December 2007
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 90
Editorial
By Francis LEFEBVRE
TESTIFYING
Psychosociology’s free electron
By Max PAGÈS
psychologue, psychothérapeute, ancien Professeur des Universités
Entretien mené par Gilles ARNAUD, Groupe ESC Toulouse, et Francis PAVÉ, CSO-ENPC
Gérer et Comprendre pursues its interviews with the pioneers of psychosociology. After WW II, everyone was asking how mankind had fallen to such a barbarous level. These pioneers thought that attention should be turned to the relations inside groups; and firms were a special case worth studying. The post-war period: the “30 glorious years” of economic growth in France, the attraction exercised by psychology, the fascination with America… a field to be cleared and worked in France… joint approaches, conflicts, ruptures… but their outlook has remained so young that these pioneers can still provide insight into human relations in a world that has nothing to do with the 1950s. In his younger years, Max Pagès, now 81 years old, traveled abroad, became familiar with various social environments, and suffered from the misunderstanding between his parents. We thus better understand his open-mindedness, ability to adapt, faculty of observation and quest for reconciliation. These qualities served him well during his lifelong research on effecting changes by acting on the “socio-mental” system. Experimental psychology, American experiments in groups dynamics, nondirectivity, interventions in big firms… everything interested this pragmatic, curious pioneer. He never stopped launching new projects and was convinced that the practice of change is inseparable form the practice of research. Max Pagès became a psychotherapist. This uncontrollable force in psychosociology now wonders whether “radical moderation” might not be a decisive concept for coping with contemporary political violence — a new field of research?
TRIAL BY FACT
Opening the black box of dismissals for personal reasons
By Amélie SEIGNOUR
maître de conférences en sciences de gestion, université Montpellier II
Florence PALPACUER
professeur en sciences de gestion, université Montpellier I
and Corinne VERCHER
maître de conférences en sciences de gestion, université Montpellier III
Gérer et Comprendre pursues its interviews with the pioneers of psychosociology. After WW II, everyone was asking how mankind had fallen to such a barbarous level. These pioneers thought that attention should be turned to the relations inside groups; and firms were a special case worth studying. The post-war period: the “30 glorious years” of economic growth in France, the attraction exercised by psychology, the fascination with America… a field to be cleared and worked in France… joint approaches, conflicts, ruptures… but their outlook has remained so young that these pioneers can still provide insight into human relations in a world that has nothing to do with the 1950s. In his younger years, Max Pagès, now 81 years old, traveled abroad, became familiar with various social environments, and suffered from the misunderstanding between his parents. We thus better understand his open-mindedness, ability to adapt, faculty of observation and quest for reconciliation. These qualities served him well during his lifelong research on effecting changes by acting on the “socio-mental” system. Experimental psychology, American experiments in groups dynamics, nondirectivity, interventions in big firms… everything interested this pragmatic, curious pioneer. He never stopped launching new projects and was convinced that the practice of change is inseparable form the practice of research. Max Pagès became a psychotherapist. This uncontrollable force in psychosociology now wonders whether “radical moderation” might not be a decisive concept for coping with contemporary political violence — a new field of research?
OTHER TIMES, OTHER PLACES
Why are the US Navy and US Army adopting information and communication technology so differently?
By Cécile GODÉ-SANCHEZ
Enseignant chercheur au Centre de Recherche de l' Armée de l'air
How to control the introduction of new technology in an organization? Why is information and communication technology being adopted so differently in organizations as similar as the US Navy and US Army, even though both expect the same benefits? Feedback from American officers on duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, and interviews with French officers move us beyond a situation-based perception of how to use this new technology. Each corps’ mentality, which crystallizes battlefield exigencies and accumulates experiences, turns out to be a decisive factor. A training adapted to this diversity plays a critical role that will or will not enable managers to control technology-induced changes. The US Navy quickly learned to set up procedures for countering the inflation of information so as to remain operational. The US Army has chosen to rely on training, since the introduction of the new technology has transformed the conduct of soldiers in combat. Technological changes must be adapted to the diversity of mentalities.
OVERLOOKED…
The dark side of a project, when work on a project threatens individuals and social groups
By Alain ASQUIN
IAE Lyon, Euristik
Gilles GAREL
Université Paris-Est, OEP Prism
and Thierry PICQ
Professeur EM Lyon
Project-related activities often figure in the myth of fortune in writings on management. Invest in your job! Find self-fulfillment through involvement in the company’s project! But does a project not also destroy meaning, destabilize personnel and convey the germs of new diseases? Projects have become means whereby a firm makes requirements of individuals and judges them. A project has its dark side. A review of (incipient) managerial writings on this topic and verbatim accounts from persons involved in projects provide data for this analysis. For working conditions to worsen in proportion to an increase in the stimulation to outdo yourself through involvement in a company project, something has to have gone awry in the realm of human resources inside the firm — in the very heart of capitalism.
Standards of practice and codes of conduct: The ethics paradox
By Brigitte PEREIRA
Professeur à l'Institut supérieur de Gestion (Paris)
Firms have consecrated ethical principles and values by adopting codes of conduct and standards of practices, but how do these texts affect wage-earners? True, many of these documents are so laconic that we wonder whether the formulation of ethical principles does not simply amount to a declaration of intentions. However the interconnections between these principles provide us with a glimpse of new obligations toward wage-earners that might enter into contradiction with the stipulations in employment contracts. This is the paradox. Given globalization, these codes and standards do not seem useless and are, in certain regards, even necessary. Furthermore, they might extend the firm’s social responsibility.
TRIAL BY FACT
The role of conducting change in ERP’s success in Air France
By Redouane EL AMRANI
Professeur Systèmes d'Information, Reims Management School
An interesting case: a big firm that, it is said, succeeds where others have failed. What reasons underlie this success? The phases are analyzed whereby Air France implemented an Enterprise Resource Planning program, with its implications for a thoroughgoing transformation of operations and managerial tools. Everything depended on how the change was conducted. If the right analysis was not made of the impact of future organizational changes, or if the right price was not set on the phase of analyzing future users’ needs, the efforts of all parties involved — and the company’s investment — would come to naught. Might the chain of learning be endless? Might it not be necessary to train the persons who train others who are responsible for…
Mosaics
Freedom, equality, inheritance
On Thomas Philippon’s Le capitalisme d'héritiers - La crise française du travail (Paris: Seuil, 2007).
By Arnaud Tonnele
Reforming organizations: Hope ever anew
On Brunsson Nils’ Mechanisms of hope: Maintaining the dream of the rational organization (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2006).
By Hervé Dumez
Social responsibility in firms: A question of communication?
On Patrice de la Broise and Thomas Lamarche’s (eds.) Responsabilité sociale: Vers une nouvelle communication des entreprises? (Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2006).
By Aurélien Acquier