Neo-colonial dynamics in global professional service firms: a periphery perspective

Abstract

This article analyses neo-colonial dynamics at peripheral units of a Western global professional service firm. Drawing on postcolonial theory, an empirical study at global news agency Reuters' subsidiaries in Mumbai and Bangalore shows how socio-ideological and technocratic control mechanisms allow subsidiary workers to elevate their status, while still cementing their role as dominated in the global hierarchy and silencing any resistance. Thus, on the one hand, it might appear that the global service firm provides periphery units the opportunity to become equals of core units, representing a 'nurturing' role achieved by instilling aspirational values and shaping imaginations. On the other hand, coercive and universalising routines such as performance assessments highlight the ambivalent nature of global firm initiatives to incorporate the periphery on an equal footing with core units, demonstrating the countervailing nature of contemporary power relations.

Managing international professional service firms: a review and future research agenda

“…Indeed, the diversity of habits and expectations of professionals could contribute positively or negatively to the firm's international success, and its impact would be expected to vary based on the degree of professional intensity (Spence et al , 2016). Of particular relevance would be the effects of these varieties of professionalism on the neo-colonialist power struggles that have been identified in international PSFs (Boussebaa et al , 2012; Sayed and Agndal, 2020).…”

Indigenous Peoples and the Right to Education: The Dumagat Experience in the Provinces of Nueva Ecija and Aurora, in the Philippines

“…The colonial mentality embraced by the greater Filipino majority posed a challenge to Indigenous culture, forcing the latter to struggle for independence and self-determination (Decena, 2004;La Torre & Catalina, 2016). The neo-colonial strategy of the colonizers has both economic and political purposes (Horvath, 1972;Sayed & Agndal, 2020). The Filipinos, by thinking like Americans, would always like and love American products thereby converting them into instant consumers of finished American products; a strategy of capitalist ideology (Constantino, 1976).…”