PAPEL DOS GESTORES NA MUDANÇA CULTURAL DA ADMINISTRAÇÃO CENTRAL DO ESTADO: O CASO DA MERITOCRACIA.

The influence of New Public Management (NPM) on administrative reform in Portugal, and specifically on matters related to the introduction of greater technical rationality in public management processes, has been widely acknowledged (Mozicafredo, 2000); (Bilhim, 2008); (Rocha, 2011). Many governments of OECD member countries have undertaken identical initiatives. However, literature on administrative reform suggests institutional bureaucracies' resilience to managers' control and to change (Burns e Stalker, 1961); (Bjur e Caiden, 1978); (Bilhim 1995, 2010). The sociology of management has also helped to identify and understand the platonic image of the manager - a rational enforcer of a system for planning and controlling an organizational structure, quickly adaptable to the surroundings - transmitted by the rhetoric of technocratic ideology. This article aims to contribute to the debate on the role played by the public manager in the change in organizational culture, based on meritocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]