Dependency ambiguity: how Brazilian business schools contextualised knowledge to cope with local needs

As a new breed of government administrators was needed to foster Brazil’s industrial development in the 1950s, business schools became necessary to train those managers and public administrators. Sergio Wanderley, Rafael Alcadipani, and Amon Barros write that these emerging business schools didn’t simply import Americanised ideas. They contextualised knowledge to cope with Brazilian needs, engaging with dependency studies and critical social thinking. “Dependency ambiguity” allows us to understand how US inspiration was used against US pretentions, aiming at an autonomous Brazil.