Strategy as Social Practice in the Construction of a Gender Perspective for Public Policy in Florianopolis (SC)

Abstract

This research analyzes how strategy as social practice occurs in the construction of a gender perspective in public policy. Qualitative research was carried out in the Municipal Public Policy Coordinating Committee for Women (CMPPM) of Florianopolis (SC). Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, direct observation, and documental analysis. It was found that practices (activities) and how they are carried out (praxis) by practitioners shape strategy as social practice because of the interactions between society and the internal environment, and because they also affect the creation of these actions and policies, which seek to minimize inequality between the genders in this municipality.

Keywords:
strategizing; strategy as practice; gender policy; public policy; qualitative methodology

Resumo

O objetivo desta pesquisa consistiu em analisar como ocorre a estratégia-como-prática social para a construção da perspectiva de gênero nas políticas públicas. A pesquisa qualitativa foi realizada na Coordenadoria Municipal de Políticas Públicas para as Mulheres (CMPPM) de Florianópolis (SC). A coleta de dados ocorreu por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas, observação direta e análise documental. Constatou-se que as práticas (atividades) e o modo como são realizadas (práxis) pelos praticantes configuram a estratégia-como-prática social, por haver interações entre a sociedade e o ambiente interno, bem como por impactar a criação de ações e políticas que buscam minimizar as desigualdades entre gêneros no município.

Palavras-chave:
strategizing; estratégia-como-prática; políticas de gênero; políticas públicas; metodologia qualitativa

Resumen

El objetivo de esta investigación fue analizar cómo ocurre la estrategia-como-práctica social para la construcción de una perspectiva de género en las políticas públicas. La investigación cualitativa se llevó a cabo en la Coordinadoría Municipal de Políticas Públicas para las Mujeres (CMPPM) de Florianópolis (SC). Los datos fueron recolectados a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas, observación directa y el análisis de documentos. Se encontró que las prácticas (actividades) y el cómo se hacen (praxis) por los profesionales dan forma a la estrategia-como-práctica social, por tener interacciones entre la sociedad y el medio ambiente interno y por el impacto en la creación de acciones y políticas que buscan minimizar las desigualdades entre géneros de la ciudad.

Palabras clave:
strategizing; estrategia-como-práctica; políticas de género; políticas públicas; metodología cualitativa

1. Introduction

Strategy as practice is a recent perspective in the strategy field that seeks to study everyday strategy through practices, praxis and practitioners, focusing on social practices (Jarzabkowski, 2005; Whittington, 2006).

Practices are all of an organization’s activities, while praxis is the manner in which these practices are performed, and practitioners are the people who perform them. The interconnection between practices, praxis and practitioners constitutes strategizing, or in other words, the activities, practices and actions in the making of strategy that result in social interactions and changes (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007).

Practitioners are in a social system and, their interactions, the way in which they perform practices, and people’s motives and desires, enable the understanding of praxis on several levels (Jarzabkowski, 2010; Whittington, 2014).

Thinking about the context of social changes and interactions, strategizing can be studied by building a gender perspective in public policy. This perspective seeks to incorporate the policies that seek to reduce the inequalities between men and women in society (Farah, 2004; Bandeira, 2005).

The search for equal rights in Brazil, such as the right to vote, has been greatly influenced by the first feminist movements in the country, which articulated consistent proposals that led to the implementation of public policies for women (Blay, 1999; Coelho, 1999; Gonçalves, 2006).

Since then, the public policies oriented towards women that have been adopted in Brazil, in general, do not contemplate the perspective of gender, because their scope usually reiterates unequal positions of gender that have already been established. According to Bandeira (2005), even though there are distinctions, Brazilian policies for women do not exclude gender policies, but they will probably be transformed into gender policies in the long term.

Public policies oriented towards women are narrower and mainly centered on the traditional view of women in terms of the feminine responsibility for reproduction, education of children and caring for the elderly, among other things. Yet, public gender policies deal with differentiating the socialization processes between men and women, as well as the nature of conflicts in these relationships, thus creating possibilities for women to develop greater autonomy and empowerment. These differences are important when thinking about solving the problems that arise from the nature of relationships and behavioral patterns of the sexes (Bandeira, 2005).

In Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, the Municipal Public Policy Coordinating Committee for Women (CMPPM) is the agency responsible for “advising, assisting, supporting and monitoring actions, programs and projects related to women (Florianopolis City Hall, 2016),” aiming at incorporating the demands of women from Florianopolis. The actions, programs and projects advised by the CMPPM incorporate the gender perspective by enabling greater autonomy and empowerment for women. This is done by focusing their actions on promoting economic and social autonomy for women through projects like the Dialogue with the Communities Project.

In view of the struggle of the Brazilian feminist movements for creating mechanisms that guarantee women equal rights before the law, and also considering the everyday strategy that occurs within an organization, it is possible to link important theoretical concepts and provide a different way of looking at “making strategy,” a look that goes beyond activities and actions taken, and extends to the inequalities that exist between the genders.

The people who make strategy make these practices important to society (Whittington, 2004). In reflecting on strategy as social practice for the construction of a gender perspective in public policy, note that the actors interact with the internal environment through governmental agencies, and also with the external environment in terms of debilities and social problems. These interactions allow us to verify that the praxis adopted is leading to social change and these elements are constructed in accordance with society’s needs and problems. Praxis has become the mechanism, articulation and integration in conferences and meetings, in order to define guidelines and establish implementation strategies of gender policies.

As such, the purpose of this study is to analyze the role of strategy as social practice in the construction of a public policy gender perspective.

We have adopted a qualitative methodology to analyze a single case study, selecting the CMPPM in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, as it is related to the theme of our study proposal. To collect data, we used semi-structured interviews, direct observation and documental analysis.

The data analysis adopted the narrative analysis technique (Godoi, Bandeira-de-Mello and Silva, 2006), as well as the pattern matching technique (Trochim, 1989). We have found that the practices (activities) and how they are performed (praxis) by practitioners configure strategy as social practice or strategizing. Precisely, this is because the social interactions between society and the internal environment affect the creation of actions and policies that seek to minimize the inequalities between the genders. This study aimed at connecting the studied themes to understand the everyday strategy of the public sector, as well as providing a humane approach to this subject and calling attention to inequalities between genders.

2. Strategy as social practice

Research on strategy has been developed in the past decades by important scholars who have contributed with multiple approaches and concepts, ranging from the classic studies to current ones (Chandler, 1962; Ansoff, 1965; Mintzberg, 1973; Porter, 1980; Whittington, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2005; Golsorkhi et al., 2010; Whittington, 2014).

Within the strategy formation process, we seek to understand how strategies are formulated, implemented and evaluated. Mintzberg and Waters (1985) describe two types of strategy: deliberate and emergent. Deliberate strategies are first defined, and then realized. If this does not happen, they are non realized strategies. Emergent strategies, on the other hand, do not follow a defined and intentional pattern, but arise when some plan is diversified or altered.

Making decisions based on deliberate strategies are top-down decisions, which follow the rational, formal and bureaucratic organizational model. Emergent strategies, however, arise through decisions made in the opposite direction, i.e. bottom-up, based on a democratic view that prioritizes participation by people (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, 2010). There is also another integrating process for strategy formation called middle-up-down, in which intermediate management articulates decisions from above and below, thus involving all levels of the hierarchy (Andersen, 2000; Lavarda et al., 2010).

To make an in-depth investigation of how strategy is implemented and how it is developed in the organization analyzed in this article, we decided to consider the strategy as practice approach (Jarzabkowski, 2005, 2010; Whittington, 2006; Johnson et al., 2007; Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Golsorkhi et al., 2010; Whittington, 2014). In this approach the focus is on everyday activities that are socially conducted through the actions and interactions of the actors involved, being not only the formal activities, but also those that can have significant consequences for organizations and people (Johnson, Melin and Whittington, 2003; Jarzabkowski, 2005; Johnson et al., 2007; Junquilho, Almeida and Leite-da-Silva, 2012).

Thus, considering strategy to be a social practice, as something that people do, has a decentralizing effect on the traditional propositions for strategic goals. The analysis looks at a lower level to address general strategic processes and the activities of those who practice strategy, avoiding the management perspective and the performance of strategists, and focusing on the way they perform their roles. Therefore, “accepting strategy as a social practice involves refusing to value the performance of the firm more than the performance of the field as a whole or of strategic practitioners individually” (Whittington, 2004:48).

The main perspective of strategy as practice is the concern for the social practice, since it demonstrates itself as the configuration of activities derived from social interactions (Regnér, 2008).

Whittington (2006) emphasized that the integration of three elements — practices, praxis and practitioners — which do not necessarily combine at the same time, is in accordance with strategy as practice. Practices refer to the routines and activities that are performed within an organization. Praxis refers to the way in which people perform these activities, and practitioners refer to the strategists who perform these activities — or practices.

“Making strategy”, that is, the interconnection between practices, praxis and practitioners is called strategizing — activities and strategic practices (Jarzabkowski and Wilson, 2004; Johnson et al., 2007). This approach to evaluate strategy as practice considers the activities, the practices, as well as the study of strategic practitioners and the praxis involved (Jarzabkowski, 2010).

To understand the features that interconnect to form the strategizing, one can assume that practices are the activities considered within a cultural and social context, as individuals interact in a collective group as well as within their community. Practices drive activities through the combination of cognition, rationality and behavior (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2010).

In praxis, collective activities are performed in an intentional or goal oriented manner. Goal oriented praxis are long-term activities, according with the organizational history or culture. However, over time, actions are rebuilt according to the motives and needs of the different actors. Understanding this relationship is key to comprehend praxis. That is, understand how strategic activities are performed within the various levels of the organization (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2010).

Practitioners are the subjects that interact within a socially based system and execute these activities. The way that they execute them depends on their thoughts and who they are (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2010).

The strategy as practice approach does not limit itself to verify how strategists think and act; rather, it also is interested in understanding how other people in the organization contribute (Golsorkhi et al., 2010).

Thus, adopting the focus of strategy as practice, as something the organization does, means it can be studied in different locations or loci, independent of the managerial focus on strategy in administration history (Whittington, 2004; Golsorkhi et al., 2010). For example, studies have considered the strategy of “the art of doing” in non-business contexts, which emphasize articulation between social representations, strategies, everyday tactics (Leite-da-Silva, Carrieri and Junquilho, 2011) or in managing public schools (Junquilho, Almeida and Leite-da-Silva, 2012).

In order to understand the everyday strategy in the public sector, this approach addresses public administration and presents the understanding of public policy.

3. Public administration and public policy

According to Farah (2011), public administration in Brazil began in 1930, with the goal of training public servants in modern public administration. Before, it was limited to administrative law, the elaboration of laws and regulations and the prevalence of patrimonialism.

Over the last few decades, there have been several transformations in Brazilian public administration. This reform movement has occurred because of external forces that have indicated the need for change in improving public services. The new concept of management in the public sector, New Public Management, strives for the appropriate use of mechanisms from the private sector, adjusting and applying them to the public sector (Araújo, 2000).

One of the activities of public administration is the implementation of public policies (Oszlak, 1982). In this article, we have adopted the concept proposed by Heidemann (2009), which defines public policy as actions and decisions undertaken by governments together with society and the market:

In political-administrative terms, the development of a society is the result of decisions formulated and implemented by national, sub-national and supra-national governments together with other living forces in society, especially market forces in the broader sense. Together, these decisions and actions of the government and other social actors constitute what is known under the term ‘public policy’. {Heidemann, 2009:28}

In order to promote the public good, governments seek to use public policy through actions, goals and plans that meet social demands priorities. These groups that discuss, create and execute public policies are called actors, which can be “public” when they come from the government or the State, or “private” when they come from civil society. Public policy proposals come from the Executive power, which also puts them into practice, while those which are defined come from the Legislative power (Lopes, Amaral and Caldas, 2008).

The cycle of public policy goes through seven stages according to Secchi (2014): (1) the identification of the problem, (2) the formation of the agenda, (3) the formulation of alternatives, (4) decision making, (5) implementation, (6) evaluation and (7) extinction.

The first stage is identifying the problem, seeking to get close to the ideal state. The formation of the agenda, the second stage, means selecting the priorities among the society’s problems, choosing what is relevant. Subsequently, policies are formulated in the third stage in which actions, programs and methods are developed to meet these demands.

The fourth stage consists of making a decision; during the entire policy formulation process decisions are made, either about agenda priorities, or about which actions will be chosen. Implementation is the fifth stage of the cycle, where all that have been planned takes real form. If the administrative organization responsible for executing policy is not attentive in terms of control and monitoring, failures may compromise public policy.

The sixth stage is evaluation, which should take place throughout the cycle and helps managers learn and identify improvements that need to be made. In this stage, the “implementation process and public policy performance are examined to better understand the state of the policy and to what extent it has improved the problem that it seeks to solve” (Secchi, 2014:63).

The last stage is extinction, when there is a solution to the demand/problem or when it loses importance. Therefore, public policy seeks to protect the rights of society, and gender rights are among these rights.

4. The gender perspective in public policy

This perspective is based on the assumption that there are inequalities in the relations between the genders in society and social policy needs to reduce these inequalities, seeking to promote greater socialization and reduce conflict between the genders (Farah, 2004; Bandeira, 2005).

Most public policy in Brazil does not contemplate the perspective of gender in terms of being built for and addressed to women’s needs, because it generally maintains patriarchal, capitalist and racist exploitation and domination. Even though this policy has been used to reproduce the mechanisms of gender inequality, Bandeira (2005) believes that Brazilian policy focused on women will eventually become gender policy. According to the author, in order to become a reality, a more critical and broader perspective of gender needs to be consolidated together with the responsible government bodies and those who formulate such policy.

While public policy for women is narrower and centered on the traditional view of women, including responsibility for social reproduction and children’s education, among other things, public gender policy has focused on autonomy and empowerment. It covers the nature of conflicts between the genders and their different socialization processes (Bandeira, 2005).

The battle for equal rights in the world on behalf of women has been conducted and is still conducted by feminist movements, which, according to Gonçalves (2006), are not limited to mobilizing the population in terms of feminism, but also the participation of women in organizations, public institutions, and various means of expression, such as literature, journals, and paintings.

The victories of women worldwide in terms of policy issues, because this is the way to guarantee and formalize women’s rights under law, began over a century ago. An event that can be considered the beginning of feminism in the West, was the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, held in Seneca Falls, New York. This convention addressed the social, civil and religious conditions of women; however, it did not deal with the right to vote (Gonçalves, 2006).

The right of women to vote in Brazil took decades to be enacted. In 1891, during deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, there was an explicit rejection of this right. Despite this fact, the first woman accepted by the Order of Lawyers (OAB), Myrthes de Campos and Professor Leolinda Daltro asked to register to vote and were denied. Unwilling to accept this decision, Leolinda Daltro founded the Feminist Republican Party in 1910 to debate a woman’s right to vote. At that time, women were considered the fragile sex and of lesser intelligence, with no ability to act in the public sphere, being culturally educated to take care of the family and the home (Soihet, 2012).

Brazilian women gained the right to vote on February 24, 1932 through Decree n 21,076, which was only incorporated in the Constitution in 1934. However, women had to wait until 1945 to exercise their right (Blay, 1999; Soihet, 2012).

