Cultura organizacional e a gestão do conhecimento no Centro de Ciências Humanas Sociais e Agrárias da Universidade Federal da Paraíba: uma análise sob a perspectiva teórica da criação do conhecimento

Abstract

Faced with a scenario in which knowledge has become essential for organizations, and considering the prospect that the organizational culture is strongly related to how an organization creates its knowledge, the present study aimed to analyze the possible associations between the elements the organizational culture of a federal organization of higher education, from the theoretical perspective of knowledge creation process. To accomplish this association, the design models of organizational culture Alves (1997), and the model of knowledge creation of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1997) were used. The participants were 69 technical and administrative staff and 67 serving teachers of the Humanities Center, Social and Agricultural (CCHSA) of the Federal University of Paraíba. A questionnaire on line was applied containing 16 questions related to the sets of cultural elements of Alves model. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively using the chi-square test and factor analysis. Qualitative analysis was performed by means of consultation documents and observation of the organizational environment. The results of the cultural elements pointed to the existence of a slow decision-making process, however rational and participatory, with emphasis on a hierarchical organizational structure. The leaders were considered tolerant of occurrence of deviance and technical flaws in the institution. Training and capacity building mechanisms were satisfactory only for the group of administrative staff. However, co-operation to obtain the knowledge was only emphasized to the group of teachers. Leaders were seen as reasonable people, and the importance given to the hierarchy was considered reasonable. All identified cultural elements were associated with one or more aspects of the process of knowledge creation, especially at enabling condition 'autonomy'. From the analysis, it was concluded that there is a significant association between organizational culture and the creation of knowledge in the research organization. This suggests that understanding this relationship can promote improvements in the quality of institutional management.