Comportamento informacional em processos decisórios estratégicos: dimensão simbólica do uso da informação por gestores

Abstract

The organizational environment has always been dynamic and initially this dynamicity was related to the improvement and systematization of productive processes. In the last decades, however, the focus has shifted from this production perspective to a scenario influenced by the development of communication and information technologies, responsible for consolidating information and knowledge as new organizational assets. However, the informational explosion resulting from this technological development has been consolidated as a challenge for organizations, especially in the decision-making process, for having the relevant information at the right moment has gone from a simple cliché to a competitive differential. Understanding, therefore, the decision-making process of a manager involved in this context presupposes a much greater complexity than the usual skills profiles can express. Thus, this thesis, which is part of a line of research that seeks to study the information-imaginary binomial, was set up to seek understanding in how unconscious motivations influence organizational decision-making dynamics, focusing on the use of information to subsidize decision. For that, were used methods that approach the symbolic-affective dimension to analyze the efforts of individuals to interpret reality while involved in decision-making activities. The studies were based on the symbolic hermeneutics present in The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, by Gilbert Durand, which were used to understand the contents underlying the visible behaviors. Thus, it was sought to relate in the decision-making process, the way of perceiving reality, the confrontation against the anguish arising from this process, and the determination of information search and use behaviors to support decision-making. The research, which consisted of multiple case studies with eleven managers from different organizations, took place in 2017 and had as methodological instruments a semi-structured interview, with the insertion of symbolic elements, and the application of the Archetypal Test with Nine Elements. It was possible to verify, through the use of the imaginary as an object on which a hermeneutic applies, the aspects that permeate the visible behaviors, through the identification of the mythical micro-universes of the managers and of the creative manifestation present in the narrative of these subjects. It was perceived through the symbolic way how information can permeate this process and that the field of studies of information users can draw on perspectives from other sciences to understand the motivations intrinsic to the informational and infocommunicational phenomenon. It is considered that the present research made it possible to validate the use of alternative instruments and to ratify the perception that the use of information linked to the organizational decision-making process can be extended beyond the perspective of behavioral models or static concepts. It is believed that this perspective can collaborate to broaden the disciplinary frontiers of Information Science, incorporating new concepts to the field