Work and Industrial Competence in Granite Processing: an Ergological Cartography
Name: EDVALTER BECKER HOLZ
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 07/03/2014
Advisor:
Name | Role |
---|---|
MÔNICA DE FÁTIMA BIANCO | Advisor * |
Examining board:
Name | Role |
---|---|
MÔNICA DE FÁTIMA BIANCO | Advisor * |
PRISCILLA DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS DA SILVA | Internal Examiner * |
SUSANE PETINELLI SOUZA | Internal Alternate * |
Summary: The initial aim of this research was monitor labour processes in light of the Ergology theoretical framework, therefore understanding labour as dialectical relationship between technology and human action. The goal was to map the labour in the processing of granite process in a large organization located in Espirito Santo State and, after some time on the field, the problem was outlined as follows: how does industrious competence in processing of granite process in a large organization constitute? The research is justified since, despite the economic relevance, the capixaba scenario of ornamental stones presents precarious problems regard to management. For Organizational Studies, relevance is reinforced since advances to this area ergological approach and demarcates in the debate about competences the notion of industrious competence, not yet explored in this field of study. To carry out the research, an ergological mapping was practiced, from the articulation of cartographic clues with the theoretical and conceptual framework of Ergology. It was used as techniques: participant observation during 6 months, with an average of 3 field trips per week; 8 semi-structured and in-depth interviews with operational workers, about 50 minutes each; interview with production manager and area of People Management representative; conversations with other workers in order to enrich the field diary; new conversations and observations at the end of the analysis, for confrontation and validation with workers. Systematic analysis procedures can be described as follows: a) fluctuating readings in order to emerge central aspects related to the two dimensions of labour, technical and human action; b) readings in depth in order to emerge singularities and specificities of the dialectic between both; c) readings in depth in order to emerge aspects of the ingredients of industrious competence. Despite non-demarcation of analytical categories and subcategories, five analytical axes emerged from the analysis: 1) the procedures to be employed in the processing of granite process, comprising: processing stages; the tasks to be performed and undertaken; the regulations; the technical expertise needed for programming and operation of machines and the production order prescribed by the commercial sector; 2) the real labour, the labour as a distinctive use of procedures by the focus given to human action in facing real situations, full of events and variability, comprising: charge preparation; lamination; saw; levigamento; resin; polishingclassification; refinishing; closing package; container loading; 3) different modes of itself uses that, in trend, are responsible for the formation of the act in competence at each stage of the process, on the dialectics between technical and human action; 4) how each ingredient of industrious competence acts and constitutes, as well as its concentration in trend, at every stage of the process, from the types of itself uses that, also in trend, are more responsible for the act in competence thus presenting the profile of industrious competence in processing of granite in the company in question; 5) two factors that possibly may potentiate the ingredients of industrious competence, transduction and non-humans. From all the above, latest considerations problematize aspects of the debate on competences and people management practices from competence understood as follows: mastery in the act of taking advantage of the environment and of itself to manage labour situations, in which action consists in mobilizing hardly discernible and describable resource, inherent to the worker, however made and manifest by itself uses by oneself and by others in and to the real act of labour, notably at an infinitesimal level, in situations that require concurrent application of protocols for the management of variability and events partly impossible to anticipate and eliminate.