The year of 1975 was important for the feminist movement due to the recognition received from the United Nations. At the same time, the First World Conference of Women took place in Mexico, where proposals were defined with the purpose to give women the same opportunities as men. Even though governments evidenced a support for these proposals, this does not happened (Bandeira, 2005). Two years later, women won an important victory in Brazil with the approval of Law n 6,515 in 1977, granting the right to divorce (Brazil, 2014).

During the 1970s and 1980s, the fight for equal rights faced various obstacles among all levels of society, such as the idea that the cause of feminist militants was based on fictional cases and that violence against women and rape were provoked by the victims themselves. Mass media tried to devaluate feminist causes and stereotype women as alienated and exhibitionists who “burned bras”. Yet, the movement did not lose strength in face of this repression (Blay, 1999).

The end of the United Nations’ Decade for Women (1976-85) was marked by Law n 7,353, which created the National Board of Women’s Rights (CNDM). It aimed at promoting national policies that would eliminate discrimination against women and assure them equal rights (Bandeira, 2005). It was an important step for the effective inclusion of gender in public policy and included specific instances that dealt with women’s rights. During the 1980s and 1990s, women’s groups were organized around interest networks such as women’s rights, fighting violence against women, reproductive rights, among others. (Coelho, 1999).

Beginning in 1987, the articulation of women, with a wide variety of demands, became known as the Lipstick Lobby. This Lobby sought to make representatives and senators consider fundamental rights for women in the New Constitution. It was comprised of feminist leaders and federal representatives. As such, Brazil consolidated its return to democracy with the Constitution of 1988, known as the “New Republic.” Women began to have rights and obligations equal to men under the law. Among the accepted proposals was the punishment for discrimination, the abolition of the superior position of men in the family, and the rights of women to own and use land (Soihet, 2012; Brazil, 2014).

The movement began a new phase in 1990, returning at full steam by debating “The Political Situation” at the Fifth Latin-American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting in Argentina. Brazilian women involved in policy, militants and party leaders discussed how to increase the movement’s visibility. This led to a transformation, where the actions that were planned resulted in public policy. Battles related to “violence, health, reproductive rights, education, work, poverty, and political participation, among others,” began to be implemented (Coelho, 1999:148).

Another important event was the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, in which questions regarding racial and ethnic relations were discussed, which led to an exhausting divergence of views (Ribeiro, 1995). Even though Brazil committed itself to ratifying the actions proposed by the Conference in Beijing, which sought to reduce discrimination against women, maternal mortality, unemployment, and a lack of access to decision-making power, it was only two years after the Conference that the feasibility of this proposal was studied (Blay, 1999).

The Fourth World Conference on Women drew attention from various nations for its principle of gender mainstreaming. Bandeira (2005) understands gender mainstreaming in public policy as:

The idea of elaborating a matrix that allows to support a new view of skills (political, institutional and administrative) and the accountability of public actors towards overcoming gender asymmetries in and between different spheres of government. This gender mainstreaming would guarantee integrated and sustainable action between various governmental bodies and, as a consequence, would increase the efficacy of public policies, assuring a more democratic and inclusive governance in relation to women. {Bandeira, 2005:5}

To transform the oppression and invisibility of women within government bodies, it was necessary to create a new public policy. Mainstreaming, thus, sought to transform the unequal secular relationships between men and women, seeking public and private equality and a more just and egalitarian world with respect for different sexual orientations as well as racial and ethnic equality (Brazil, 2013).

Gender mainstreaming is a theoretical construct and a group of actions, policies and governmental practices that seek to incorporate the subject of gender in various spheres of public responsibility (Brazil, 2013). As a theoretical construct, it enables us to better understand the social structures and dynamics that are moved towards confronting inequalities in terms of gender, race, age, and class, among others (Brazil, 2013).

In terms of actions and practices, it constitutes a reorganization of public policy and institutions to incorporate the gender perspective by having shared responsibility. It is understood that this includes not only the responsibility of a given organization to build and elaborate policies related to women in the fight against gender inequality, but it extends this to all bodies within all three levels of government (national, state and municipal). “In this scenario, the Secretariat of Policy for Women (SPM) has taken on the role of coordinating the articulation between government bodies, organizing work, and following and evaluating the results” (Brazil, 2013:10).

The creation of the SPM was an important event in 2003 and it was the result of international pressure from the UN, accords from conventions like Beijing, and pressure from feminist movements. It was created with the purpose “to promote equality between men and women and to fight all forms of prejudice and discrimination inherited from a patriarchal and exclusive society” (SPM, 2016) by articulating policy with other ministries and special secretariats. It has been committed from the beginning of the SPM the elaboration of the National Policy Plan for Women (PNPM), which occurred in 2004 and its evaluation by the Articulation and Monitoring Committee. The PNPM met gender needs in terms of combating violence, health, education, workers’ rights, and reproductive rights, among other needs (Natividade, 2009; Brazil, 2014).

In 2006, Maria da Penha Law n 11,340, created to fight domestic and family violence against women, was implemented. This law is one of PNPM’s commitments and strategies, part of a set of goals to deal with violence against women. Since 1970s this theme has been fought by women from all over the world and, especially after the Beijing Conference in 1995, had become a commitment signed by the participating countries (Cortês, 2012; Brazil, 2014).

The Second National Policy Conference for Women (II CNPM) was held in 2007 with the goal of implementing the I PNPM and deciding on new actions to include in II PNPM — 2008. The Third National Policy Conference for Women was held in 2011 and the result was the PNPM 2013-15, which led to the inclusion of more gender themes. The PNPM provides policy guidelines for women including: autonomy and equality for women in relation to men, and the active participation of women in public policy. Government bodies, the SPM and organized civil society participated in the preparation of the PNPM (Brazil, 2014).

All of the PNPMs (2004, 2008 e 2013) were implemented adopting the idea of gender mainstreaming, “from a horizontal point of view (among ministries) as well as a vertical point of view (because these conferences are held on state, district and municipal levels)” (Brazil, 2013:10).

The definition of gender and racial mainstreaming considers the dimensions of gender, race and ethnic dimensions to structure the panorama of social inequality (Brazil, 2013). It is an important perspective, given that, according to 2010 census data (Brazil, 2011), black people (70.8%) and women (50.5%) comprises the majority of the poor and indigent population in this country.

The principle of gender mainstreaming is now present in all commissions and planning and discussion groups that involve governmental policy, and this extends to the international arena together with other developing countries. In the world context, the incorporation of gender mainstreaming has led governments to not only incorporate this perspective in some secretariat related to women’s issues, but to use it in all public policies proposed by the State, taking into account the differences between men and women (Bandeira, 2005).

Bandeira (2005) emphasizes that, even though this perspective has entered as a guiding principle in policy making in Brazil, it has had little influence on the Multiyear Plans (PPA) with little incorporation in terms of gender, race/ethnic, age and sexual orientation mainstreaming, and a general lack of focus on their commitment to the most vulnerable groups of the population.

Reflecting on the last few decades, women have come to participate in the political arena and, due to pressure and proposals, have managed to implement public policy that has reduced gender inequality a little (Blay, 1999). According to Coelho (1999:151) “as long as women are not at the head of government, the state’s social policy will not address their interests, and the laws that reinforce inequality between the sexes will remain unaltered.”

To conclude, to achieve our proposed objective through this theoretical review and considering our research question: how does strategy as social practice construct the gender perspective in public policy?, we have elaborated a proposition to guide our empirical study, understanding that our propositions seek to answer this research question before we have conducted our empirical research (Vergara, 2010).

Thus, our Proposition (P1) is: Strategy as social practice occurs through mechanisms (public policy practices) performed in a certain manner (praxis) that are created by subjects (practitioners) to minimize the inequality between the genders.

