Decolonising the Business and Management Curriculum: An Ontological Modesty Perspective

Decolonisation of the curriculum (DtC) has attracted substantial attention from university educators, especially from those based in countries implicated by colonialism. Among academics in schools of business and management, there is increasing recognition of the need to decolonise management knowledge production, pedagogical practice and the development of new knowledge. In recent years, Management Learning has done a lot to explain the need for decolonising business and management knowledge and pedagogy, and to suggest and demonstrate how this could be done. In this short article, we build upon what this journal’s authors have already accomplished and call for further critical and reflexive scholarship of management learning and education that will help bring DtC to the mainstream of business schools’ educational activities. Writing from a position of what we refer to as ‘ontological modesty’, we offer reflections on decolonisation of the business school curriculum, along with some practical ideas for how to go about it and a call for development of a constructive conversation about DtC.