A cultura organizacional em empresas recuperadas por cooperativas de trabalhadores no Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The economic stagnation in the 80s and its consequences in the first years of the 90s led Brazil to a severe economic crisis, which raised the unemployment index to alarming levels. In view of this setting, many companies have financially collapsed and closed its operations voluntarily or under insolvency proceedings. This thesis investigative object is to analyze the changes occurred in the organizational culture – mediated by formative processes – and the social-economic specificities of companies recovered by former employees that were reconfigured as labor cooperatives in the Rio Grande do Sul State. The core problem inquires if these labor cooperatives effectively apply the cooperative and self-management principles in daily activities, considering the ambiguities and contradictions they face to survive in a capitalist system, its competition-related demands and also if they can be circumscribed in a solidarity economy scenario. In its general purpose, this paper analyses the labor cooperative constitution process held by former employees of bankrupt companies in Rio Grande do Sul State and the effects of organizational changes in the recovery/constitution process from the cooperative and self management point of view. To operationalize the research, a ten cooperatives sample was identified through the Ocergs/Sescoop System and the national survey about ‘Recovered Companies by Workers’ issued in 2013. From these ten, two closed down their operations and one refused to participate as study subject. Therefore, seven cooperative are subject of this study, which are located in six different municipalities. Three of them are in the educational branch, other three in the production branch and the other remaining cooperative is in the tourism and recreation sector. The research methodology was conducted by the descriptive method and included multiple case studies. The data were developed in fieldwork, which adopted many procedures, such as bibliographical research, documental analysis, questionnaires filled by cooperated people groups, in-depth interviews with cooperative managers, two focal groups held with cooperated people, and the direct observation of the cooperatives activities in specific situations. The findings indicate that: a) the cooperative and self-management principles are partially applied; b) the organizational culture is characterized by a transition process that seeks to make changes into a greater transparency in decisional process and in the people coexistence that are more open to dialogue and participation; and c) the social-economic effects implies the maintenance of the employment level and its consequent income continuity to cooperate people. In conclusion, the cooperatives basically maintain the same structure from the bankrupted company, promoting some adaptations aiming the new management format; also the cooperative and self-management principles are restricted by the capitalist competition; and what command actions in these cooperatives is the economic aspect, although the concern with the people is not neglected. It is also possible to comprehend that these cooperative belong to the solidarity economy field, regardless their limits to the full application of the cooperative and self-management principles and some of them do not participate or are not part of the solidarity economy policies.