5. Methodology

The research methodology that we have adopted is qualitative (Denzin and Lincoln, 2006), which allows us to not only understand the context that has produced these events, but also gives us knowledge of these events, the use of which allows us to broaden our broad vision of the phenomenon being studied (Pettigrew et al., 1992).

We have adopted the single case study method (Eisenhardt, 1989), which is characterized by studying phenomena as dynamic processes within real contexts in order to explain them in a global manner, while taking into account all of their complexity. This case study, therefore, was developed to give us a deeper understanding of this research question, in which we seek to understand how strategy as social practice builds the gender perspective in public policy.

Thus, the unit of analysis should present the phenomenon being investigated in a way that respects the proposed objectives (Pérez-Aguiar, 1999). The unit of analysis of this study is the Municipal Public Policy Coordinating Committee for Women (CMPPM) of Florianopolis, SC. This organization was selected intentionally, not randomly, according to the following criteria: (i) it is located in the city of Florianopolis, SC, which offers us easy access; (ii) it is a governmental body with strategic practices linked to public policy in terms of gender and women’s issues; and (iii) the organization was interested in participating in the study (intentionally).

To design this study, we have used three data collection techniques: semi-structured interviews, direct observation and documental analysis (Godoi, Bandeira-de-Mello and Silva, 2006), which offers a data triangulation process for greater reliability in the data analysis (Vergara, 2010).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the entire team (five members: a coordinator, an advisor, an administrative assistant and two interns) in accordance with a predefined script during the second half of October 2014.

Our direct observations were inspired by the ethnographic approach (Silva, 2009); annotations were made in the field diary in relation to a project called Dialogue with the Communities during the month of November 2014, and in this process we sought to observe the way the interviews were conducted and the behavior of respondents through their life stories and the everyday activities that they perform.

The documental analysis examined was the 2012 Annual Management Report; the 2014 Report; the First Municipal Policy Plan for Women; Decree naming Dalva Committee Coordinator; Law No. 7,625-08 regarding the Committee for Women; Law No. 7,682-08 regarding the Creation of Comdim; Compilation of the Municipal Laws of Florianopolis regarding the Rights of Women; Decree No. 6,932 — regarding the creation of the activity project; Comdim petition; 16 Days of Activism Schedule and Project; Organizational Chart for the Secretariat for Women.

The data analysis adopted a narrative analysis technique (Godoi, Bandeira-de-Mello and Silva, 2006), based on defined categories (Kerlinger, 1979). We also used the pattern matching technique (Trochim, 1989), comparing theory with collected data from our interviews, direct observation and documental analysis. The categories helped to guide the study during the phases of data collection and analysis. Using these category definitions, we were able to perform a detailed analysis of our proposition. To operationalize and analyze the categories, there are two types of definitions: constitutive (CD) and operational (OD) (Kerlinger, 1979).

A constitutive definition looks for words through other words, generally, dictionary definitions or theoretical concepts, which by themselves are insufficient for scientific purposes. This is why the operational definition is also used, because by using it, it is possible to test the propositions through data collection, giving us a link between concepts and observations in loco (Kerlinger, 1979). Four categories of analysis were defined (CA), for the proposed objective, seeking to affirm or contradict the theoretical proposition:

a) Category 1 (CA1): Practices

CD: these are the activities, routines and actions performed within the organization during its day to day operations (Jarzabkowski, 2005; Whittington, 2006).

OD: seeks to identify these activities through specific questions in the semi-structured interview and the documental analysis of the projects/actions currently being realized.

b) Category 2 (CA2): Praxis

CD: refers to the way in which people (practitioners) perform practices (activities) (Jarzabkowski, 2005; Whittington, 2006).

OD: seeks to identify praxis through specific questions in the semi-structured interview, direct observation and the documental analysis.

c) Category 3 (CA3): Practitioners

CD: are the subjects who interact within this socially based system, performing the activities and the way in which they perform them depends on their thoughts and who they are (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2010).

OD: seeks to analyze, through specific questions in the semi-structured interview and direct observation whether the entire team interacts and participates in the activities, projects and actions that are currently being performed.

d) Category C4 (CA4): Gender perspective in public policy

CD: is based on the assumption that there is inequality between the genders and this has made it necessary to create policies and actions that will minimize these conflicts and guarantee equal rights (Farah, 2004; Bandeira, 2005).

OD: seeks, through observation, specific interview questions and informal conversations, to learn more about the lives of the interviewees, their motivations, how they perceive the organization, how they perceive inequalities and discrimination between men and women, and whether the CMPPM is tackling these issues.

Thus, we analyze all of these categories together, articulating a description of the practices, praxis and practitioners based on the data collected from interviews, observation, and documental analysis, continually “dialoguing” with the constructed theory.

6. Results

The Municipal Public Policy Coordinating Committee for Women (CMPPM) of Florianopolis, SC was created through Law No 7,625 on May 5, 2008, but was only implemented in 2009 by the Florianopolis City Hall.

The CMPPM is an articulating government body, which is responsible for developing public policy, programs, projects and actions in the areas of health, safety, employment, wages, shelter, education, agriculture, race, ethnicity, communications, political participation and others, seeking to meet the demands of the women of Florianopolis.

In addition to its jurisdiction as established under law, the CMPPM is oriented by the guidelines of the First Municipal Policy Plan for Women (PMPM) of Florianopolis of 2012, and doesn’t just act in the defense of women who have been the victims of violence, but also seeks to improve the quality of life of these women within the municipality, promoting actions which will grant them greater autonomy.

For CA1: practices, which are the everyday activities, routines and actions performed within an organization (Whittington, 2006), we identified seven activities performed by the CMPPM: (1) Dialogue with the Communities Project; (2) 16 Days of Activism Project; (3) The Renomination of a Technical Advisory Committee; (4) Proposed Structuring of the Secretariat for Women; (5) Commemorative Day Activities; (6) Articulation Activities and (7) Management Activities. Each activity is divided into sub-activities (praxes) as described below.

Based on what was observed during our investigation, the practices of the CMPPM in making strategy are thought out taking into consideration the difficulties that confront the women of Florianopolis, and the structural capacity of the Coordinating Committee.

Despite the fact that there is a gender perspective in public policy based on the assumption that inequalities exist between men and women, that social policies need to be implemented to reduce these inequalities, that there has to be greater socialization and a decrease in the number of conflicts between men and women (Farah, 2004; Bandeira, 2005), there is a distinction between policy related to gender, and policy related to women. Policy related to women is centered on the traditional view of women, while policy related to gender promotes the autonomy and empowerment of women (Bandeira, 2005).

The Florianopolis CMPPM is preoccupied with activities centered around women and the demands that they have; however, it incorporates the gender perspective in seeking actions that will give women more autonomy. From the perspective of the Coordinating Committee, the Dialogue with the Communities Project (which will be explained below) deals with autonomy in terms of everyday relationships, the formation of ties, understanding the world and social relationships, encouraging the search for partnerships, entrepreneurism and the discovery of the abilities and force that exist within each participant of the modules offered by the project. It is very important to support the protagonism and education of women in society as well as the job market in order to promote their economic and social autonomy, which will strengthen their activity in the public sector.

For CA2: praxis, which is the way in which these seven activities are developed (Whittington, 2006). (1) the Dialogue with the Communities Project was originally elaborated in 2009, defining the themes of the talks in accordance with axes 1 and 5 of the First Municipal Public Policy Plan for Women (I PMPM) of Florianopolis, SC which deal with economic autonomy and equality in the workplace, along with social inclusion and the participation of women in positions of power.

After preparing and approving this project, the Florianopolis CMPPM asked City Hall to open a competition for selecting speakers and also prepared, delivered and filed all the paperwork related to hiring a driver, buying materials for the kits and food for the snacks.

