Olhando a gestão da fila sob a perspectiva da cultura organizacional: abordagem com intenção etnográfica em agência bancária da Zona Oeste do Rio de Janeiro - RJ

Abstract

This paper is about Queue Management and Organizational Culture. Its study subject was the Campo Grande Branch of Banco do Brasil, located in the West District of the City of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its general purpose is to investigate and interpret, on a day-to-day basis, how the Organizational Culture, or Subculture, influences Queue Management in a Banking Branch. As specific purposes its aims are: to verify if the existing theory on Queue Perception Management is applied; to present waiting time as a feature that must receive special attention from Bank Managers; to experience, first hand, the displeasure of waiting in line; to compile the gathered information and to suggest measures to mitigate the negative effects on the waiting client, when reducing or eliminating the wait is not possible. Methodologically, the research is classified on its ends as explanatory, whereas as its means it is classified as bibliographic, documental, of case study and field research. The ethnographic method was used on the field work, where the author immersed himself in the researched group, in the context where the social phenomena occurred, for a better understanding of the native point of view , through the process of interactive observation and semi-structured interview. Resulting data, including snapshots of the researched location, were recorded on the field journal. Data from the interviews of 14 customer contact personnel were recorded and fully transcripted. Obtained data went through a non digital analysis process according to a predefined script. The analysis of the speech concluded: concerning Queue Management, that there is a lack of distractions to entertain the client, that the clients notice available resources not being used for their benefits and that there are lonely waits; concerning Organizational Culture, that stress, selfishness, lack of punishment, the cult to foreign culture and the attachment to the internal rules are traits of the internal culture in Banco do Brasil that may be related to Queue Management. The paper concludes that the Bank culture is not concerned with the management of the perceptions of those waiting in line. A complete lack of knowledge about the Queue Management solutions could be easily verified on the customer contact personnel. It is noticed that this research has no signs of duality. The online pool brought to light and the ethnographic research made clear that waiting in line is a major factor on the clients level of satisfaction. The most urgent suggested measure is the implementation of distractions, along with the review of all processes related to customer contact, in order to reduce their duration. The conclusions of this paper are subject to the methodological limitations proper to ethnographic studies.