Abstract

JORDAO, Filomena. Colective knowledge structures and work organization options in Portuguese banks: A case study. Psicologia [online]. 2001, vol.15, n.2, pp.327-359. ISSN 0874-2049.

Generally, the objective of this work is the study of cognitive dimension of organizational structuring, within a general interpretative perspective of the organisations study. Our specific aim is twofold, on the one hand, we intend to explore the existence of a collective knowledge about organization in a specific Portuguese bank and, on the other hand, to explore the relationship between this colective structure and the organizational structuring project that recently took place over agencies. A exploratory simple study case (Yin, 1993,1994) was realised in a Portuguese banking organization in which we elicit from the aggregation of individual cognitive maps belonging to the members that have participated in the restructuring process of the agencies, a collective structure concerning knowledge about organizing. The characteristics of this collective structure were later compared to the restructuring project as written down for agencies which has recently taken place in that Organization. Therefore, we have analysed and graphically represented the collective knowledge about organizing based upon a methodology of cognitive mapping and with the Graphics Cope technique (Eden, 1988; Jones, 1994; Ackerman e Sweeney, 1995). To analyse the structural caratheristics of agencies, we have used the two polar organization types which have been emphasised in the literature - stable-mechanistic and adaptive-organic (Kast e Rosenzweig, 1985,1992; Bums e Stalker, 1961). The results shown a collective structure of knowledge about organizing clearly compromised with a traditional or functionalist logic (Burrell e Morgan, 1994) of organizing that evidenced the underlying assumptions of the traditional organizational model and of Human behavior in the workplace. The organizational characteristics of the agencies as they have been planned at the Attend Project, manifest themselves as being in agreement with these characteristics, thereby showing that it is a stable-mechanistic structure (Kast e Rosenzweig, 1985,1992; Bums e Stalker, 1961) that they are less efficient to complex and unstable environments. Finally, we'll reflect the necessity of realise others studies to explore not only the relationships between cognitive structures and work organization options but also to explore the origins of the knowledge structures.

Keywords : Estrutura colectiva de conhecimento; mapa colectivo; estruturação organizacional; G COPE.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )