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AbstractThe field of strategic management (SM) has presumed that the relationship between the state and market is unproblematic and that the role of the state should be seen solely within the context of regulation. Hence, the authority of CEOs within multinational corporations depends on the construction of its legitimate and sole validity and also on the delegitimation of other types of strategists—namely, government strategists. This paper emphasizes the territorial‐international dimension of authority and legitimacy to argue that the SM literature delegitimates the authority of government strategists. The paper suggests that SM in Brazil can be reorientated to help restore the legitimate authority of government strategists and challenge the sole privileging of strategists within big corporations. Copyright © 2011 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Almost a hundred years after its foundation, the Harvard Business School (HBS) continues to represent the epitome of general management knowledge. As an academic organization, it is both idiosyncratic and conventional; as an institution, it is admired for its position, longevity and power. This paper investigates institutional mechanisms that have allowed HBS to organize around a particular set of values and beliefs, which may account for its privileged standing. We argue that a complex institution like Harvard is mirrored somewhat in the written text it produces, the case and the case method, which can be deconstructed by "reading" the resulting predicaments in sustaining such a model of knowledge. What is produced at the HBS is specific to its own organizational structure but intrinsically linked through the notion of relevance to three business ideologies: managerialism, institutionalism and American capitalism. The case method as organizational artifact and methodological tool provides a basis for understanding these general institutional dynamics as a limit to HBS's ability to change.