MBAs: Five discourses in search of a new narrative

Abstract

The management industry has significantly evolved in Brazil, since the 1990s, spreading ideas and management models. The phenomenon has sparked the interest of researchers, who carried out studies on its “pillars”: consulting firms, business media, management gurus, and business schools – the latter constitutes the study object in this paper. In the last decades, the number of graduate programs in management education has been multiplied in Brazil: the so-called MBAs. In the United States and Europe, such programs have been subject to scrutiny and scientific studies having a reflective and critical nature. In Brazil, however, few studies have been conducted about them. This article aims to fill this gap. For this, we identify and present the most pronounced discourses produced about such courses: the discourse of instrumental criticism, the discourse of instrumental defense, the critical discourse of emancipation, and the discourse of redemption of the business media. Besides, we also present the discourse of students. For this, we conducted a survey with students from three Brazilian programs and collected their perceptions. We conclude that a MBA may be seen as an open institutional field, where various agents employ different discursive strategies, according to their ontological perspectives and interests. We observe that there is little direct interaction or argument between the discourses. However, we may identify elements for a renewalof the “narrative of MBA”. The new narrative has as its character a socially conscious and responsible individual, who has an ambition for personal and professional change and pursuesa senior leadership position or, alternatively, entrepreneurship. This individual goes through experiences that combine theory and practice, which comprise various cultural contexts and the development of a critical view on organizations and the managerial activity.