The research explores the concept of what is a sucessfull organization according to the perception of organizational actors in companies with different adoption patterns of innovative work and production management practices. For this purpose, it adopted a multi-case methodology, with a total of 23 participants distributed among 7 companies. Data was obtained by means of interviews comprising of open and structured items. The organizational actors' implicit theory doesn't differ significantly among the four patterns of innovation studied. In that sense, an attitude combining pro-activity and reactivity in the relationship between organization and environment, an organizational structure based on the characteristics of the mechanical/organic models and a relationship between individual and organization that mixes characteristics of the agency and community models were taken as ideals. On the other hand, the implicit theory explored by free evocation indicated the existence of shared characteristics, independent from the context in which it was inserted.
Implicit theory; innovation patterns; managerial cognition
