State companies' executives and managers on the eve of the privatization

Abstract

As from 1995, the companies of the electric sector in São Paulo underwent organizational changes that both preceded and made privatization viable. They were carried out by their own workers under the label “modernization”. The problem to be studied in this research was to understand how they unleashed the dynamics of change, since they were aware that the changes would lead to the dismantle of their own body. In the changing process, the guidelines they adopted depended on the external demands. However, we consider that they also depended on the measures adopted in each company, that is, they resulted from the interpretation and redefinitions of these demands by the agents interacting under the constraints of company’s field of the power. The empirical research was centered in one of the companies: in its unions and professionals, fundamentally, in the modernization agents, which was led by a limited group of workers in higher ranks. The main sources of data were interviews, questionnaires, documents, and newspapers. Key words: Privatization. Sector electric. Organizational changes. Executives and Managers.