Cultural moviment in organizational studies: an interdisciplinar approach focused on consumption and globalization

Abstract

This paper reviews and analyzes the "cultural" movement in organizational studies (OS), which began in Brazil in the 1990’s under an approach that focused on consumption and globalization. What the authors are trying to tell through this interdisciplinary approach is that organizational, strategic and marketing areas have a common historical origin – legitimation of big companies – that became more problematic in the context of globalization. For this reason, it is said that OS researchers in Brazil should recognize the consumption dimension, instead of suppressing it. The authors argue that the suppression of consumption dimension by the OS area as well as cultural movement seem to be explained by the expansion of the management academy and by the interest that big companies have in hiding the increasing asymmetry between the domains of production and consumption in the context of globalization. In the end, the authors point out some implications of this approach for the promotion of interdisciplinarity and the local relevance of knowledge.