Assumptions of Social Management in the Brazilian Perspective: A Parallel with International Approaches.
| Autor | Oliveira-Ribeiro, Rodrigo |
| Cargo | Research Article |
INTRODUCTION
The field of Social Management (SM) evolves both theoretical and methodological baselines and experimental procedures as well. Social Management uses different approaches; some are an evolution of governance systems toward social governance (Reddel, 2004), others a mix of social activism and participative govern (Larner & Craig, 2005; Terziev, 2018). On the one side, Brazilian studies conceptualize SM in many ways, using a variety of practices, approaches, and definitions (Pinho & Santos, 2015a; 2015b); thus, there is no consensus around the definition of SM in the literature (Guerra & Teodosio, 2015).
On the other side, the international perspective considers SM as any practice of social management, related to aspects such as management of employees and their families in the firm (Tuininga, 1990), occupational health management of workers (Baranski, 2002), neighborhood management (Babenko, 2013), the process of social exchanges (Inzerilli, 1990), community activism (Reddel, 2004), social policies (Terziev, 2018), social sustainability (Huq, Chowdhury, & Klassen, 2016), and so on.
Brazilian scholars dedicated attention to SM, creating a theoretical stream that analyzes the dialogical management process in which the decision-making authority is shared among the participants of the social action. From this point of view, SM can occur in any social system, i.e., public, private, or non-governmental organizations (Offredi, 2012; Pimentel, Teixeira, Araujo, & Teixeira, 2011). Tenorio's theoretical contributions are the primary sources supporting the Brazilian perspective for SM. The followers improved the concept of SM through a plurality of categories such as deliberative democracy, dialogic process, emancipation, public sphere, well-understood interest, intersubjectivity, rationality, solidarity, sustainability (Cancado, Tenorio, & Pereira, 2011; Cancado, Pereira, & Tenorio, 2015a). However, the SM concept of the Brazilian theoretical stream has still a low level of internationalization.
Besides the international perspective, the analysis of Brazilian empirical experiences typified as social management comes from several areas of activity, emphasizing the multi-disciplinary characteristic (Araujo, 2012), and the interdisciplinarity (Fischer et al., 2006). Moreover, the analysis of cases of social management uses the concepts of the public sphere (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002a; Schommer & Franca, 2010), private sphere with integration of corporate social responsibility (Vitolla, Rubino, & Garzoni, 2017), social sphere (Crowe, 2013; Araujo & Boullosa, 2013), territory of citizenship (Fischer, 2012), solidarity economy (Eidelwein, 2009; Loh & Shear, 2015), social strategic management (Cancado, Villela, & Sausen, 2016; Porter & Kramer, 2011), and so on.
Although the SM received national and international contributions from several areas of knowledge, there is a lack of research in the field regarding three aspects. Firstly, the development of standard techniques to analyze the effectiveness of SM practices, as measurement model or indicator systems (Oliveira, Bermejo, Pereira, & Barbosa, 2019). Secondly, studies understanding if the field is a new model of management and offering categories and variables of analysis in a more objective way (Aguiar-Barbosa & Chim-Miki, 2020). Thirdly, studies to compare the Brazilian proposal for social management with similar approaches in the international context.
The variety of categories used by scholars creates a lack of consensus surrounding the concept of SM. Due to this, the current study examines two following questions: (a) What elements and categories are prioritized in social management studies by Brazilian scholars?; and (b) Is there novelty in the elements of SM at the Brazilian approach or it is a superposition with other international perspectives? Thus, to address these questions, the current research aimed to determine the categories of study on social management and the hierarchical classification of its elements from Brazilian scientific publications of the field.
