Organizational Development in Chambers of Industry and Commerce (ACIs) in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Brazilian Chambers of Industry and Commerce (ACIs) are organized at the local level, and membership is voluntary. ACIs traditionally tended to have a relatively low profile. The traditional pattern is one of a club of the leading local firms, with one or two meetings per month, often over lunch; with one or two professionals; and with hardly any services for member firms. Their local standing is based on the fact that other local actors perceive them as the voice of the most powerful local companies. Their main activities used to be ad-hoc lobbying, community activities, and social events.

It was in such a setting that in 1991 a partnership project was launched which involved the Chamber of Arts and Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria (HWK) and three ACIs in the northeast of SC (Joinville, Blumenau, Brusque). The starting point was the idea of the president of one of the ACIs that such a project might help in upgrading local small firms, especially in non-durables (like bakeries) and consumer-oriented services (like car repair). However, it became soon obvious to the German expert in charge of coordinating the project and his Brazilian colleagues that lack of technical and managerial capacity of small firms was only part of the problem. In their view, the main problem was the inadequate functioning of the ACIs. They offered hardly any services, and their lobby work was basically ad-hoc - whenever local or state government had passed a law that created additional obstacles for private business they tried to have it revoked, rather than working systematically to prevent that such laws were passed in the first place.

So in the initial phase the goal of the partnership project was redefined - from strengthening small firms to stimulating organizational development in ACIs. This is not to say that small firms were no longer the target of activities. Far from it: pulling small firms into the ACIs became the main instrument to leverage organizational development. The ACIs began to organize núcleos setoriais, working groups of about ten to twelve owners of small firms, organized at branch-level so that there are typically working groups of car repair shops, bakeries, carpenters, restaurants, furniture, supermarkets, and many others. The ACIs trained professionals ("consultants") to work as moderators and facilitators, preparing the reunions (usually bi-weekly), conducting them, and doing the follow-up. Actually, their existence is a key issue for two reasons. First, the meetings of the working group are organized in a way which is quite different from normal meetings. Not only is there the consultant who moderates, but he also uses the "Metaplan" visualization technique so that the group’s work process and progress is clearly visible, and the meeting has a visible result. Second, the ACIs usually did not have something like a consultant before. In fact, they had hardly any professionals at all. So hiring a qualified professional to work as a consultant with núcleos was quite a leap. At the same time, it was a particularly efficient step since training a facilitator can be done in a much shorter time than training a business consultant, and working with a group of firms is more efficient than supporting individual firms.

What started as a moderate intervention - organizing a handful of working groups of small businesses - unlocked a profound change in the ACIs. They expanded the number of employees, creating new demands on the leadership of the executive secretary. They expanded the number of member firms, creating new demands on the elected directors who all of a sudden found it necessary to justify their actions (or rather the lack of if). In some cases, small business owners actually became presidents of ACIs. They had to work out a PR strategy to keep the enlarged membership base informed. And they had to launch a more systematic lobbying effort, based on complaints and proposals from the enlarged membership base. Overall, the ACIs moved from the club model to the service & lobby-model - offering services to member firms (most notably the work of the consultants) and organizing lobbying; the latter in several cases led to ACIs professionals changing into the city administration, being in charge of economic development, and in one case to nominating an ACI president for the mayor election, which he actually won. And this happened not only in three ACIs. As it became obvious that the partnership project had tangible effects (which included trips for ACIs directors, executives, and consultants to Bavaria to know a completely different model of business associations, and trips of HWK specialists to SC to give specific technical assistance to núcleo firms), more ACIs asked to get involved with the project. In the end, 20 ACIs were affiliated with the project. They had altogether more than 120 núcleos with more than 1,600 participating firms. In the larger cities, the number of members of the ACI grew two- to threefold.

When the first phase of funding from the German side came to its end in 1996, and it was time to define whether to continue the partnership project (in the way it had started, i.e. with manpower input from HWK and financial support from the Ministry of Development Cooperation), it was decided to expand the effort. The 20 ACIs involved in the project created a separate organization, Fundação Empreender (FE), which hired the project workers. FE started a joint venture with SEBRAE, the parastatal support organization for micro and small enterprises, to disseminate the work methodologies developed in the project to other ACIs in SC. 20 ACIs in larger cities (i.e. between 30,000 and 200,000 inhabitants) were selected for what was called Projeto Empreender. Within the first 30 months, 138 núcleos with 1,762 firms were created in these ACIs.

It is important to note that the traditional orientation of ACIs, the commitment with the social and cultural development of the community, not only survived all the changes but was probably reinforced. This commitment is an important factor in motivating ACIs to get involved in local economic development policy. The following two case studies will explain under which circumstances this may work, or may have just a limited impact.

More information is available at http://www.fe.org.br.

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