Qualidade de vida e fontes de pressão no trabalho do consultor organizacional em Belo Horizonte

Abstract

The downsizing of the organizational framework reengineering and the transfer of activities not tied to the main business of the company are some of the changes that have been introduced in many companies, and these changes have made thousands of people unemployed in Brazil. On other hand, new business opportunities have been opened up, and one of them is the possibility of working as a consultant. In this context,it is possible to notice that organizational consultants and consulting houses have been playing an increasingly important role by helping companies and their management to cope with the changes that they have to implement in order to achieve their goals. The present study aimed at portraying the actual quality of life presented by professionalswho work as management consultants as well as identify the sources of pressures that these professionals have to handle in their everyday life. The secondary aims of this work can be listed as identify the sources of personal satisfaction and dissatisfaction presented by the professionals that have been investigated in connection with the content and the context of the work that they have to do, identify the sources of pressurerelated to both content and context of these professionals, establish the profile of these professionals as well as their personal and professional characteristics. Using the theoretical approach proposed by HACKMAN & OLDHAM (1975), several variables related to the work context and content have also been analyzed in order to identify the scope of the basic tasks performed by these professionals. In order to investigate the sources of pressure at work, using the theoretical reference provided by COOPER et all (1988), this work aimed at diagnosing the potential sources ofpressure in the work of organizational consultants by means of using the analysis of variables that are intrinsically connected with working conditions or with the part played by the management of the companies where these professionals work. Furthermore, those variables related to the atmosphere in the working place have been analyzed, and the interface between the consultant's work and home environments aswell as the influence that each of these environments can exert on the other have been verified.