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Latin America has been neglected in management and international business (IB) knowledge for a long time. Such a picture reflects the enduring power of the dark side of the geopolitics of knowledge that “international” sub-fields in management knowledge have to tackle as a key condition of possibility for the co-creation of a truly “international” field of “international business”. In this position paper, the authors aim to analyze the extent to which CPoIB has been a key instrument to tackle Anglo-Saxon hegemony in IB knowledge over the last ten years.

The authors follow a decolonizing perspective to analyse the impact of CPoIB for Latin America international business knowledge production.

The paper argues that CPoIB has given voice to authors who are from Latin America and, most important, work in the region. By doing that, CPoIB has triggered the mobilization of mechanisms of recognition and redistribution that are necessary to offset the neo-imperial side of “international business” and management knowledge. The journal has also helped to foster the co-creation of “pluriversal international business”.

The paper uses a decolonial perspective from Latin America in order to open new questions and challenges to the field of IB.

Drawing upon the concepts of transmodernity, pluriversality and border thinking the author stands in a more practical fashion for the co-creation of an-other performative CMS which fosters the decolonization of (critical) management studies – as a way to contribute “to concretely changing the world(s) for the better” (as claimed by the organizers of the symposium “should critical management studies get anything done?” held at the Academy of Management Meeting in 2012 in Boston).

From a more practical and less opaque perspective on border thinking it is shown how and why border thinking can both enable and constrain critical scholars and people to move across the borders of the colonial difference and from Eurocentric modernity toward transmodern pluriversality.

The current performative turn of CMS fails to address the agency of critical knowledge as a potential reworking of Occidentalism which can be mobilized to “manage” the rise of alternatives and knowledges from the rest of the world in general and from emerging economies in particular.

Border thinking as a crucial concept from the coloniality/modernity research program from Latin America is taken as an important contribution from the colonial difference to the co-creation of decolonial management studies (DMS), an-other performative CMS which fosters the construction of a world in which many worlds and knowledges can coexist as a way to change it for the better.

The purpose of the paper is to problematise the emerging interest on international management from a critical point of view, considering the potential contribution of Latin American perspectives and to introduce the content of the special issue on “Critical international management and international critical management: perspectives from Latin America”.

The paper shows the relevance acquired recently by international management and the international advance of critical management studies, but also demonstrates their inherent limitations because of their universalistic standpoint that inhibit them to consider the governance issues of international management that are obvious from a Latin American standpoint.

The paper finds the relevance of some Latin American perspectives to break down the universalistic point of view of IM and CMS introducing a “pluriversalistic” geopolitical position to consider alternate projects to neoliberal globalisation contributing to realise the necessary decolonial shift to produce symmetrical dialogue across the border.

The paper shows that the contributions included in the special issue open new ways to critically consider and renew international management as a field of knowledge, but also demonstrates the relevance to think on the internationalisation of critical management during the recent years. They contribute to foster the new constitution of knowledge production around complex/diachronic issues reconceptualising research projects as co‐operative ventures of multiple voices and orientations from multiple places.

We engage in a particular way the Anglo-American claim that a more performative Critical Management Studies (CMS) is needed to foster transformations in the “world out there” by putting into practice our learnings from a case study at Galpão Aplauso (GA), an NGO located in Brazil, which main role is to (re)socialize dispossessed youngsters through a critical methodology informed by anthropophagy.

Drawing upon an engaged investigation informed by both performative CMS and decoloniality from Latin America we embody a performative CMS “otherwise.” Through the engagement with GA, and corresponding disengagement with our institutions, we propose decolonial anthropophagy as a way to move beyond Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism and decolonial work monopolized by full-time academics.

From a decolonial perspective it is shown that the performative turn within CMS could be used as a way of bringing “critical development” and “critical knowledge” to “subalterns” and the “rest of the world” from a perspective of coloniality. An anthropofagic perspective on decoloniality and critique shows that “subalterns” have much to teach us and our institutions and represents a way to decolonize theory-practice and academic-nonacademic divides.

The critical-decolonial anthropophagic perspective put forward in this chapter may represent an opportunity for CMS to move beyond much of its Eurocentric traditions, thus enlarging its geographic and cultural references. It may offer CMS an alternative critical performativity concept from the South which enables CMS to become a “re/disconnector,” instead of a connector, between the Euro-American traditions and the “rest of the world,” and making things happen “otherwise.”

