5. Organizational Dignity in the Interpretative Perspective

The objective of this chapter is to present organizational dignity from the interactionist perspective and to propose a theory capable of explaining the relationships between companies and the communities located in their geographical surroundings. The investigation was carried out through grounded theory in a community called here by the fictitious name “Litoral,” using as object of analysis the relations between members of the community and two companies—one national (Modelo), the other multinational (Capixaba). The residents’ expectations in relation to the company’s eager interest for the community of its geographic surroundings and the way it responds was at the central core of the proposed theory. The expectations of the community are shaped and reformatted in a dynamic relationship with the concrete or abstract tangibility of the company, the critical situations experienced and the business actions in response to these situations. The company’s zeal for the community is represented by symbols of dignity and objects of economic, environmental, socio-cultural or psycho-social dignity. The theory that emerged from the data address some important issues in order companies can trace strategies to cope to community expectations.