DEDICATÓRIAAos meus pais, Sebastião e Lilia, pela vida e pelos ensinamentos. À minha esposa Iara Regina, pelo amor e incentivo nos momentos difíceis e a quem dedico a co-autoria deste trabalho. E aos meus filhos Luiz Felipe e William, pela paciência e compreensão nos momentos em que estive ausente. This dissertation presents proposals for de improvement of the adjustment and application of the corporate strategic planning methodology to small enterprises using concepts and elements of the situational strategic planning (SSP). It presents a bibliographical revision on the corporate strategic planning methodologies, specific characteristics of small companies and the SSP method, which defined the variables of the research. The fieldwork was divided into two parts. In the first part, four small hotels located in Brotas and a medium sized business located in Águas de São Pedro were studied. The fieldwork allowed identifying some concepts and elements of the SSP method with potential to contribute to the improvement of the adequacy and application of the corporate strategic planning methodology to small businesses. In the second part, the elaboration of a strategic planning guideline was formulated based on the corporate strategic planning methodology and incremented with concepts and elements of the SSP method that were identified in the first part. The guideline was applied to a small hotel in the region of São Carlos to evaluate the practical application of these concepts. It was verified that the small business has some specific characteristics that influence the development of its process of strategic elaboration. They can not be ignored by the planning methodologies created to assist them in this activity. Some of these specific characteristics refer to the spontaneous way in the which owner formulates his/her plans and strategies. The conclusion was that, by presenting tools that explore the natural way the owner elaborates his/her strategies, the SSP method can contribute to the improvement of the adequacy and application of the corporate strategic planning to small businesses.
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