Towards a critical pedagogy of international business: The application of Phronesis

In this article, we contribute to debate on the possibilities and role of critical pedagogy in management education, with particular reference to the field of international business (IB). We engage with what we see as a focus on reproducing extant models of IB practice in the canon of IB textbooks. In these texts, we identify a concentration upon multinational enterprises (MNEs) and MNE managers as the key actors in IB, with a prioritization of their interests and marginalization of those of other involved and affected parties. In seeking to critically engage with these texts in the classroom context, we propose the need for a constructive critical pedagogy and posit the possibilities for this through application of contemporary interpretation of the concept of phronesis.