Racionalidade e política no processo decisório: estudo sobre orçamento em uma organização estatal

The current paper aims to describe how rational and political factors in the decision-making process concerning budgeting of a great Brazilian state-owned enterprise have taken place. In order to do so, a case study research has been made in which the same process was analyzed under different perspectives, using as theoretical background the Allison's rational, organizational and political models. The utilized methodological procedures underlie descriptive and qualitative nature and the collected data, from different sources - in-depth interviews, observations and documents -, have been analyzed through a thematically categorical content analysis kind. The obtained results show a complex process where both rationality and politics have taken place and influenced decisions and the process per se. It is noticed that the budget, although being an idealized technology under instrumental rational premises and utilized to impose a mechanic behavior to organizational processes, has also a political dimension. This dimension takes its shape as far as the situations of decision become arenas where individuals and groups interact in different interests and approaches about the same problem.