A construção e a (tentativa de) desconstrução da Cultura Usiminas: narrativas ao longo de 50 anos

Abstract

This dissertation presents and discusses the construction of the so-called Usiminas Culture starting in the 1950s when engineers, businessmen and politicians from Minas Gerais state laid out their plans for a large steel mill plant in the state. I then report on the attempted deconstruction of this culture carried out openly by the managing directors heading the company in the period 2008-2010. Lastly I show how the employees, managers and former directors lived through this momentum to act upon it reacting to demonstrate their disaffection and then joining forces at different levels of hierarchy to deconstruct the discourse put forward by the established management at the time. Usiminas Culture is here understood as an imaginarium collectively and temporally constructed by a number of actors historically connected to the company. This is the conceptualization of culture that remained (ORLANDI, 1993) in both the academic and business understanding. An understanding which will be assumed and observed as it is appropriated by the actors. I assume that the subjects acknowledge consciously the plasticity of the facts and concepts and they are therefore able to mould their own stories according to their own needs and audience (GABRIEL, 2004). And the subjects do that in their own benefice within a continuous symbolic struggle (BOURDIEU, 2005). I also follow the conception for which there is not one organizational culture. I adopt the concept of cultures within organizations (CARRIERI et al., 2006). Thus, I also refute the concept of culture as a variable, being then closer to the perspective that sees culture as a metaphor, within the classification proposed by Smircich (1983). I can further say that I assume the multiple culture configuration view by Alvesson (1995) which comprehends ambiguities and contradictions. Based on which I put forward the Tangran metaphor. Tangran is a Chinese puzzle which allows an infinite number of configurations while maintaining the players option to leave out one or more pieces. This dissertation is built upon a socio-historical perspective based on multiple-voiced narratives (BOJE, 1991; 1995; 2000). Non-structured narrative-based interviews are used along with extensive documental research (press, company, and union documents, as well as internet-videos). All these stories are analyzed based on the support of techniques that came from the field of Analysis Discourse (AD) of French origin (PECHEUX, 1990; MAINGUENEAU, 1998; CARRIERI et al., 2006; SARAIVA, 2009) revealing homogeneities and heterogeneities (CAVEDON, 1999). I therefore highlight themes and characters, explicit and implicit elements, so to emphasize how things are said, and not said (FIORIN, 2004; FARIA & LINHARES, 1993). The story that comes out of this constructed bricolage follows a chronological order but it was also structured from the main themes which emerge from the narratives. I aim to identify the founding discourses (ORLANDI, 1993) and reacting discourses (SOUZA, 1993) present in the symbolic dispute (BOURDIEU, 2005; BOURDIEU, 1996). I try to further identify how specific historical true facts (SOUZA, 1993) are created based on interests, wishes and conveniences. I could see how the Company was branded from the beginning as prosper terrain for conflicts in every hierarchical level, including those at the highest management. It is also easy to see how the attempt to silence those same conflicts through an idea of homogeneity and consensus is permanent. One of the examples presented refers to the so-called nipo-minas origin culture which spread out in the last years of 1980 following the movement of Japanese success observed at that time in many countries. However, the Japanese led the company for no more than two years being replaced after disagreements with the Brazilians. This is one example like many other which together shows how the history was (re)constructed throughout time. In 2008, the 18-year-mandate president was replaced. Then, there was a positive expectation of some employees that would have liked to bring some of the great modern company culture. The new board of directors, however, implemented a radical change in official discourse and action, downsizing, firing and outsourcing. At the time there were also moral and sexual harassment complaints that ended at the courts. In 2009, employees, managers, directors and the union united around the imaginarium of Usiminas Culture as a defense strategy quieting what they themselves considered negative and amplifying what they considered convenient. This movement comprehends: (a) the deconstruction of the firms speech and the main figures of the management; (b) information leakages to the press; (c) and request of support from Minas Gerais state government. Isolated actions and demonstrations from workers also happened. After two years ahead of the company, the president was replaced. This fact can be accounted partially to the union assembled by employees, managers and directors of the company