This article is a qualitative work with an interpretative approach about the managerial shock, a policy adopted in 2003 by the Minas Gerais state government which has been projected to reach its goals by 2023. The main purpose of this study was to verify how innovative such management model is, taking into account two perspectives: the opinion of the stakeholders involved in developing, implementing and evaluating the model, and the theoretical principles related to innovation in the public sector. The theoretical framework included the approaches and perspectives of organizational change, emphasizing the current state of innovation in the Brazilian public administration. Seventy state workers were submitted to a semi-structured survey and had their perceptions collected and analyzed. The results revealed that the managerial shock was considered a strictly managerial change, which innovated in the strategic, technological, structural and control aspects, but it did not reach the same success in relation to human, cultural and political change.
organizational change, managerial shock; innovation in the public sector; public administration modernization