SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS AS SUPPORT FOR ORGANIZATIONAL PHILOSOPHY IN EXPERIMENTAL NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

This research was done with the main purpose of understanding social representations as a support of the organizational philosophy in experimental national universities in order to conceive of a real theory about the reality of an empirical field represented by a university called at the National Experimental University of the Lake "Jesus Maria Semprum" (UNESUR). A qualitative methodology was used through an ethnographic design under an introspective point of view. The principle of contribution to the research was considered to determine the number of informants. The analysis unit was composed by 03 professors, 01 office worker, and 01 expert. The analysis and interpretation considered the principle that the elements which were useful to understand social representations as a support to the design of the organizational philosophy result from the categories. The review of documents, some videos, the mechanical registers, and the participative observation were used as techniques to collect the data while a half-structured interview was applied as an instrument which allowed to contrast between the university community perceptions with the theoretical postulates used as references which made possible to see the reality in order to strengthen the proposal model, as an institutional tool to manage the experimental national universities. The purpose of the model is to make up theory and action connected with predominant values, customs, attitudes, and perceptions in concrete socio-cultural realities. It is concluded that social representations allow to identify people behavior in the organization meanwhile philosophy gives the fundamentals to join behaviors, values, and attitudes