Does external consultancy in State reform have a technical or a strategic role? A case study

• Published in: Revista de administração pública (Rio de Janeiro) Vol. 42; no. 1; p. 35
• Main Authors: Maria Eliza Gonçalves de Siqueira, Pedro Lincoln C L de Mattos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese
• Published: Rio de Janeiro Fundação Getulio Vargas, Revista de Administração Pública 01-01-2008
• Subjects: Case studies
• ISSN: 0034-7612; 1982-3134

This article analyzes the role of Getulio Vargas Foundation external organizational consultancy services (GVconsult, São Paulo, Brazil) to two destatization projects in the Pernambuco State Reform Project during 1999-2000: at Pernambuco Produce Wholesale Market (Ceasa-PE) and at the Convention Center (Cecon). The methodological strategy was to gradually approach the object of study, so that initial assumptions and critical points guided the study. The fieldwork involved 31 semi-structured interviews, in three rounds, and the texts were submitted to a semantic and pragmatic conversation analysis (Mattos, 2005). The case history showed that the organizational consultancy had a subsidiary technical role in the State Reform Program, following clear guidelines and limitations imposed by the government team. Although the Pernambuco State Reform concepts were originated from those developed by FGV academic mentors and adopted by the federal government (1995-1998), FGVconsult consultants did not bring them themselves, but rather Pernambuco public policymakers obtained them directly from the federal government and from FGV.