From finance planning to strategic management: how well are Rio Grande do Sul Northwest small municipalities performing?

Abstract

The increase in people’s demands, the fiscal crisis and the difficulties originated in globalisation process which began to demand a posture based on a more flexible, decentralised way of managing, organised as strategic management. In Brazil, huge efforts have been made towards the modernization of public management, in order to allow the organizations of this sector to no longer act in a reactive way but in anticipation of the difficulties, thinking of ways to face them. In this context, this work deals with the planning practice in small towns in the Northwest of Rio Grande do Sul, trying to identify their current stage of planning evolution. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the small towns are still far from adapting to this new form of management, being at the most primitive stage: the financial planning stage in which the budget is the most elementary tool.