RIJH 669 7 7 9 — 7/3/2012 — VENKATARAMAN.S — 411464 ——— Style 2 NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: THIS IS THE PRE-PUBLICATION PROOF OF THE FINALLY PUBLISHED JOURNAL ARTICLE PUBLISH IN BUSINESS HISTORY IT IS MADE AVAILABLE ON MY UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS PERMISSABLE BY THE JOURNAL PUBLISHERS (AND WILL BE REMOVED IF I FIND OUT OTHERWISE) PLEASE ACCESS T HE ACT UAL PUBLISHED VERSION AND CIT ATION DATA HERE: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2012.669779 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Q2 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Q1 44 45 46 47 48 49 The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 00, No. 0, 2012, 1–20 Brazilian management gurus as reflexive soft-HRM practitioners: an empirical study Bill Cooke a *, Thomaz Wood b and Flavio Maca u b a Lancaster University, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK; b Fundac ¸a ˜ o Getulio Vargas-Escola De Administra c ¸ a ˜ o De Empresas De Sa ˜ o Paulo (FGV-EAESP), Sao Paulo, Brazil This article is an empirical study of Brazilian management gurus, that is, Portuguese- speaking gurus who practise almost wholly in Brazil. It is based on secondary, and primary elite interview data, and finds that Brazilian gurus are reflexive, national- culturally congruent, soft-HRM practitioners, a collective institution working with companies on the implementation of soft-HRM initiatives. Identifying Brazilian gurus in this way is our first contribution. Our second contribution is to provide an empirical account of the very existence and work of these particular national gurus, distinguished from international gurus (like Tom Peters), and not otherwise mentioned in the literature on gurus or soft-HRM. Our third contribution is to present gurus’ own understandings of their practice in this soft-HRM role. This they relate to the Brazilian cultural context, and distinguish from that of business schools and motivational speakers. They also identify personally unique characteristics. Our final contribution, taking these three together, is to explore the implications for understandings of our analysis regarding HRM, in Brazil and internationally, particularly in relation to the role and function of national and international management gurus. Keywords: Brazil; elite interviews; HR practitioners; management gurus; soft-HR M Our gurus are emotional and passionate, while American gurus are rational and sceptical . . . Our gurus have the conceptual basis and at the same time are more affectionate. This makes them captivate people, easy to identify with. American gurus are respected, their books are read, but they are not loved. Brazilians love their gurus. (Brazilian managem ent guru interviewee – Guru 5) Introduction In this journal, in 2005, Tanure and Duarte analysed Brazilian national work culture, showing how it can be leveraged for business success. Our introductory quote, from a Brazilian management guru, affirms Tanure and Duarte representation of the affective dimensions of Brazilian culture. It also exemplifies how these dimensions are reflexively leveraged in Brazilian management guru practice, self-distinguished from American (i.e. US) comparators. This practice, we go on to argue, is distinctive not only just in modes of performance, broadly defined, which engage with the affective and the cultural, but also in the marshalling of expertise (‘our gurus have the conceptual basis’), which does likewise. That is, we demonstrate in this article that Brazilian gurus, as a distinctive category, are institutionally significant, self-aware, soft-HRM practitioners. This is our first contribution. The article is also an empirical account of the existence and work of Brazilian management gurus. This is our second contribution. It is based on a review of secondary *Corresponding author. Email: bill.cooke@startmail.com ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2012 Taylor & Francis