In June 2014, the Florianopolis CMPPM began articulating the planning of groups in 15 locations within Florianopolis, mainly in areas with Social Assistance Reference Centers (CRAS), namely Agronômica, Barra da Lagoa, Ribeirão da Ilha, Rio Vermelho, Carianos, Costeira, Monte Serrat, Pântano do Sul, the Female Penitentiary, the Antonieta de Barros Black Women’s Association, the Multiuse Center, the Barreiros Filho Library, Women in Violent Situations Assistance Reference Center, Santa Catarina Foundation for Social Assistance and the Residents’ Association of Campeche). They defined those responsible for giving talks in each community so that they could begin to form groups. However, the CMPPM also promoted the project and invited women from these communities to participate through its Facebook pages and its website as well as by telephone and through emails. In the end, they formed 15 groups with each one having a local person responsible for running it.

The final activities of assembling the kits, creating attendance lists and graphic art for the folders and posters were important in guaranteeing the proper documentation of the project for its final report. Thus, participating people were registered and there were also photos showing the participation of women and how many attended.

Due to these talks — seven for each of the 15 groups — which took place twice a day on average, each day of the week, the CMPPM team divided up their participation among the assorted groups, according to each member’s personal agenda. During the first week, the Coordinator went to all of the meetings to present the Florianopolis CMPPM and to give a thorough explanation of the project’s goals.

According to the coordinator, this project demanded a lot of time from everyone, because there were 105 meetings with all requiring close attention to guarantee their success:

This dialogue with the communities’ project is taking up a lot of our time, because our idea is that it should be well done. We can leave the speaker in control, but every meeting has to have someone from the coordinating committee present so that the women feel welcome, and this requires time, because there are 105 meetings. {Florianopolis CMPPM Coordinator, 2014}

It was the longest lasting project and it was elaborated in an objective manner based on axes 1 and 5 of Florianopolis’s I PMPM. Or in other words, the coordinator deemed it necessary for the women to receive training to achieve better success in the job market and social environments, and thus they offered activities which promoted more autonomy for these women.

The Dialogue with the Communities Project is a way of seeking to promote autonomy for these women by becoming more professional for the job market. This project seeks to support the protagonism and education of women in society as well as the job market in order to promote their economic and social autonomy, which will strengthen their activity in the public sector as well.

(2) The 16 Days of Activism Project is based on an international campaign to raise social awareness about violence against women. Within the municipality of Florianopolis, the CMPPM is responsible for seeking partnerships with other governmental and non-governmental institutions to promote this theme.

In Brazil it is held earlier due to the commemoration of Black Consciousness Day on November 20 as the coordinator told us:

16 Days of Activism is not our project, it is the sixth year that we have held it here in the municipality, and it has been running worldwide for quite some time. In general, it runs from November 25 to December 10, but in Brazil, due to Black Consciousness Day, it begins on November 20, and here in Florianopolis we began it in 2009 with a very timid campaign. This year we have a very good agenda of activities and we have got media attention and partnerships. {Florianopolis CMPPM Coordinator, 2014}

The theme of the 2014 international campaign was to “put an end to violence against women”; however, the Florianopolis CMPPM inserted another theme as well: “know your rights and make them count.” This insertion occurred through common accord among all the meeting participants (Secretariats and non-governmental institutions). By November 2014 there had been three meetings held in July, August and September 2014, in which the Florianopolis CMPPM articulated with the different groups, entering into contact by telephone and email to invite representatives to participate.

The agendas and discussions of these meetings were dedicated to defining the campaign’s theme, the actions to be taken by the representatives, the dates and times, and fundraising. After each meeting, the Florianopolis CMPPM prepared meeting minutes, so that everyone would be aware of what was discussed.

As a result of these meetings, a schedule was created (spreadsheet) with dates, those responsible for each day, and the actions to be taken, as well as talks, theaters, and activities to raise awareness of violence against women.

The Florianopolis CMPPM prepared, delivered (to City Hall) and filed the documentation soliciting the purchase of materials, which was mandatory in this procedure. Later the team called private companies to obtain sponsorship for the campaign. The last activity performed was the creation of a folder with a schedule.

With this project (16 Days of Activism), the strategies are deliberate because it is an international campaign with an already defined theme; there are also emergent strategies that occur through daily dialogue, according to the interest and participation of institutions in the meetings. In these meetings, it is possible to define how they will approach raising public awareness about violence against women in Florianopolis.

(3) The Renomination of a Technical Advisory Committee came about through the idea of creating a committee to evaluate Florianopolis’s I PMPM. To initiate this process, a formal request was prepared, delivered and filed soliciting members to make up this Committee, according to the coordinator’s description:

We have already been working on this, calling the components the Technical Advisory Committee, and there are still some Secretariats missing, and some government bodies suggested that if we are soliciting members for this committee, then we should make a formal decree. {Florianopolis CMPPM Coordinator, 2014}

This is a legal process that has to follow the norms of the public sector. In this manner, through calls and official requests to these institutions, the Florianopolis CMPPM has asked each institution to send a representative. After all of the institutions have sent representatives, the CMPPM will be able to continue the other activities necessary to repeat this process formally by creating a decree for the nomination of a technical advisory committee; the organization and scheduling of meetings between its members; and the articulation with the secretariats in regard to the responsibilities of each one in terms of each of the Plan’s axes.

(4) The Proposed Structuring of the Secretariat for Women was initiated by the Florianopolis CMPPM, based on a bill proposed by a councilwoman (Beatriz Kauduinski of PCdoB), with a Public Hearing. Later the Mayor of Florianopolis solicited a financial impact statement from the CMPPM. This occurred after a meeting in which the coordinator explained that it would be impossible to implement I PMPM with the current structure.

Thus, the Florianopolis CMPPM elaborated its organizational chart, functions and budget. To prepare this budget, they asked for the budgets of the Women in Violent Situations Assistance Reference Center (CREMV) and the Halfway House to include them in the proposal. The idea was to integrate all the services provided to women in Florianopolis under a single roof.

A meeting was scheduled with the mayor during the third week of November 2014, which would involve creating a petition and collecting signatures which would be delivered at the meeting.

The team sees the creation of the Secretariat for Women as a very important step in implementing policy and performing activities that will help the women of this city.

(5) For Commemorative Day Activities, the Florianopolis CMPPM constantly pays attention to the calendar for commemorative days of which there are four in total: International Woman’s Day on March 8, International Day Against Homophobia on May 17, Black Women’s Day on July 25, and the Campaign to Combat Violence against Women on November 25.

Since they are attuned to these events, they seek to organize or participate in parties, talks or shows, and according to the advisor:

{...} on commemorative days we also do something, an event, a talk, a party, a show. We do something so that the date is not forgotten, and it is a way to remind the population that it is still very prejudiced in its relationships with women and LGBT. {Florianopolis CMPPM Advisor, 2014}

Generally, the institutions responsible visit the Florianopolis CMPPM office or maintain contact by phone for event invitations. They promote these days through their facebook page and website.

The Florianopolis CMPPM also performs (6) Articulation Activities with governmental and non-governmental bodies. The coordinator constantly talks by phone with members of the National Secretariat for Policy on Women (SPM) and the State Coordinating Committee for Women, and participates in a meeting every Monday with governmental bodies and coordinating committees within the municipality of Florianopolis. Everyone thus has a chance to get to know the CMPPM, its projects and its activities through this meeting.

