Autogestão de carreira dos docentes estrangeiros da Universidade Federal do Ceará

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive and globalized reality in the academy universe, it is observed that there is a specific migration flow of qualified professors (FROESE, 2012). This foreign labor provides an important boost from the point of view of teaching, research and extension to academic activities. These professors have contacts and expertise that have been accumulated, often, in previous passages of these professionals in important research centers. It is appropriate for the administrators of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) to understand how its effective staff of foreign professors behaves in relation to the career, in order to identify measures that make this institution more inviting to talents from all over the world. Considering the theory defended by Richardson and McKenna (2002), this research sought to identify the main reasons why the foreign professor of UFC chose to work in this Institution. Based on King's theoretical model of career self-management (2004), the types of Positioning, Influence and Boundary Management (management of personal work-life limits) of these academics were characterized. This is a qualitative, interpretive approach, performed through semi-structured interviews with 13 effective foreign professors of the UFC. In relation to the primary data, these were treated through Content Analysis, using Atlas TI software. The results pointed out the career considerations and the exploratory instinct as the main reasons that led the foreign academics to work in the UFC; the preponderant Positioning Behavior among them refers to the innovation of the content of the work; the main influential behaviors they adopt are self-promotion and ascendant influence; and Boundary Management is well managed by them.