Aprendizagem e desenvolvimento de competências do gestor público em uma Instituição Federal de Ensino Superior - IFES

Abstract

This qualitative study conducted in a federal institution of higher education, located in the city of Seropédica – RJ aimed at describing public managers learning processes for developing their managerial skills. These managers work at personnel management, financial/accounting management and academic management areas of a federal higher education institution and research focused managers‟ daily practice. To achieve its final goal, five intermediate objectives where accomplished: to assess how the learning process occurs in the context of public organization, to depict how managers learned to manage in daily practice basis, to identify the function the collective learning for development of managerial skills, to asses manager's point of view on the skills they needed for managing, and to propose recommendations for enabling managerial competencies development through collective learning at this Institution. Field data was collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Collected data was analyzed through an interpretive hermeneutic process. Research results suggest that: managerial competencies development occurs by way of: a) individual learning, through formal studies, personal search, reading; b) collective learning through interaction with people in everyday practices of the work, in forums, meetings; c) experiential learning by way of life and professional experience; d) community of practice learning through informal discussion forums; and f) vicarious learning. Managerial skills developed through these learning processes are related to: managers' personal and interpersonal competence, professional competence and their competence for action. The latter were developed through problem solving and day-to-day challenges where managers have learned to negotiate using creativity. Thus, in order of activate the development of managerial competencies it is recommended: to improve organizational structure in order to propitiate collective learning; to improve administrative processes; manpower dimensioning; formulating new standards and procedures setting to optimizing workload distribution and to improve managerial decision-making. It is also recommended a quality of life program implementation, managerial training program implementation, workshops, meetings and formulating daily practices to minimize stress effects on managers who become handlers of organizational toxins. It is suggested to further research on administration and accounting sciences undergraduate courses contribution for public management; to replicate this research with a different group focusing on its political base; to examine how managers‟ past experience in private enterprises contributes to their public management practice and vocation; to enhance study on managers' community of practice formation; and as the frustrations and difficulties contribute to learning