This articulation is the responsibility of the coordinator who seeks to collect information about the activities of other Secretariats/Coordinating Committees through phone calls and informal conversations about topics such as what the Health area (Secretariat) is doing in relation to I PMPM, whether the Secretariat of Education has effective actions in terms of racial and homophobic issues, and whether the law that deals with these issues is being respected. She also is taking care of the liberation of the construction permit (land) for the Brazilian Woman’s House, a federal project that is being articulated with the CREMV, which still hasn’t been implemented.

The coordinator is invited to take trips and participate in workshops, meetings and forums all over Brazil and thus seeks to further the legitimacy of the Florianopolis CMPPM. When she’s unable to go to these events, someone from the team goes in her place.

The 2014 events were: The National Meeting of Female City Council Members, Advisors, Prosecutors and Public Servants; The LBT (Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual) Women’s Seminar; The Second Southern Regional Public Policy Meeting for the LGBT Population (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals); The Southern Regional Meeting of the National Forum of Policy Organizations for Women (OPMs); the launch of the Women Living Without Violence in Santa Catarina Program; The International Seminar about Media and Gender Violence and the Training Workshop on Monitoring the National Policy of Fulltime Attention to Women’s Health (PNAISM); 4^th General Assembly of the National Forum of State and Municipal Managers of Public Policy for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite and Transsexual Population (FONGES LGBT) and the National Policy Plan for Women (PNPM).

The Florianopolis CMPPM team meets every Monday to verify what has been accomplished and what has been not in terms of its projects and activities. However, after the beginning of the Dialogue with the Communities Project this verification became a daily event. Besides these meetings, the team exchanges messages through the cellphone app whatsapp when decisions need to be made and not everyone is present at the CMPPM office.

The last activity of the Florianopolis CMPPM consists of (7) Management Activities, which involve the gathering of data for the 2015 Coordinating Committee’s budget and its subsequent elaboration, delivery and archive. If the CMPPM does not deliver the budget for the following year, it will not have the funds to implement its projects and activities.

All documentation is standardized and should always be signed and stamped by the sector that receives it, making copies that are archived at the Florianopolis CMPPM office. At the end of each year, a management report is elaborated, which includes details of all the projects and activities performed during the year and the results obtained.

One of the most important responsibilities of the Florianopolis CMPPM is the accountability to Florianopolis City Hall. Thus, to guarantee reliability, all documentation is archived.

The last Management Activity is monitoring the progress of committee’s activities. This step is important to make sure that everything is happening as planned.

Also within CA2, decision making within the different levels of the organization can be identified for all activities performed.

All team members emphasized that the decisions are made collectively and by consensus, and are rarely made individually. The coordinator makes decisions regarding planning, delegation and execution of activities, and believe that many of the decisions have to be made by her, since the team cannot make decisions in these areas. According to the coordinator:

There are issues that I have to resolve, issues in terms of cars and logistics, in which they are not able to communicate in the same way and will not be listened to as I will as the coordinator. Sometimes I really have to delegate this, but we do it in a very smooth conversation. {Florianopolis CMPPM Coordinator, 2014}

Thus, we can recognize that decisions made in the definition of the Dialogue with the Communities project were the result of deliberate strategies (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985), given that this project follows two axes of the 2012 Florianopolis I PMPM. However, the I PMPM was formulated based on the Second National Policy Plan for Women of 2008, which was prepared by the National Secretariat for Women and thus was a top-down decision (Andersen, 2000).

The 16 Days of Activism project was the result of international deliberation, and thus is top-down on one hand, but also involves strategies that emerged with new municipal demands (bottom-up), mainly in terms of violence against women.

The five actions related to: the Renaming of the Technical Advisory Committee, the Proposed Structuring of the Secretariat for Women, Commemorative Days, Articulation and Management, resulted from emergent strategies, because they emerged to address the everyday needs of the Florianopolis CMPPM.

The coordinator assumes the middle-up-down role in making decisions to articulate and integrate decisions that are top-down, such as the decisions that the National Secretariat for Women (SPM) sends for national alignment, and the bottom-up decisions that are made to meet the needs of the women of Florianopolis.

For CA3: practitioners, who are the subjects who interact with the social system and execute its activities (Jarzabkowski, Balogun and Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2010), are the members of the Florianopolis CMPPM, because they participate in all of its activities. However, only the coordinator articulates policy with governmental bodies and civil society. Thus, the entire team’s five members are practitioners of strategy.

In Chart 1 we present the practices, how they are performed (praxis), and the practitioners who perform them.

For CA4: to analyze the gender perspective in the Florianopolis CMPPM’s public policy, it was necessary to better know the history of each team member to understand ther points of view in terms of gender issues and the role of the CMPPM, as well as their motivations, anxieties, and passion for the cause.

When questioned about their initial interest in associating with this institution, none of them had any critical knowledge of feminist perspectives and/or gender relations. They all were looking for a job and it was only once they began to participate in events related to gender and the CMPPM’s activities that they began to identify with this subject and find out more about it, even if it was in an incipient manner.

Chart 1
Practices, praxis and practitioners

• Source: Developed by the authors.

Such evidence suggests that, based on the relationship between praxis and gender — in the Santa Catarina context as well as the Brazilian context — it is a structural problem, because the team’s involvement with the cause only occurred after they got to know and became involved with it. This reinforces the importance of the Beijing Conference (1995), in which gender mainstreaming was recognized and governments agreed to incorporate this perspective not only in a single secretariat related to women, but linking it to the State’s entire public policy (Bandeira, 2005; Natividade, 2009; Brazil, 2014).

The adoption of gender mainstreaming by the State encouraged the creation of the SPM (in 2003) and, as a consequence, the PNPMs (2004, 2008 and 2013). According to the SPM (Brazil, 2013), the elaboration of the first PNPM was essential to the dissemination and distribution of these policy guidelines for Brazilian women, and the concept of gender mainstreaming was incorporated in all subsequent PNPMs.

In general, praxis only occurs in the everyday life of organizations. It is the result of activities, and will only occur based on the planning of activities. If the PNPM were not widely disseminated in Florianopolis, and if the team members had no knowledge of, or ties to it — because it is a recent Coordinating Committee — it is expected that they would have no critical knowledge of gender issues.

It is important to see the participation and enthusiasm of women in these policy areas because, according to Coelho (1999), as long as women are not part of these environments, policy will not meet their interests, and the laws and the inequality of the genders will remain unaltered.

Also of note is the fight of women for equal rights with men through feminist movements which, according to Gonçalves (2006), have not been limited to mobilizations in relation to feminism, but also the lack of female participation in organizations, and the minority voice of women in the public arena and in various forms of expression.

We have also sought to perceive whether the Florianopolis CMPPM has been effective in its advising, articulation and the monitoring of its activities, programs and projects which incorporate public policies related to gender which aims to reduce inequality. Based on our analysis of the five team members, they have performed their activities according to the organizational structure, even considering it small, and the Coordination financial resources, which they consider scarce. According to Intern 2:

I think that, given the structure that we have, we are achieving as much as we can, but I think it could be a stronger organization that could spread our message to more people. Because as we have seen in the project (Dialogue with the Communities) many people do not even know of the Coordinating Committee for Women, and it is one of the most important in Florianopolis, because women comprise more than half the population, so we are defending the rights of over half the city’s population. {Florianopolis CMPPM Intern 2, 2014}

During this process of increasing knowledge about gender issues and inequalities that women face, the team members have gradually vanished their prejudices (in terms of homosexual, lesbian and transsexual issues), becoming more open to different sexual orientations and more conscious of different realities that the mainstream media frequently hides (like the large number of women who suffer from domestic violence, for example).

