CULTURE, POWER AND LEADERSHIP IN THE ORGANIZATIONS: A CASE STUDY IN EUCALYPTUS PULP INDUSTRY

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the links between organizational culture, power relations and the process of leadership in the daily business paperwork. The study is part of a broader research on various aspects of the organizational perspective of organizational culture and power relations. In this article, these concepts are articulated with the leadership in a qualitative study in one of the largest companies in the pulp and paper in the world. Data were collected through participant observation and 63 semi-structured interviews with individuals at the management, administrative and operational, and treated with the technique of content analysis (MINAYO, 2002). The theoretical articulation of this study followed the proposal of Hardy and Clegg (2001) on the consistency does not stick necessarily the boundaries between the traditional theoretical perspectives in the investigation of different forms of power plays in everyday organizational practices. Therefore, we adopted the following conceptual diversity to guide the analysis: the leadership is considered a process where social relations are established between people of influence (BRYMAN, 2004), organizational culture is a phenomenon built by the people around which are defined shares and differences between social groups and that is handled in two basic ways in organizational studies (SMIRCICH, 1983; CARRIERI, LEITE-DA-SILVA, 2006) as a variable and controllable as a metaphor to be understood, the relationships of power are considered on two main streams (HARDY; CLEGG, 2001): functionalist - in the power source and instrumental tools pleadings in favor of organizational interests, and criticism - as the power source of domination to be denounced, for resistance to be combined with or as a network relations in which all fall and reinforce. The results showed three bases adopted by the company throughout its history to articulate the organizational culture, power relations and leadership process: paternalism; instrumental rationality, and the management of the symbolic. All permeated by a broader disciplinary process that goes beyond (but includes) the organization. The effects of organizational members in setting legitimizing the company's interests (CLEGG, 1996), indicate that a more homogeneous organizational culture seems to be less important than holding out devices for this purpose because they allow the joint interests of the organization's network of relationships dynamics (family, professional, religious, etc..) in which its members are located.