Michel Foucault: analysis of power relations in entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in Brazil

Lydia Maria Pinto Brito,Arthur William Pereira Da Silva,Pablo Marlon Medeiros Da Silva,Ahiram Brunni Cartaxo De Castro,Josenildo Soares Bezerra

doi:10.5565/rev/athenea.2478

Abstract

This research aimed at understanding the relationships of power over the implementation and the dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the Public Service Innovation Examination in Brazil. It is about a basic qualitative research, sustained by the documental analysis investigation model and the episteme reference board by Michel Foucault, in his work Microphysics of Power. The data were processed through electronic spread sheets, and the research corpus was the repository of the Brazilian National School of Public Administration, from 2006-2015. We used the structural, revised and expanded model by Mônica Cappelle, Marlene Melo and Mozar Brito. The results showed that power is spread out and moves around the procedures entrails, the indicators, the decisions, the partnerships, the documents and the technologies. The findings also point that the State is at the market’s service, when it fosters industrial complexes, productive chains and economy of scale with public funding.

Highlights

IntroductionThe terms entrepreneurship and innovation are more and more present in the entrepreneurial and governmental discourses and agendas (Figueiredo, 2015) as a source of distinctive advantage, marketing, economic and social progress, materializing through individual and group creativity (Camargo, Cunha & Bulgacov, 2010; Chaston & Scott, 2012; Drucker, 2008; McClelland, 1972; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005; Santandreu-Mascarell, Garzon & Hnorr, 2013; Schumpeter, 1982; Silva, Paiva Júnior, Leão & Fernandes, 2016; Tidd, Bessant & Pavitt, 2013) and by the appearance of an entrepreneurial activism that tries to validate the rights of a small number of investors, as an essential 20th century’s ultimate phenomenon, accelerated by the neoliberal economists’ arguments that are somewhat ideological (Gomez & Korine, 2008).That is the reason why there is a growing number of public organizations which are reframing themselves, giving new meanings to their tasks and fragmented skills (discontinued competencies and multidisciplinary teams that were dispersed) in the sense of obtaining, using, disseminating, evaluating and building knowledge through entrepreneurship and the innovation in search for a new public management (Silva, Lima & Gomide, 2017; Oliveira, 2015).In this sense, here is the question: understanding that the power of Foucaultian comprehension means subjection and dominion exercised in an orderly and distributed way through a social web, how are the relationships of power, present in the implementation and dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the public service, produced?The aim of this study is to understand the relationships of power in the implementation and dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the Public Service Innovation Examination in Brazil.From the academic point of view, the research is justified by enabling the application of diverse philosophical intentions in the science of administration in order to understand, from a constructivist and relational perspective, the relationships of power through the Foucaultian analysis
In accordance with what has been stated, and through Foucault’s work, it was possible to notice that the differentiation system of power relations is found in subtle and invisible details which try to strengthen the exercise of power, especially over the judicial difference bonds, privilege regulations, economic differences in the ownership of wealth and goods, the treaties with other governments, the government’s financial capacity and knowledge appropriation (Foucault, 1979/2014), and this is the spirit of the ser vices between the subnational levels (States)’s exercise of power—– just like a parent’s dominion and coercion (Ferreirinha & Raitz, 2010; Scarparo & Ecker, 2015), constructed by the exercise from its need to maintain the market and the population’s welfare
As an example of this analysis point, the initiative “Start-Up Program Brazil” was used, since it was awarded in the 20th edition of the Public Service Innovation Examination and whose objective was first to contribute to the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem from the Information Technology (IT) sector

Summary

Introduction

The terms entrepreneurship and innovation are more and more present in the entrepreneurial and governmental discourses and agendas (Figueiredo, 2015) as a source of distinctive advantage, marketing, economic and social progress, materializing through individual and group creativity (Camargo, Cunha & Bulgacov, 2010; Chaston & Scott, 2012; Drucker, 2008; McClelland, 1972; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005; Santandreu-Mascarell, Garzon & Hnorr, 2013; Schumpeter, 1982; Silva, Paiva Júnior, Leão & Fernandes, 2016; Tidd, Bessant & Pavitt, 2013) and by the appearance of an entrepreneurial activism that tries to validate the rights of a small number of investors, as an essential 20th century’s ultimate phenomenon, accelerated by the neoliberal economists’ arguments that are somewhat ideological (Gomez & Korine, 2008).That is the reason why there is a growing number of public organizations which are reframing themselves, giving new meanings to their tasks and fragmented skills (discontinued competencies and multidisciplinary teams that were dispersed) in the sense of obtaining, using, disseminating, evaluating and building knowledge through entrepreneurship and the innovation in search for a new public management (Silva, Lima & Gomide, 2017; Oliveira, 2015).In this sense, here is the question: understanding that the power of Foucaultian comprehension means subjection and dominion exercised in an orderly and distributed way through a social web, how are the relationships of power, present in the implementation and dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the public service, produced?The aim of this study is to understand the relationships of power in the implementation and dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the Public Service Innovation Examination in Brazil.From the academic point of view, the research is justified by enabling the application of diverse philosophical intentions in the science of administration in order to understand, from a constructivist and relational perspective, the relationships of power through the Foucaultian analysis. That is the reason why there is a growing number of public organizations which are reframing themselves, giving new meanings to their tasks and fragmented skills (discontinued competencies and multidisciplinary teams that were dispersed) in the sense of obtaining, using, disseminating, evaluating and building knowledge through entrepreneurship and the innovation in search for a new public management (Silva, Lima & Gomide, 2017; Oliveira, 2015) In this sense, here is the question: understanding that the power of Foucaultian comprehension means subjection and dominion exercised in an orderly and distributed way through a social web, how are the relationships of power, present in the implementation and dissemination of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives in the public service, produced?. We intend to contribute with a view which tries to understand the reality in its interest biases which involve the institutional action in the entrepreneurial and innovative activity (Silva et al, 2016)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion