Are the Organizations Prepared for a Real Efficacy of the Socail and Collective Development? A Critical Reflexion in a Latin American Context

Abstract

In the context of the present, most organizations are developing towards a so‐called efficacy proposed by a world of economic and scientific predominance. As a consequence, organizations have become the target of insignificant actions by human beings, reducing the individuals to automatons. It is necessary to rescue the real nature of organizations and to make changes inside them, in order to attend to the individual diversity and the needs of the community. Thus, only a reflexive and critical look at the articulation of tangible things may help us. Certainly, those are the intentions of our paper, when we propose actions to reach a relation between the individuals and the organizations, using elements extracted from theoretical currents whose authors analyze those subjects as recurrent ones (structuralism, critical theory and post‐modernism). Initially, the paper makes a reflection on the nature of current organizational reality and the theoretical basis often present nowadays. Hereby, we present some propositions and put in question our responsibility as students, professors, researchers and managers, for having in our hands the power to decide if we want continuity or change. Finally, we propose some methodological guidelines for research oriented to elucidate the reality of the reflections afore mentioned. Hence, we argue the need to conduct critical‐action research, by illustrating and questioning the social responsibility of one type of Latin‐American company, petroleum companies, for which we show the social‐environmental impacts of their strategic decisions. Our critical reflections and propositions come from two sources: one is our biographical experience from almost twelve years in Latin‐American countries, either as managers or professors, and the second one is some results of our current research interest regarding social responsibility in the themes of equity and organizational objectives.