Análise comparativa da estrutura de organizações formais e virtuais: um estudo de caso

Abstract

This work focused to identify the structural forms, by means of comparative study between the new type of organization that called the virtual organization and the formal organization. The formal organizations are considered as social group, formed in a deliberated or intentional way to reach a specific goal. They are mainly characterized by rules, regulations and the existence of an hierarchical structure, regulating the membership relation. The virtual organization represents so, a radical change of the traditional concepts of the organization, management and work division. The model of the development of the organizational structures of Katz and Kahn (1987) supported the research by showing the stage in which each kind of organization is met nowadays. For that, a descriptive and comparative research was done in a multicase study. For the realization of the research, four formal companies of different sectors and four Brazilian virtual companies had been studied and had offered a comparative degree of the elements which characterize their structural forms. Thus, the identification of the structure of the formal and virtual organizations proved that the pressures for change influenced more the internal environment of the organization. It was noticed that the formal organizations born initially with a production department system and run up to the managerial one. While the virtual organizations grow from a marketing department that fixed them in the industry and became stronger in the adaptive structure represented by the administrative department and increase their controls by means of the managerial system.