Estratégias e mudanças em unidades de produção rural: estudo comparativo no Município de Pato Branco (PR)

Abstract

This investigation has as main focus the study of two great administrative processes in family farms: strategic configuration and organizational change processes. The research was internai and externai organizational aspects that condition the farmer's decisions and actions, determining that these, along the time, develop strategies and make changes in their organizations, that can reflect in the general development ofthe region in which they are inserted. We sought, to reconstruct, understand and analyze comparatively the main strategies and changes in the orientation of the family agricultural units intwo places (Independência II and Nossa Senhora do Carmo), contrasting in their general development and exploration of the agriculture, in the city of Pato Branco, in Paraná's southwestern region. The theoretical framework is related with three great themes of the organizational literature: decisions and actions, with special emphasis given the administrative rationality; the organizational strategies, previously formulated (deliberate strategies) or formulated along the time (emergent strategies); and the strategic conditioners and the process of organizational change, planned or not, with incrementai or strategic amplitude (change of small spectrum or change of wide spectrum), conditioned by internai and externai organizational factors. In methodological terms, we used a longitudinal study of qualitative nature,with the non structured interview as main research technique. We interviewed twelve typical farmers of each place and three agents of the rural extension in Pato Branco. In analytic terms, we initially analyzed the transformations inthe agriculture ofboth places, since the decade of 1950. Later on, by using of a processual, contextual and historical perspective, we identified and analyzed the main strategies and changes in the family farms agricultural units. We considered the strategies in certain strategic periods, in which we analyzed: the factors that Ied the farmers to configure certain strategic orientations; the implementation oforganizational changes in one same strategic orientation and the processing of changes in the strategic orientation. In relation to the transformations in the local agriculture, in Independência II we verified an accentuated development ofthe farms. InNossa Senhora do Carmo, especially in the last years, the farmers' difficulties to maintain their families and their production means increased. This great development contrast is due, above ali, to differences in four aspects ofthe local internai environment: the production factors, the organization, the motivation and the degree ofthe farmers' capitalization. In relation to the strategic periods, we identified the five that were more representative of the farmers' administrative behavior in each place. Especially after 1985, while the strategies and changes implemented by the Independência II's farmers led to a great expansion ofthe commercial activities, propitiating growing capitalization, in Nossa Senhora do Carmo strategies and changes were implemented especially of dismvestments, due to the farmer's great discapitalization and dismotivation. However, along the years the strategies configured by ali the farmers were commonly emergent and the organizational changes were, above ali, ofsmall spectrum and unplanned, because elements as creativity, intuition, flexibility and learning influenced in the decisions and actions those of farmers.