Deepening, broadening and re-asserting a postcolonial interrogative space in organization studies

Jack, Gavin; Westwood, Robert I; Srinivas, Nidhi; Sardar, Ziauddin

doi:10.1177/1350508411398996

Cited by 137 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 126 publications

(117 reference statements)

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“…That said, whilst taking seriously the notion of mimicry, and the discursive/relational conception of power underpinning it, we also agree with recent calls for greater attention to the political-economic dimension of the West/Rest encounter (see e.g. Jack et al, 2011). In this respect, materialist formulations of the postcolonial condition (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

“…In so doing, we add to recent efforts to address the over-emphasis placed by postcolonial studies on text and representation at the expense of lived experience and political economy (e.g. Jack et al, 2011;Srinivas, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Murphy & Zhu, 2012) and analyses fusing together the discursive and the material (e.g. Banerjee, 2008;Gopinath & Prasad, 2013) are becoming more common and, indeed, increasingly being called for as a means of broadening the field and making it more attentive to political-economic processes (see Jack et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frenkel, 2008;Jack et al, 2011;Prasad, 2012) to frame our analysis. We argue that postcolonial theory sensitizes and enables us to understand the complex ways in which corporate englishization (re-)produces international power relations that are rooted in the history of European imperialism and which continue to characterize the world economy in the current era of US-led global capitalist expansionism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective

2014

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The spread and use of English as the lingua franca of international business -'corporate englishization' -has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years but the focus has mostly been on the communication benefits and challenges of using English as a shared language inside multinationals. In this paper, we examine how English is used externally in the provision of business services and apply a postcolonial perspective to frame our analysis. Drawing on fieldwork in India within the call center units of two outsourcing organizations serving Anglo-American firms, we show how corporate englishization (1) relies on, and contributes to producing, comprador managerial cadres; (2) serves to construct a transnational intra-linguistic hierarchy of power and privilege; and (3) undercuts its own effectiveness by simultaneously eliminating and maintaining the alterity of the 'Other' through processes of mimicry. We thus show how corporate englishization does not merely overcome or, conversely, worsen transnational communication problems; it also (re-)produces colonial-style power relations between the 'Anglosphere' and the 'Rest'. Our analysis deepens our understanding of corporate englishization and opens a new avenue for postcolonial research on the role of language in international business. Our analysis also advances the field of postcolonial organization studies and has implications for international business scholarship more generally.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective

2014

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“…We acknowledge that the process of transferring knowledge across national borders is itself imbued with colonialism (Frenkel & Shenhav, 2006), but we try to set our analysis within the political-economic framework of colonialism and its aftermath (Jack et al, 2011). Whilst engaging with post-colonial debates, we use comparative survey evidence to shed new light on the nature of long-term continuities in workplace practice, formative institutional legacies and institutional design.…”

Section: Post-colonialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional legacies and HRM: similarities and differences in HRM practices in Portugal and Mozambique

Dibben

Brewster

Brookes

et al. 2016

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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Postcolonial Approaches

Munshi

Broadfoot

Hall

2017

The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication

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Postcolonial approaches provide an alternative way of looking at mainstream constructs and processes of organization and organizing. Drawing on the work of literary and cultural studies scholars as well as that of novelists, artists, and activists who resisted colonization and imperialism, postcolonial approaches interrogate the overt and covert colonialist tendencies in contemporary organizations. This entry outlines the insights gained from postcolonial scholarship to resist and challenge structures of neocolonial power in theory as well as in practice. It focuses on hybrid spaces of organization and organizing created in the encounters between the colonizer and the colonized, amplifies voices marginalized by dominant organizational discourses, and points to the ways in which indigenous forms of knowing, being, and speaking can inform understandings of organization in a multicultural world.

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Deepening, broadening and re-asserting a postcolonial interrogative space in organization studies

Cited by 137 publications

References 126 publications

Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective

Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective

Institutional legacies and HRM: similarities and differences in HRM practices in Portugal and Mozambique

Postcolonial Approaches

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