WHAT WILL I BE WHEN I GROW UP? SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF STUDENTS STARTING AN UNDERGRADUATE MANAGEMENT COURSE

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Janete Lara de
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: Barreto, Raquel de Oliveira, Souza, Mariana Mauymi Pereira de, Calbino, Daniel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Administração (São Paulo. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://raep.emnuvens.com.br/raep/article/view/167
• topic: imaginary; social representation; identity; projection; management.; imaginário; representação social; identidade; projeção; administração.

This theoretical and empirical work aimed to understand the social representations of a manager’s career as imagined by students who have chosen this profession. Using an individually applied directive script for two classes of freshman Management students at UFMG, the students were asked to describe their intended professional advancement over a period of approximately ten years beginning after their graduation. The theory of social representations and professional identity were used to support the research and analysis, whilst triangulation between quantitative and qualitative data was used as a research strategy and content analysis was employed as a methodology. The results show that the majority of the students are very concerned with taking post graduate courses, that they wish to gain professional experience at big companies and that they believe they will form solid and conventional family structures. Furthermore, it is possible to see that these students hold shared representations about the symbolic meaning of a manager’s career as regards success, status and the lifestyle that is socially related to the management profession.