December 2018
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 134
OVERLOOKED
Do renewable sources of energy exist? Can the energy transition be steered?
By Hervé Dumez
and Sandra Renou
i3-CRG, École Polytechnique, CNRS, Paris-Saclay University.
References are often made to the “sector of renewables” when talking about the energy transition. This article focuses on the difficulty of defining this sector, given its heterogeneity, and on its institutional construction around a metaorganization, a trade group of renewables in interaction with public authorities: the Syndicat des Énergies Renouvelables. Wittgenstein’s concept of language-game is used to analyze this construction. The crisis of photovoltaics in France is reviewed to shed light on the difficulty of steering the energy transition. Do renewable sources of energy exist? Can the energy transition be steered?
The social issues and practices related to joint training programs in collective bargaining
By Christian Thuderoz ,
Lyon University.
Joint training programs in collective bargaining are now part of the Labor Code (Article 2212-1). Such programs, novel in France, have been tried and tested since the 1980s in the United States and Canada. Why can these programs be described as “trans-formative”?
TRIAL BY FACT
A case study of the orientation period organized in a big auditing firm
By Lambert Jerman ,
Toulouse Business School,
and Julien Raone ,
Catholic University of Leuven.
How does the orientation period in big auditing firms induce recruits to “confess” in order to become the professionals expected of them? Rather than making a critique of the profession of auditor, this description focuses on the discourses and practices of confession, whereby the period devoted to orienting newcomers in a firm facilitates their integration. The findings of a case study based on fieldwork show how this period shapes a set of discourses centered on adopting a low profile, confessing one’s weakness and overcoming them by assigning them a financial value. Introspection and self-narration thus take part in forming auditors and fundamentally define their sense of professionalism. A case study of the orientation period organized in a big auditing firm
The value of adaptive coordination in home care for the dependent elderly
By Didier VINOT
Professeur des universités en sciences de gestion, Magellan EA 3713, iaeLyon / Chaire « Valeurs du soin » / Université Lyon 3
Elisa CHELLE
Chercheuse postdoctorale, Chaire « Valeurs du soin » / Université Lyon 3 / LIEPP de Sciences Po
and Jean RIONDET
Ancien cadre de direction au CHU de Lyon, vice-président d’un réseau de santé gérontologique
Public social and health policies in France clearly aim at maintaining the dependent elderly at home. This population’s needs — medical, social and psychological — are often conveyed along the sidelines of traditional institutions. A solution adapted to the dependent elderly also lies on the margin of a hospital-centered system: the associations of “networks of gerontological coordination”, which take the agèe in their environment and with their value systems to be the starting point of action. This form of organization allows for the deployment of “adaptive coordination”, a phrase that helps us think about, and act on, the personalized care to be dispensed. This adaptive coordination is analyzed in a network of gerontological coordination in the Lyon metropolitan area. Drawn from observations during fieldwork, individual cases are presented that show the complexity and uniqueness of the problems encountered in situations characterized by uncertainty. The efforts made to provide solutions encounter resistance from the elderly themselves. Keeping the dependent elderly in their homes requires rapid, coordinated interventions; but the latter are underrated by traditional care-givers, and, therefore, underfinanced. The organization in a network makes it possible to find the resources for responding to ever increasing needs. The network’s interventions are effective owing to a convergence of traditional care-providers’ varying interests that an association on the margin of this system brings about. The improved circulation of health data, the weighing of experts’ advice and the adoption of an adapted fee schedule are crucial issues.
IN QUEST OF A THEORY
When the influential are influenced
By Mickaël Dupré ,
IAE de Brest, Laboratoire d’Économie et de Gestion de l’Ouest-LEGO (EA2652).
Influence is an essential, unalienable force relating individuals in any social organization. However it is usually seen as the unilateral action of one party (the source) on another (the target). Studies lead us to reconsider this point of view and focus on the potential effects of influence on its source. To analyze the potential cognitive and behavioral modifications induced by an action of “proselytizing” in a professional setting, a study was made of employees in communications on an awareness campaign about waste management. Semidirective interviews, informal discussions and observations during fieldwork produced a valuable corpus of information on these persons’ practices and attitudes toward the environment. As the findings show, these employees considerably modified their ideas and behaviors about not only the management of wastes but also “environmental citizenship”. These modifications of the source of influence have several implications for management.
Mosaics
Market arrangements as the keystone of the markets
On Michel Callon’s L’emprise des marchés. Comprendre leur fonctionnement pour pouvoir les changer (Paris: La Découverte, 2017).
By Thierry Boudès
Absurd decisions, third season
On Christian Morel’s Les décisions absurdes III. L’enfer des règles – Les pièges relationnels (Paris: Gallimard, 2018).
By Michel Berry
Is the farm becoming an ordinary firm?
On François Purseigle, Geneviève Nguyen and Pierre Blanc’s, Le nouveau capitalisme agricole. De la ferme à la firme (Paris: Les Presses de SciencesPo, 2017).
By Michel Villette
The new nature of the rules: Subcontracted law —
On Pauline Westerman’s Outsourcing The Law: A philosophical Perspective on Regulation (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018).
By Hervé Dumez