September 2015
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 121
Editorial
By Pascal LEFEBVRE
Editorialiste
Daniel Fixari, mentor of Gérer & Comprendre
Comité de rédaction de Gérer & Comprendre
The discourses on salt and iron
By Article by Daniel Fixari,
professor, École des Mines de Paris, published in issue 1 of Gérer & Comprendre (4th quarter, 1985)
OVERLOOKED…
When professionals force managers to adopt a decoupling strategy
By Sébastien Mainhagu ,
associate professor in Managerial Sciences, University of Haute-Alsace – CREGO
Top managers in organizations usually adopt a “decoupling” strategy to regulate relations with the professionals whom they employ. The concept of decoupling worked out by Meyer and Rowan (1977) can be used to analyze senior management’s decision to avoid confrontations with professionals by accepting, more or less outright, differences between the institution’s norms and the practices of professionals. Operating in this way is no longer obvious, since managers increasingly interfere in the “business” of professionals. The latter still have resources for countering top management’s strategy of “conformity” with the requirements of institutional representatives; but they have to put up a fight to preserve a method that has advantages no longer recognized by senior managers. To what extent do professionals force mangers to adopt a decoupling strategy? Is this method of regulation a restriction on, or a boon for, organizations? To answer these questions, the data are analyzed from studies conducted in two clinics in France, most of whose personnel are paramedics.
Managerial practices, the key to controlling the impact of “interculturality” on strategic international alliances
By Karim Trabelsi ,
Maître-assistant HDR at the Institut Supérieur d’Administration des Affaires (ISAAS) in Sfax (Tunisia)
Since “interculturality” has been accused of impeding the success of strategic international alliances, several studies have been devoted to multicultural phenomena in business organizations. Although this academic inquiry has limited this accusation by showing that cultural diversity bears advantages, very few studies have focused directly both on the practices related to the cultural and social integration of persons and on the ways of controlling the impact of this diversity. Proceeding from this observation and taking under consideration the main effects of cultural differences on crossborder alliances, this study focuses on the key factors of success in managing multiculturalism. As semidirective interviews with 22 managers and 11 Tunisian and French wage-earners in 11 Franco-Tunisian (asymmetrical but stable) alliances show, the key practices for successful managing cultural diversity within an organization are a “cultural audit” along with the generalization and acceleration of an “intercultural rapprochement”. This rapprochement entails making stakeholders aware of intercultural phenomena, providing training (inside or outside the firm) in multicultural relations, setting up a “flat” organization, and boosting parity at the levels of the managerial and work teams. free download
Repatriation: hard-to-manage cases - Three approaches to an analysis
By Jérémy Vignal ,
temporary assignment in teaching and research at the University of Aix-Marseille, CNRS (Laboratoire d’Économie et de Sociologie du Travail, LEST UMR 7317) The findings of a qualitative survey of 39 p
ersons involved in problems related to expatriation are used, along with a review of the literature, to analyze how multinational corporations manage expatriates. Three lines of thought are pursued. First of all, presenting expatriate management in three distinct phases, as is often done, keeps us from grasping interrelations between phases. Secondly, although expatriates are heterogenous, multinational firms and the literature on this topic seldom grasp the import of this characteristic. Finally, the management of expatriates often revolves around considerations of an administrative, financial or quantitative sort whereas it is, above all, an aspect of career management.
TRIAL BY FACT
How an abstract idea becomes a means of management: The case of sustainable development
By Héloïse Berkowitz ,
i3-CRG, École polytechnique, CNRS, University of Paris-Saclay
Sustainable development is an abstract idea. By what chained process does such an idea affect corporate management at the operational level? After describing a set of arrangements with emphasis on the role of meta-organizations, questions are raised about the resulting organizational complexity. free download
Is a new managerial cycle gradually emerging? The case of “steered” communities of practice
By Jean-Pierre Bouchez ,
president of Planet Savoir, researcher affiliated with LAREQUOI (University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin), director of Research and Innovation at IDRH
Is a new managerial cycle emerging thanks to forms of collaboration through networks, which are being deployed, especially in big organizations, as part of what the authors call a “new collaborative ecosystem 2.0”? A review of the academic literature and, even more, a field study in two dozen big firms brings to light four major, typical forms of interaction that constitute this new ecosystem. In this light, testing the initial hypothesis about the emergence of such an ecosystem must be qualified; it is subject to corroboration by the gradual diffusion in the coming years of this new ecosystem inside big firms.
OTHER TIMES, OTHER PLACES
Competition between bookkeeping methods for calculating value during the 19th and early 20th centuries in France
By Karine Fabre
and Pierre Labardin
associate professors at the University of Paris Dauphine( DRM - UMR 7088)
Borrowing Richard’s categories (1996) to review bookkeeping methods for calculating value, this comparison of four different fields - big firms, bankruptcies, jurisprudence and the literature on accountancy - serves to describe and explain practices in an environment that had no standardized bookkeeping procedures (from the 19th till the early 20th century). This research enlarges on Richard ’ s categories while pointing out the effects of choosing a method for calculating the value of assets in balance-sheets . free download
Setting up means of control in a nonlimited environment: Censors, auditors, comptrollers and inspectors of authorized companies (1807-1867)
By Christine Fournès-Dattin ,
PhD. in Managerial Sciences
The Code de Commerce of 1807 introduced a new legal form for business firms: limited companies (Société anonyme) that should be authorized by the government. While there was no legal requirement, 36 % of these SA introduced auditing process through their articles of association. This paper displays an overview of control modes, from a limited review of accounts 15 days before the general meeting to a permanent task with very extended means of research. It also highlights a process of homogenization in the organisational field of authorized limited companies leading to the 1863 and 1867 Acts that made compulsory the appointment of an auditor in all limited companies. Then it tries to understand why these authorized companies introduced auditing in a legal free environment.
Mosaics
What is not knowing good for?
On François Dupuy’s, La faillite de la pensée managériale. Lost in management 2 , Paris: Seuil, 2015
By Arnaud Tonnelé
Old-age dependency: Helping family and friends who help
On Sébastien Gand, Léonie Hénaut and Jean-Claude Sardas’s, Aider les proches aidants: comprendre les besoins et organiser les services sur les territoires , Paris: Presses de l’École des Mines, 2014
By Alain Max Guénette
Henri Fayol and the managerial point of view, A review of Henri Fayol, the Manager by Jean-Louis Peaucelle and Cameron Guthrie
By Ellen S. O’Connor