Finally, the cycle of public policy formation passes through seven stages suggested by Secchi (2014), of which five apply to the Florianopolis CMPPM. The seven stages are: (1) identification of the problem, where the focus is on finding projects and activities that will stimulate the autonomy of women in Florianopolis, as well as raise public awareness of this issue and support the end of violence against women; (2) formation of the agenda, where the team determines what will be the priority, based on the limitations of its organizational structure; (3) formulation of policy to address these demands, when the First Municipal Policy Plan for Women in Florianopolis was defined; however, not all of its axes have been put into practice; (4) decision making, in which the coordinator assumes the middle-up-down role in her decision making, articulating and integrating top-down decisions as well as bottom-up decisions; (5) implementation of the activities that occur in strategy as social practice (Jarzabkowski, 2005); (6) evaluating public policy by the Technical Advisory Committee, since this stage was not identified in the CMPPM. Finally, the last stage is (7) extinction, which was also not identified because the group’s work is still implementing public policy and not its evaluation.

7. Final considerations

This study has the purpose to investigate how strategy as social practice occurs in the construction of the gender perspective in the public policy conducted by the municipality of Florianopolis, SC, through the Municipal Public Policy Coordinating Committee for Women (CMPPM).

By analyzing its practices (activities), how they are performed (praxis) and who performs them (practitioners), we have been able to identify which actions and public policies are being incorporated and are contributing to reduce inequality between men and women. In this way, we supported our research proposal, because activities that constitute strategizing or strategy as social practice are the results of everyday social interactions with society and within the organization itself, in the articulation of different everyday strategic social representations (Leite-da-Silva, Carrieri and Junquilho, 2011).

The practices of the Florianopolis CMPPM fit into seven activities: the Dialogue with the Communities and 16 Days of Activism Projects; and the actions associated with the Renaming of the Technical Advisory Committee, the Proposal to Structure the Secretariat of Women, Commemorative Days, Articulation and Management. These activities follow a bureaucratic process in terms of the public sector; however, there is no formalization of which activities should be performed.

We were also able to identify how each practice is developed. In this manner, we have noted 26 actions performed by the practitioners and, in this process, the delegation of activities by consensus, with the coordinator being responsible for the final decision, assuming a middle-up-down role in articulating top-down decisions as well as bottom-up decisions, in accordance with Andersen (2000).

We have characterized the practitioners who influence strategy as social practice and verified that the team members, by participating in activities and projects, help make strategy happen. Since all the members of the team are women, we found a certain engagement and growing motivation on their part, which has ended up affecting their personal lives and the lives of other women in the region.

All of the team members are white women, which means the absence of black and indigenous women in the talks oriented towards women in Florianopolis as well as the construction of the agendas that address the demands of the women in this city. The team members were not questioned about their gender type (identity) or sexual orientation, which makes it difficult to analyze if lesbian women and transsexuals also suffer from the same lack of participation in the construction of policy relating to women in Florianopolis. In terms of the gender perspective regarding public policy, we observed that it was the result of addressing the needs of the women in the municipality, and that all of the activities seek to reduce gender inequalities, including campaigns to raise awareness of violence against women (16 Days of Activism) and projects that seek to give women greater autonomy in terms of the job market and economic empowerment (Dialogue with the Communities).

This study contributes to advance in the discussion of the activities, practices and the praxis that make up strategizing, as suggested by Whittington (2014), by allowing us to study everyday strategy in the public sector and draw attention to the inequalities between the genders that still permeate our society. It also deepen the understanding of the context of these women in terms of the rights they have gained, which are guaranteed by law and demonstrates the dissemination of gender policies in the public management of the Municipality of Florianopolis in 2014.

The limitations mentioned above are related to the impossibility of interviewing the women who attend CMPPM activities as well as the impossibility of studying the State Coordinating Committee of Santa Catarina, which would have contributed to a comparative study.

In terms of future research, we would point to the expansion of this study to other governmental bodies, which have gender activities and policy to compare them, as well as symbolic elements such as “the negative stereotype of public employees” and their actions “to explain the limits to the heterogeneity of work participation and interaction” (Borges, Leite-da-Silva and Junquilho, 2014). Studies could also be made of strategy as social practice in private businesses to further our discussion of gender relations, verifying whether there are inequalities in practices in the business world and making a comparison between public organizations and private businesses.

The study of strategy as social practice points a new direction in the construction of public gender policy. A more humane look towards practices, and how they are performed (praxis) by practitioners, can have an effect on society and reduce the inequalities between genders in the job market and social environments.

In accordance with the limits of its organizational structure, the Florianopolis CMPPM performs activities that seek to promote female autonomy socially and professionally, and the anxieties of the team members, who over time have come to identify with this cause, offer a different point of view and spirit in relation to this subject. Thus, their activities are affecting the lives of various women in the municipality of Florianopolis, SC; however, it is important to emphasize that many other women are not being affected by these policies, and that the State needs to make a greater effort to find those who need help in terms of inequalities, violence and exploitation which are still inflicted for reasons of gender as well as race, class, sexual orientation, age, and physical handicaps, among many others. To follow the path proposed by Bandeira (2005), and result in gender policies (which will be able to modify present inequalities), we need the actors who participate in institutions responsible for advisory, elaboration, planning and execution of public policy relating to women in this municipality, and who adopt even more critical view in their discussion of gender, race, class, and age inequalities, facts that are still with us today.

