A influência das instituições nos modelos de organização universitária: um estudo de caso comparativo entre UFABC e UFSCAR

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze how institutions - shared rules and meanings that guide social interaction - influence the organizational modeling of the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) and the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), with regards to the coordinations of undergraduate courses. UFSCar, the first federal university to be implemented in the State of São Paulo, was based on the North American model of university management and is structured in departments. On the other hand, the organization of the Federal University of ABC, the newest of the State, and one of the youngest in Brazil, was conceived under the commitment of university reform, signed by the Manifesto of Angra, influenced by the European reform movement, and emphasize the abolition of departments, aiming to assign an interdisciplinary dynamic to higher education. In view of the two conceptions of university model, this work was developed from open, semistructured interviews conducted with coordinators and vice-coordinators of courses of the two universities. Courses were selected that the universities have in common, as a way of reducing the "variability" of the situations that the coordinators face and, as a result, favor the possibility of comparison. The questions were defined using as a theoretical framework the New Institutionalism, especially its sociological school. The interviews were analyzed according to the following variables: sources of isomorphism, patterns of connection and distribution of resources, efficiency and effectiveness of formal rules, strategic agents and institutions. In spite of the differences in their organizational models, which imply different degrees of verticalized and horizontal connections, similar isomorphic forces were observed acting on the coordination of course coordinates. In the case of UFABC, however, the mimetic isomorphism has a particularity: the lack of reference to be mimicked.