Condições de trabalho e comprometimento com a organização e com a carreira de docentes em um centro universitário privado

Abstract

Adopting a psycho-sociological perspective, the study aimed to explore the relationship among the working conditions, the organizational commitment (OC), and the commitment towards the teachers' careers (CC) to professors in an university center (UCE) of the private network from Minas Gerais. The working conditions were comprehensively evaluated, considering the content and surroundings of the work, since four categories: (1) contractual and legal; (2) physical and material; (3) processes and characteristics of the activity; and (4) socio-managerial environment. The organizational commitment was analyzed based on the three-dimensional model (affective, calculative and normative) and the commitment towards the career took into consideration the tetra-dimensional model (affective, normative, accumulated costs and alternatives for change). I developed two lines of research activities. In the first one, I reviewed the literature on the organizational and career commitment and I developed a critical consideration about it on the basis of a psychosociological perspective. Since a part of such reflection, I drafted a scientific article. Despite advances in some psycho-sociological aspects in these researches, this perspective proved to be ongoing among the reviewed articles. In these articles, a focus on the individual level predominates, which is characterized by the analysis of the attitudes of individuals towards their organizations and their work. The insertion of societal and organizational elements needs to gain more space in the researches on the psychosocial phenomena. The second line comprised an empirical research, in which I applied the methodological triangulation, combining data collection strategies (questionnaires, interviews and registers of field diary) and data analysis (statistical techniques and analysis of content). I obtained 145 valid questionnaires and I conducted 15 interviews. I explored the teachers perception to their working conditions in the second article, and, in general, they were positive within the physical and material category, mainly regarding the working spaces, and among the some socio-managerial environment factors: infrastructure and pressure, conflicting environment, violence and social discrimination. Were negative the evaluations of the contractual and legal category and the scores in the factor of processes and characteristics of the activity space for autonomy , and in the factors of the socio-managerial environment participation, organization of the activity and provision of health information. The interviews highlighted that the professors perceived them front of the increasing demands of roles. I explored the relationship among the researched phenomena in the third article. The affective factors of CC and of OC characterize better the linking from the teachers to their careers and to their organization. On the physical and material conditions, the psychobiological aspect factor offers more prediction to OC and CC. The factors of the processes and characteristics of the activity proved to be good predictors for the affective factors of OC and the amassed investments of CC. The infrastructure and pressure factor among the socio-managerial environment conditions provided direct prediction for the affective factors of OC and the accumulated costs of CC. The affective CC moderates the relationship between the working conditions and the affective OC. All results were discussed in the light of the theoretical and empirical models in which they were based upon, anchored on the assumption that the individual's interrelation towards his/her work, organization and its context is dialectical. Thus, positive perceptions of the working conditions impact the way the professors structure their OC and CC.