Referências

• AndersEn, Thomas J. Strategic planning, autonomous actions and corporate performance. Long Range Planning, v. 33, n. 2, p. 184-200, 2000.
• ANSOFF, Harry Igor. Corporate Strategy: business policy for growth and expansion. Nova York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
• Araújo, Joaquim F. Tendências recentes de abordagem à reforma administrativa. Revista Portuguesa de Administração e Políticas Públicas (Rapp), Fórum: Modernizar a Administração Pública, v. 1, n. 1, p. 38-47, 2000.
• BANDEIRA, Lourdes. Brasil: fortalecimento da Secretaria Especial de políticas para as mulheres: avançar na transversalidade da perspectiva de gênero nas políticas públicas. Brasília: SPM, 2005.
• BLAY, Eva A. Gênero e políticas públicas ou sociedade civil, gênero e relações de poder. In: SILVA, Alcione L.; LAGO, Mara C. S.; RAMOS, Tânia R. O. (Org.). Falas de gênero: teorias, análises, leituras. Florianópolis: Editora Mulheres, 1999. p. 133-145.
• BORGES, Marianne V.; LEITE-DA-SILVA, Alfredo R.; JUNQUILHO, Gelson S. Implicações simbólicas no trabalho em grupo: um estudo em um Procon municipal, Revista Gestão & Conexões. Management and Connections Journal, Vitória (ES), v. 3, n. 2, p. 7-24, jul./dez. 2014.
• BRASIL. Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome. O perfil da extrema pobreza no Brasil com base nos dados preliminares do universo do Censo 2010 Brasília: MDS, 2011.
• BRASIL. Ministério do Meio Ambiente. Curso igualdade de gênero e desenvolvimento sustentável, Brasília, 2014.
• BRASIL. Secretaria de Políticas para as Mulheres. Plano nacional de políticas para as mulheres 2013-2015 Brasília: Secretaria de Políticas para as Mulheres, 2013.
• CHANDLER, Alfred D. Strategy and structure: chapters in the history of the industrial enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962.
• COELHO, Clair C. Gênero e políticas públicas. In: SILVA, Alcione L.; LAGO, Mara C. S.; RAMOS, Tânia R. O. (Org.). Falas de gênero: teorias, análises, leituras. Florianópolis: Editora Mulheres, 1999. p. 147-154.
• CORTÊS, Iáris R. A trilha legislativa da mulher. In: PINSKY, Carla B.; PEDRO, Joana M. Nova história das mulheres no Brasil São Paulo: Contexto, 2012. p. 260-285.
• DENZIN, Norman K.; LINCOLN, Yvonna S. Planejamento da pesquisa qualitativa: teorias e abordagens. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2006.
• EISENHARDT, Kathleen M. Building theories form case study research. Academy of Management Review, v. 14, n. 4, p. 532-550, 1989.
• FARAH, Marta F. S. Administração pública e políticas públicas. Rev. Adm. Pública, v. 45, n. 3, p. 813-836, maio/jun. 2011.
• FARAH, Marta F. S. Gênero e políticas públicas. Revista Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis, v. 12, n. 1, p. 47-71, 2004.
• GODOI, Christiane K.; BANDEIRA-DE-MELLO, Rodrigo; SILVA, Anielson B. Pesquisa qualitativa em estudos organizacionais: paradigmas, estratégias e métodos. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006.
• GOLSORKHI, Damon et al. Cambridge handbook of strategy as practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• GONÇALVES, Andréa L. História & gênero Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2006.
• HEIDEMANN, Francisco G. Do sonho do progresso às políticas de desenvolvimento. In: HEIDEMANN, Francisco G.; SALM, José F. (Org.). Políticas públicas e desenvolvimento: bases epistemológicas e modelos de análise. Brasília: EdUnB, 2009. p. 23-39.
• JARZABKOWSKI, Paula. Activity-theory approaches to studying strategy as practice. In: GOLSORKHI, Damon et al. (Ed.). Cambridge Handbook of strategy as practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 2010. p. 127-140.
• JARZABKOWSKI, Paula. Strategy as practice: an activity-based approach. Londres: Sage, 2005.
• JARZABKOWSKI, Paula; BALOGUN, Julia; SEIDL, David. Strategizing: the challenge of a practice perspective. Human Relation, v. 60, n. 1, p. 5-27, 2007.
• JARZABKOWSKI, Paula; Wilson, David C. Thinking and acting strategically: new challenges for interrogating strategy. European Management Review, v. 1, n. 1, p. 14-20, 2004.
• Johnson, Gerry; MELIN, Leif; Whittington, Richard. Micro strategy and strategizing: towards an activity-based view. Journal of Management Studies, v. 40, n. 1, p. 3-22, 2003.
• Johnson, Gerry et al. Strategy as practice: research directions and resources. Nova York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• JUNQUILHO, Gelson S.; ALMEIDA, Roberta A.; LEITE-DA-SILVA, Alfredo R. As “artes do fazer” gestão na escola pública: uma proposta de estudo. Cad. EBAPE.BR, v. 10, n. 2, p. 329-356, jun. 2012.
• JUNQUILHO, Gelson S.; LEITE-DA-SILVA, Alfredo R.; CARRIERI, Alexandre P. A estratégia como prática na administração pública contemporânea. In: SILVESTRE, Hugo C.; ARAÚJO, Joaquim F. (Org.). Coletânea em administração pública Lisboa: Escolar, 2012. v. 1, p. 143-162.
• KERLINGER, Fred. N. Metodologia da pesquisa em ciências sociais: um tratamento conceitual. São Paulo: EPU; Edusp, 1979.
• LAVARDA, Rosalia A. B.; CANET-GINER, Maria Teresa; PERIS-BONET, Fernando J. How middle managers contribute to strategy formation process: connection of strategy processes and strategy practices. Revista de Administração de Empresas, v. 50, n. 4, p. 358-370, 2010.
• LEITE-DA-SILVA, Alfredo R.; CARRIERI, Alexandre P.; JUNQUILHO, Gelson S. A estratégia como prática social nas organizações: articulações entre representações sociais, estratégias e táticas cotidianas. Revista de Administração de São Paulo, v. 46, n. 2, p. 122-134, 2011.
• Lopes, Brenner; Amaral, Jefferson N.; Caldas, Ricardo W. Políticas públicas: conceitos e práticas. Belo Horizonte: Sebrae/MG, 2008.
• MINTZBERG, Henry. The nature of managerial work Nova York: Harper and Row, 1973.
• MINTZBERG, Henry; AHLSTRAND, Bruce; LAMPEL, Joseph. Safári de estratégia: um roteiro pela selva do planejamento estratégico. 2. ed. Porto Alegre: Bookman, 2010.
• MINTZBERG, Henry; WATERS, John S. Of strategies, deliberate and emergent. Strategic Management Journal, v. 6, n. 3, p. 257-272, 1985.
• Natividade, Daise R. Empreendedorismo feminino no Brasil: políticas públicas sob análise. Rev. Adm. Pública, v. 43, n. 1, p. 231-256, jan./fev. 2009.
• OSZLAK, Oscar. Políticas públicas e regimes políticos: reflexões a partir de algumas experiências Latino-Americanas. Rev. Adm. Pública, v. 16, n. 1, p. 17-60, jan./mar. 1982.
• PÉREZ AGUIAR, Waldo. El estudio de casos. In: SARABIA, Franciso José et al. Metodología para la investigación en marketing y dirección de empresas Madri: Pirámide, 1999.
• PETTIGREW, Andrew M.; Ferlie, Ewan; McKEE, Lorna. Shaping strategic change Londres: Sage, 1992.
• PORTER, Michael E. Competitive strategy Nova York: Free Press, 1980.
• PREFEITURA DE FLORIANÓPOLIS. Coordenadoria Municipal de Políticas Públicas para as mulheres. Apresentação Florianópolis. Disponível em: <Disponível em: http://www.pmf.sc.gov.br/entidades/mulher/index.php?cms=apresentacao&menu=4 >. Acesso em: 30 jul. 2016.
  » http://www.pmf.sc.gov.br/entidades/mulher/index.php?cms=apresentacao&menu=4
• REGNÉR, Patrick. Strategy-as-practice and dynamic capabilities: steps towards as dynamic view of strategy. Human Relations, v. 61, n. 4, p. 565-588, 2008.
• RIBEIRO, Matilde. Mulheres negras brasileiras: de Bertioga a Beijing. Revista Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis, v. 3, n. 2, p. 446-457, 1995.
• SECCHI, Leonardo. Políticas públicas: conceitos, esquemas de análise, casos práticos. 2. ed. São Paulo: Cengage Learning, 2014.
• SILVA, Hélio R. S. A situação etnográfica: andar e ver. Horizontes Antropológicos, Porto Alegre, v. 32, p. 171-188, 2009.
• SOIHET, Rachel. A conquista do espaço público. In: PINSKY, Carla B.; PEDRO, Joana Maria. Nova história das mulheres no Brasil São Paulo: Contexto, 2012. p. 218-237.
• SPM. Secretaria de Políticas para as Mulheres. Sobre a SPM Disponível em: <Disponível em: http://www.spm.gov.br/arquivos-diversos/sobre/spm >. Acesso em: 28 jul. 2016.
  » http://www.spm.gov.br/arquivos-diversos/sobre/spm
• TROCHIM, William M. K. Outcome pattern matching and program theory. Evolution and Program Planning, v. 12, n. 4, p. 355-366, 1989.
• VERGARA, Sylvia. Métodos de pesquisa em administração São Paulo: Atlas, 2010.
• WHITTINGTON, Richard. Completing the practice turn in strategy research. Organization Studies, v. 27, n. 5, p. 613-634, 2006.
• WHITTINGTON, Richard. Estratégia após o modernismo: recuperando a prática. Revista de Administração de Empresas, v. 44, n. 4, p. 44-53, out./dez. 2004.
• WHITTINGTON, Richard. Making strategy: the hard work of institutional innovation in an open professional field. In: EURAM - EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT ANNUAL MEETING, XIV, 2014, Valencia. Annals… p. 1-34.
• WHITTINGTON, Richard. Strategy as practice. Long Range Planning, v. 29, n. 5, p. 731-735, 1996.

• 7
  {Translated version} Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Feb 2017

History

• Received
  31 Mar 2015
• Accepted
  13 Sept 2016