The construction of collective competencies in the dynamics of budgetary routines

Abstract

The growing diffusion of collective work configurations in the current organizational environment has remained largely overlooked in the scientific body of work on the theme (BOREHAM, 2011). Paradoxically, however, certain currents in the debate about organizations highlight the role of collective work, as is the case with the literature on organizational routines (NELSON and WINTER, 2005; PENTLAND and FELDMAN, 2005). The question that motivates this investigation explores the relationship between those two themes: can the dynamics of corporate budgeting constitute an adequate space for the formation and development of collective competences? The objective of this question is an inquiry into the design of corporate budgets, from an organizational-routine approach, to identify evidence of teamwork and the formation of collective competences and attributes. The responses transit through a qualitative and phenomenographic investigation that pointed to four descriptive categories of collective work: commitment to deliver, reconfiguration of routines, shared availability, and building relationship networks. The contributions of the research include the potential of the organizational routines theory as a reference for the analysis of corporate processes, the identification of processes capable of contributing to the management of workgroups, and the use of the phenomenographic method as an alternative to frame somewhat intangible organizational phenomena.