In the last years strategic supply networks have been built, mainly by large organizations from US and Europe, in several countries. Corresponding theories have been transferred to those countries and international research has been encouraged. However, the prevalent theory has been pretty useless to local management and research because it reproduces a static, centralized and universal model of strategy. More specifically it carries three major problems: (a) oversimplification of the processual character of strategic decisions; (b) marginalization of the voice and reality of network managers, and (c) neglect of the cultural dimension in managerial and organizational processes. The author of this paper develops a particular type of ethnographic approach to research in international networks. An international research on strategic decision, undertaken in Brazil at the time the researcher was fulfilling a research degree in a business school in UK, is described. The main discoveries are presented and the relevance of the approach to the construction of realist theories in the field is outlined. Finally, the author develops critical reflections on international research and on how the approximation between anthropology and management can be effectively explored by cultural researchers in Brazil.
Strategic decision; strategic networks; international research; ethnography; international networks