Changing the Context of Business Management Theory. The So and So Management between Eclecticism and Wishful Thinking

Despite its original multidisciplinarity, the today proliferation of cross, trans and poli disciplinary approaches in management theories, after the spread of Critical Management Studies and the crisis of Business Schools, must be considered within the changing general political economical context. The growing relevance of BRICS in GDP and research compared to the decreasing incidence of industrial and scientific production in Western Countries calls for a debate on the main features of the evolution of managerial theories and applied practices. One model of analysis could be the one expressed in 1920s by Antonio Gramsci and in the 1950s by the economist Federico Caffè. The theme was the inappropriate approach of Political and Economic theories to the problems that emerged after the First and Second-World Wars. Both scholars coupled the widespread eclecticism of Economics with the unrealistic proposals produced to address Italy’s structural problems so far unsolved, such as the underdevelopment of the South of the country and the so-called “questione meridionale”. Moreover, Caffè extended this analysis to the European situation in which the poor application of Keynesian theories led to a worldwide crisis, first economic and then political. In this context management theories have today to face the crisis of Western economies with respect to a different conception of the market oriented towards less controlled exchanges and a new perspective of free competition triggered by the revolution of AI and Digital Platforms. The paper discusses this perspective with its risks and opportunities for management theory and practice and the emergence of the “so-and-so management” preconceived by Nobel Prize Daron Acemoglu with his “so and so” technology. Keywords: Daron Acemoglu; Caffè Federico; CoSo Framework; Eclecticism; Wishful Thinking; So and so Management; Western World crisis