg es la descentralización de la educación, su marketización, el cambio en su financiamiento, la instalación de evaluaciones estandarizadas que permiten medir desempeño (tanto de estudiantes como de profesores), y la rendición de cuentas internas y externas (Falabella, 2014;Mandiola & Ascorra, 2010); pero por debajo de esto, queda mucho por investigar.…”