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In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique contributions and perspectives of South Asian Marxists to global Marxism. Three contributions we find particularly significant are (1) South Asian Marxists' approach to thinking about questions of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, (2) the treatment of agrarian and feudal continuities in Marxist theories from South Asia and (3) unique South Asian contributions to theorizing caste from a Marxist perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the reversal of language hierarchy in a Finnish multinational corporation (MNC) from a political perspective. This paper situated the language hierarchy in the historical context of the colonial-style relationship between Finland and Russia. From a post-colonial perspective, the colonial legacy of Russia has had an influence on language strategy and everyday translation work in the Finnish multinational until the present day.

This paper undertook a case study based on qualitative secondary analysis of existing data sets. These data sets originated from two previously conducted studies of the same Finnish MNC.

The findings revealed a reversal of the traditional corporate language hierarchy. Russian, as the host country language of powerful local subsidiaries, rose to the top of the hierarchy at the expense of English, the common corporate language, and other languages. The colonial-style relationship was enacted by professional and paraprofessional translators who collaborated by using “the master’s language and imitating the master’s voice” to reap the strategic benefits of local responsiveness.

In contrast to previous work drawing on post-colonial theory in the study of MNCs, this paper represents the headquarters in Finland as the “colonised” party and the Russian subsidiaries as the “coloniser.” Owing to its colonial legacy, Russian, the host country language, became very powerful and influenced the language strategy of the entire MNC. This paper conceptualized translation as a multilevel phenomenon and offers a holistic explanation of why the language hierarchy in the Finnish MNC was reversed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of intersectionality. In recent management writing, a vocabulary has been introduced which enacts concepts such as assemblages, multiplicity, rhizomes, and becoming. Such a vocabulary is helpful when revising the theoretical models used in gender research.

Drawing on this fluid mode of thinking, which is fundamentally indebted to a process thinking that favours becoming and change over stability and fixed entities as the primary analytical categories, the concept of intersectionality is discussed.

It is suggested that intersectionality perspectives, a concept developed to enable the analysis of co‐existing and co‐operating registers of knowledge and power, may inform gender and diversity studies and organization theory in general. Rather than reducing all sorts of identities or subject‐positions to a single plane, intersectionality perspectives conceive of identity as being derived from different registers functioning as shifting planes, at times operating detachedly from one another; in other cases directly overlapping and even clashing.

Intersectionality thinking is capable of influencing a variety of organizational and managerial practices.

The paper seeks to bridge process thinking, gender theory, and diversity management literature through introducing the concept of intersectionality as a helpful tool when thinking of organizational practice.

The paper aims to examine how the measurement of African “corruption” has been manipulated to serve western economic interests.

In depth secondary source analysis within a post‐colonial framework.

The most popular measure of corruption, Transparency International's corruption perception index (CPI), is a flawed instrument. Capable only of calculating proxies of corruption, the measure is oblivious to cultural variance and is business‐centric in style. The CPI is embraced in good faith by African governments and donor organisations oblivious to its deeper purpose of serving western economic and geo‐political interests under the guise of weeding out something falsely portrayed as a universal negative.

The paper will assist efforts to ground the anti‐corruption effort in the realities of Africa.

The paper is part of a minority scholarship that seeks to provide space for the consideration of alternatives to the dominant conceptions of corruption and its measurement.

This chapter provides readers with a summary of sport sociology in the United States. It begins with a brief overview of sport in the United States before describing the development of the sociology of sport in the United States and some of the major contemporary patterns in sport research. They key movement in US sport sociology was the critical-cultural turn that took place during the 1980s and 1990s when critical theory and feminism became dominant approaches to research. Scholarship in the 21st century has largely developed upon that turn and is generally qualitative and cultural. Contemporary US sport sociology is a critical endeavor heavily influenced by cultural studies, post-structuralism, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, post-colonial theory, and theories of globalization. Despite a fairly consistent approach to sport research in the United States, sport sociology remains contentious and in disunity. This chapter argues that the contention and disunity results from broader structural patterns that guide sport sociologists’ social actions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide space for the consideration of alternatives to the dominant conceptions of corruption and its measurement.

The paper provides an in‐depth secondary source analysis within a post‐colonial framework.

The paper demonstrates how public administration can be subverted to the agenda of business by the way the measurement and management of African “corruption” is manipulated to serve Western economic interests. The conclusion reached is that the most popular measure of corruption, Transparency International's (TIs) corruption perception index (CPI), is a flawed instrument, capable only of calculating vague proxies of corruption. The index is oblivious to cultural variance and is business‐centric in style and philosophy.

The paper represents one of the first attempts to expose the business serving purpose of TI's CPI. A fresh approach to corruption is advocated around two principles; corruption cannot be comprehended outside the experience, nor can it submit to empirical investigation. A new corruption‐fighting role for the African Union is envisaged.

In this chapter, we report on a meta-analysis of 30 refereed journal articles published between 1996 and 2015 by academic developers from Australasia, Britain and South Africa. We used a disciplinary lens to examine academic development research during this period. Specifically, we analysed the academic development literature to identify ‘ways of knowing’, the extent of explicit use of theories and research methods. Findings indicate that academic development research continues to be largely experiential, under-theorised and fragmentary. Articles analysed tended to fall within three research clusters, including education and educational psychology; professional learning and scholarship of learning and teaching; and sociology and philosophy. Qualitative research methods and psychological and sociological disciplinary lenses were dominantly referenced and adopted.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the authors’ multiple subjectivities, in research and in practice which are ever shifting in context with each other. The authors present richness of understanding which can be revealed when researchers eschew consensus, certainty and easy solutions. The authors aim to show that plurality of ontological and epistemological approaches combined with diversity in understanding and subjective experience is necessary in qualitative research in organisations.

The authors take a playful and incomplete narrative approach in their critical reflection on the subjectivities being silenced or ignored in organisations and in academia. The authors present an unsettling and ambiguous read but the aim is to question the formulaic, linear, simplistic solutions and structures evident in organisations and academia that silence uncertainty, emotions, voice and creativity through standardisation and the rhetoric of collaboration for performance enhancement. This process the authors have termed philosophical violence.

The authors identify philosophical violence as a dominant theme in qualitative research, in organisational practice and within academia. In contrast, the authors’ embodied subjectivities preclude the reaching agreement or consensus too quickly, or indeed, at all. The authors’ embodied struggles add to the understanding of ambiguity, difference, critical reflexivity and understanding, providing richness and accommodating diversity and paradox in the inquiries in the organisations.

The authors show the struggles as hopeful and the non-collaborative collaboration as a resource from which the authors can individually and jointly develop new understandings of working and thus survive the philosophical violence found in organisations and in research. Honouring subjectivities is essential for rich qualitative research in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

The primary objective of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

Analytical dimensions were related to establishing three proposals, which represent possible theoretical routes for characterizing sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory. A framework which illustrates the theoretical route taken to develop these proposals is presented at the end of the theoretical-analytical discussions.

This paper considers that discussion about sustainable development, sustainability and comparative management theory, as interesting themes for organizational studies, lack epistemological clarity and theoretical depth. Such shortcomings are identified based upon the difficulty in identifying ontological postures, epistemological perspectives, dominant paradigms and conceptual approaches that enable greater coherence to analysis of these themes, and also support the undertaking of research that can contribute to enriching proposals related to comparative management theory.

This is an innovative paper as it relates comparative management theory approaches with structural concepts from sustainable development and sustainability developed using contributions from organizational theories, sociological reflections, and political science. The proposed characterization is intended to blaze new and alternative epistemological paths for adding greater rigor to empirical research focussed on the relationship investigated here in a theoretical context.