WORKING WITH OR FOR: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF BOSSES AND SECRETARIES OF THE SECRETARIAL WORK

Abstract

The boss-secretary relationship is important in regard to the relevance of the role of both parts in the organisations. The secretarial work has been discussed amongst professionals and academics of the area by analysing many perceptions about the profession. However, studies of the perceptions of bosses regarding the secretarial work are still incipient in academic studies in Brazil. Hence the relevance of this study for the academy; it is a study focusing on the relationship between those two actors and their perceptions of the secretarial work. It is a bibliographic, descriptive, exploratory study with a qualitative approach. Its main objective was to make a comparative analysis about the perceptions of bosses and secretaries of the secretarial work. To achieve it, we reviewed some studies that deal with secretarial work through the perceptions of the boss and collected data primarily by means of interviews with bosses and secretaries. The results of both demonstrated the requirements for the Executive Secretarial career have followed the transformations demanded by the market. Basic knowledge about economy and administration, amongst others, are required by bosses, and should be present in the executive secretary education, because he or she has been accumulating other functions and managing others areas in enterprises, as expressed by the secretaries and bosses interviewed. On the understanding of both parts about their work in partnership, the secretarial work is executed mostly “with”, in the sense of working “with” the boss and “for” the enterprise.