Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: Maura Rosangela Alves Neto Miler

A STUDY ON INTEGRITY PROGRAMS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF FEDERAL PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN THE CENTRAL-WEST REGION

Agency Theory. Public governance. Integrity Program. Risk Management. Federal Public Universities.

The Decree No. 9,203/2017 establishes that the organs and entities of the direct, autarchic, and foundational administration must institute an integrity program to promote the adoption of measures and actions aimed at preventing, detecting, punishing, and remediating fraud and acts of corruption. This work examines the process of implementing integrity programs in federal public universities in the Brazilian Midwest. The following specific objectives were defined: (i) to investigate the stage of implementation of integrity programs in public federal universities of the region, as disclosed on their websites; (ii) to analyze the integrity plans disclosed by universities in the Midwest, comparing them with the principles established in Law No. 9,203/2017 and the guidelines of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU). The study is justified by the relevance of this segment in relation to the economic, social, and political dimensions of the country. In this study, a qualitative approach was employed, using content analysis technique supported by NVivo software. Additionally, the essential theoretical basis was Agency Theory, which highlights the relationship between the citizen and their ruler as a dynamic between principal and agent, respectively. The CGU stipulated that the implementation of the Integrity Program should occur in specific stages: (i) the designation of the Integrity Management Unit in the first phase; (ii) the approval of integrity plans by organs and entities in the second phase; and (iii) the start of execution and monitoring of the integrity program, as defined in the plans, in the third phase. It is concluded that universities have established their Integrity Management Units, formalized their Integrity Plans, and are in the process of managing risk management procedures to reach the third phase envisaged by the CGU, which consists of executing and monitoring the integrity program. Additionally, universities face significant challenges in executing and monitoring their Integrity Program, dealing with budgetary constraints and the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. While the integrity programs of federal public universities constitute one of the tools made available to society to be accountable for the use of public resources derived from taxes paid by citizens, their implementation and continuous monitoring entail costs. Thus, citizens (principals) would incur costs to align the interests of managers (agents) with their own.