Intraempreendedorismo e Orientação empreendedora na gestão pública: um estudo nos centros municipais de educação infantil

Abstract

Intrapreneurship is a research subfield of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship and refers to entrepreneurship within organizations (ANTONCIC; HISRICH, 2003). Intrapreneurship fosters entrepreneurship in organizations, helping to grow, develop and revitalize. However, the intra-entrepreneurial conception was, for a long time, restricted to the private sector, starting to be incorporated, in the public sector through managementism, when it started to introduce in the public sector practices from the private sector (VALADARES; EMMENDOERFER, 2015). Intrapreneurship in the public sector can stimulate innovation and the development of good practices in the public sector, providing development and productivity for public organizations and, mainly, the creation of public value (KEARNEY; HISRICH; ROCHE, 2007, 2008; KEARNEY; MEYNHARDT, 2016). The insertion of intrapreneurship in education is necessary, due to the dynamics of society and the challenges faced by the educational sector. The general objective was to understand intra-entrepreneurship in the public sector from an analysis of the Municipal Centers for Early Childhood Education (CEMEI) of a municipality in the interior of MG. To this end, we sought to identify, describe and analyze the process of intrapreneurship in the Municipal Centers for Early Childhood Education (CEMEI's) of a municipality in the interior of Minas Gerais (MG), to propose a model for measuring organizational characteristics that can interfere in entrepreneurial orientation in CEMEI's and, finally, to analyze the entrepreneurial characteristics in the servers of CEMEI's in the municipality. CEMEI's are institutions responsible for the care and learning of children from six months to three years and eleven months of age. In methodological terms, the multi-method approach was used. In the qualitative, semi-structured interviews were carried out with the supervisors and coordinators, documentary analysis and non-participation observation were also used, being analyzed by the content analysis technique. In the quantitative approach, questionnaires were applied with coordinators, monitors and teachers, being analyzed, through descriptive statistics and structural equations model, based on Kearney and Meynhardt (2016). With regard to qualitative results, two intra-entrepreneurial actions were identified in the CEMEI's: the “ABC” project (developing the taste and pleasure for reading in the municipal education network) and the Conversation Wheel (spaces for discussions between the coordinators of the CEMEI's). The first action is a strategic renovation, restructuring the activities of the daycare centers, while the second is an innovation in the process, since it brought improvements to the school process. With regard to the characteristics of entrepreneurial behavior, it is essential to develop the skills of seeking opportunity and initiative and persuasion and a network of contacts, which are less present characteristics. In the structural equation model, the results showed that autonomy and managerial support are the organizational characteristics that influence the entrepreneurial orientation in the analyzed organizations. The study brings practices that can be adopted by the public administration to foster intrapreneurship. In addition, this research explored the management of public daycare centers, a field of study little explored. Limitations are the relatively small sample size, due to the obstacles in data collection. It is suggested, for future studies, the refinement of the questionnaire and application in other public organizations.