The research used quantitative methodologies to the analysis of qualitative data extracted from a sample of 73 scientific papers published during 1990-2019 in the Capes periodical database. The analysis carries out a lexical analysis using techniques of descending hierarchical analysis (DHA) and correspondence factor analysis performed via IRAMUTEQ software and its interface with R software. In addition, we carry out lexical analysis techniques to perform the degree of similarity method, allowing verifying the categories and connections among the elements of social management. This study is justified because the social management paradigm needs to be consolidated; therefore, this research seeks to overcome research gaps in the field.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The Brazilian social management approach is still in consolidation process as a field of scientific knowledge, although its studies started about two decades ago (Cancado & Rigo, 2014). The diversity of concepts and categories creates conceptual divergences and inconsistencies culminating in criticism (Araujo, 2012; Justen, Moretto-Neto, & Garrido, 2014; Pinho & Santos, 2015a; 2015b). Nevertheless, the criticism does not reduce the relevance of the theme to the area of management. Indeed, the discussions on social management in Brazil started in the 1990s (Tenorio, 1998) in order to take the concept to a field with its theoretical perspective (Fischer, 2002a). As a perspective, it was consolidated in practice and gained visibility among Brazilian scholars by empirical studies (Franca, 2008; Pinho, 2010). The scholars highlighted social management as a new theoretical frontier, and as a new management model emerging from a dialogical process with the protagonism of society (Boullosa, 2009; Hernandez, 2016).
Franca (2003) argues that "...the term social management suggests that, in addition to the state, the management of social demands and needs can take place by society itself, through its most diverse forms and mechanisms of self-organization, especially the associative phenomenon" (Franca, 2003, p. 3). In parallel to that, international studies also focus on these same conditions, but using different terminologies. For example, social activism is an effort to empower the community and citizen groups to manage issues of social exclusion and social cohesion at the society level (Larner & Craig, 2005; Reddel, 2004).
Other factors defended as characteristics of social management are participation, deliberative citizenship, and the inversion of the role of state-society / capital-labor to society-state / labor-capital (Tenorio, 2005). These assumptions are similar to the governance theories, which is a participatory system considered a new style of government, legitimized by the people, and different from the hierarchical control model, characterized by a greater degree of cooperation and interaction between state and non-state actors incorporated in a joint public-private decision network (Mayntz, 2000).
The mechanisms of self-organization and association provided for the social management, aligned to the localism of Porteous (2013), refer to a change of power and resources from centralized and top-down governments and decision-making structures to give back democratic and collaborative community structures. These characteristics also lead the studies of SM to a focus on social leaders who are actors of social changes and capable of generating community engagement (Crowe, 2013; Koster, Vos, & Van Der Valk, 2019).
The range of empirical studies associated with SM by Brazilian academics includes cooperatives, social incubators, participatory governance models in neighborhoods, empowerment and social participation activities, NGOs, and others. These programs adjust as the so-called social actions or social policies of Terziev (2018), or models of social governance by Reddel (2004), in which are themes discussed in the international literature. The debates on social management highlight its multidisciplinary character (Marinho, Cancado, & Iwamoto, 2019). However, Franca (2008) argues that such concept was occasionally used in a general and trivial way, because "everything that is not traditional management is currently seen as social management" (Franca, 2008, p. 27).
The question remains: On what basis does social management claim differentiation as a management model? The defenders of this theoretical line legitimize the importance of the heterogeneity of the social management field, stating that the construct's academic trajectory stream comes from different theoretical perspectives (Maia, 2005). Therefore, this current theoretical review provides a comparison of different approaches to the proposed social management paradigm (See Figure 1).
Figure 1. Overlap of the characteristics of the social management in the international literature SOCIAL MANAGEMENT IN THE [left right arrow] BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS AND FOCUS Deliberative democracy [left right arrow] Decision-making in the so-called new public sphere. Dialogicity [left right arrow] Decision-making based on dialogue. New public sphere Locus and essential [left right arrow] condition of social management. Place where private people meet in a public space in order to decide on their needs and future. Emancipation Appropriation of [left right arrow] individual potential. Mainstream of the social management. Citizen empowerment. Interest well understood It starts from the premise [left right arrow] that collective well-being is a precondition for individual well-being. Intersubjectivity Capacity of individuals [left right arrow] to understand the subjectivity of the other through communication between them. Solidarity Mutual interests and duties, [left right arrow] commitment to each other, social cohesion of the group. Sustainability [left right arrow]...
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