This article shows the results of an investigation in a family-type organization, that has undergone some alterations in its formal arrangement over the last years. Administered according to the conservative values disseminated by the founders, the organization's original structural configuration was consistent with the principles of a traditional management system. In the course of time, through the force of institutional orientations and of situational circumstances, there arose a need for modernizing actions, congruent with a more professional management philosophy, thus leading to a reformulation of the formal arrangement. In this way, institutional patterns as well as situational circumstances may be considered the moving forces in the functional dynamics of the organization under focus, whose understanding, reached according to the predominant values of their symbolic universe, has led to the shaping of the organizational structure.
shaping organizational structure; institutional patterns; situational circumstances; symbolic universe
