Revisiting a North/South (dis)Encounter: The Chandler - Furtado Case

Informações

Código: ESO2165
Divisão: ESO - Estratégia em Organizações
Tema de Interesse: Tema 11 - Estratégia, Governo e Desenvolvimento

Autores

Sergio Eduardo de Pinho Velho Wanderley, Alexandre de Almeida Faria

Resumo

This paper aims to contribute in a particular way to attenuate the ‘abyssal line’ drawn betweenNorth and South in the field of management studies in general, and in particular in strategicmanagement. The main assumption held by the authors of this paper is that the world has notbeen flattened out by a superior force - i.e., the market - which has supposedly made the‘visible hand’ - i.e., the manager - the only or best way to economic development in a globalscale. This paper aims to contribute to a critical reflection on why theories and knowledgefrom the North have become dominant, at expense of others, by addressing power andpolitical issues addressed in the South which have been overlooked by the strategicmanagement literature. More specifically, this paper aims to demonstrate that although bothAlfred Chandler and Celso Furtado have much to contribute to the field of strategy (orstrategic management, if we accept the US denomination) it was only the former who hasbecome an authority in the field, not only in the US but also in Brazil. Their main academiccontributions started in the late 1950s. Despite the North-South divide at the time they sharedthe understanding that deliberate strategy was the right way to foster development. However,different backgrounds, origins and positions led them to quite different proposals regardingwhat strategy stands for and who is the strategist. Chandler reinforced the representation ofthe big corporation led by the managers as the main engine of US capitalism, whereas Furtadosuggested that the state through planning and investments should lead Brazil out ofunderdevelopment. In the 1960s Chandler was taken by many as the founder of the fieldwhich would be called strategic management after he joined Harvard Business School,whereas Furtado was overlooked given his position from the South and one of the mainauthors on the theory of dependency. What is particularly interesting in this disencounter,given controversial episodes that followed the rise of ‘corporate capitalism’ and the thesis of‘end of history’ in the post-Cold War period, is that for more than 40 years both Chandler andFurtado addressed development and the big corporation from quite distinct perspectives.Those perspectives led to an important disencounter due to the North-South andcorresponding capitalism versus communism divides. The economic crisis of 2007 which hasabated Westerners’ confidence in their system (The Economist, 2010), has shown the limits ofthe neo-liberal model (from the North) - based on the notions of flat world and visible hand -and that we should not take it as the only path towards development. Alternatives, strategiesand knowledges from the South have proved their value and importance for a critical analysisof the conditions that fostered North-South disencounters and why promoting the Chandler-Furtado encounter at this stage might help in the construction of a better world (or betterworlds, in plural) through strategic management (or “strategy”).

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