Collective knowledge structures and work organization options in Portuguese banks: A case study

Abstract

The general objective of this work was the study of the cognitive dimension of organizational structuring within a perspective of organizations study. The specific aims were to explore the existence of a collective knowledge about organization in a specific Portuguese bank and to explore the relationship between this collective structure and an organizational structuring project. A exploratory study case was done in a Portuguese banking organization in which individual cognitive maps were elicited belonging to the people who had participated in the restructuring process of the agencies. The characteristics of this collective structure were later compared to the agency restructuring project. The collective knowledge about organizing was analyzed and graphically represented based on a cognitive mapping methodology. To analyze the structural characteristics of agencies, 2 organization types--stable-mechanistic and adaptive-organic--were used. (...)

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v15i2.503