This paper aims to draw on international relations (IR) literature to analyze, from a critical standpoint, recent developments in international business (IB) and international management (IM) in the USA, and the emerging debate between mainstream and critical researchers in Anglo‐American literature. It also aims to show that these important undertakings overshadow the political role of international disciplines and constrain the development of a critical perspective in IB from Latin America.

Based on an interdisciplinary approach, this paper addresses the main debates on IR regarding the “international” and the control of international fields of knowledge by the great powers to foster a critical perspective in IB from Latin America.

Critique from a universal perspective which does not differentiate IB and IM in the Anglo‐American literature is important, but constrains the appraisal of specific national and regional issues that are of vital importance to the development of a critical perspective in IB from Latin America.

This critical perspective moves beyond disciplinary boundaries and raises implications for research and teaching of IB and IM in Latin America.

This paper problematizes, from a perspective focused on the political economy of knowledge, the overlooking of debates about the “international” and of specific conditions that both enable and constrain the development of fields of knowledge from a less asymmetrical standpoint.

This paper aims to problematize the lack of different worldviews on international management (IM), and the virtual silence in Latin America regarding this field within the context of the ongoing crisis of neoliberal policies and discourse.

This paper embraces a decolonial Latin American perspective based on developments in international relations (IR). A major reason for this dialogue is that critical debates within IR have been overlooked by both mainstream and critical literature on management, despite the intrinsic relation between decolonial arguments and IR and the increasing importance of management, and IM, within the realm of international relations to both “centers” and “peripheries”.

The interdisciplinary dialogue put forward in this paper goes beyond those borders established by the “center” and imposed on subalterns. Accordingly then, this might be taken as a particular way of putting into practice a decolonial Latin American perspective. It aims to go beyond some “universal” standpoint as the IR literature shows that the universal standpoint in relation to the “peripheries” tends to be mobilized by the “centers”. It is understood that the construction of a critical Latin American perspective is a way of creating better conditions for “cross‐cultural encounters” not only in global terms, but also within Latin America.

Rethinking IM through a critical perspective inspired by IR has implications for teaching, research and other types of practice in both IM and IR in Latin America.

The paper aims to foster a Latin American perspective rather than a general perspective. Instead of merely disengaging the “center”, the paper embraces, from a critical position inspired by IR, the current argument in US literature that the core of IM comprises a strong commitment to cross‐cultural issues, diversity, and eclecticism.

Strategic management researchers in Europe challenged the historical concern of the field with economic performance. As a result corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been transformed into a key strategic issue. Given the large amount of social problems in Latin America, much of them related to the large amount of foreign direct investments inflows over the last decade, the growing literature on strategic corporate social responsibility (SCSR) produced in the US has been reproduced in the region by consulting firms, big corporations firms and strategic management researchers. Drawing upon critical arguments of Latin American scholars on the dominance of the US literature in the region and on problematic outcomes of the large amount of foreign direct investments inflows this paper develops a critical analysis on the so‐called SCSR. The vantage point construed by big corporations within the fields of strategic management and organization studies, the increasing dependence of the field of strategic management on corporate resources, and the decreasing power of the state and civil society in relation to big corporations are pointed out as key issues for the development of a critical approach on SCSR in Latin America. In the end the author argues that the responsibilities of big corporations, especially in Latin America, are too important to be addressed only by the field of strategic management.

The purpose of this extended editorial is to reflect on the journey of critical perspectives on international business over the past seven years and to look forward to future issues and potential concerns of the journal. In addition, the contents of the current issue are introduced.

Using the form of a conversation between the journal's co‐editors, the development of the journal and features of its content over the last seven years are discussed, and related to the ever changing external context. The current trends and concerns emerging in the field of international business are used to speculate on the future direction of the journal and its prospective content.

By tracing key points and features of the development of the journal over the past seven years, this paper identifies a growing need for critique of international business in all its various forms, and, especially from inter, multi and trans‐disciplinary perspectives.

This is the first attempt to evaluate critical perspectives on international business. As such, it offers a foundation from which to speculate on the future development of both the journal and the field of critical studies on international business.