March 2009
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 95
Editorial
By Pascal LEFEBVRE
TESTIFYING
When psychosociology is admitted into firms
Entretien avec Jean DUBOST (10 mai 2007)
By Bernard COLASSE and Francis PAVE
During his 40-year-long career stretching from after WW II till the 1990s, Jean Dubost has made a decisive contribution to the development of psychosociology in firms and through his teaching at the university.
TRIAL BY FACT
How to pay for inspections? Controlling high-risk industries in Great Britain
By Jean-Pierre GALLAND
Université Paris-Est, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, LATTS
Inspectors at the agency responsible for controlling high-risk industries in Great Britain bill manufacturers for certain services performed in the course of their duties. This arrangement fits into a trend affecting all European countries, including France. Over the past decades, the sovereign activities related to state control have been mixed up with for-pay appraisals by experts. There are, however, aspects specific to the British case.
Terminating an interminable merger? Peugeot-Citroën
By Emmanuelle RIGAUD
Doctorante - PREG-CRG & Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
When two firms that are valued for their brands merge, and top executives decide to maintain the brands, they are likely to set off an endless process or, at least, a process without a foreseeable end. Evidence of this comes from the merger between Peugeot and Citroën, a case studied over a period of more than thirty years.
OVERLOOKED…
Viagra®, creating an opportunity and market performatives
By Gilles MARION,
Professeur UPR Marchés et Innovation, EMLYON Business School
Two factors stand out in the development of Viagra: the creation of an opportunity and market performatives (in the linguistics sense). The first draws attention to the effect of serendipity in breakthroughs. The second highlights the efforts made to format the market — in particular by announcements prior to the product’s release — so as to establish a new interpretation of the situation.
From North to South: Prudence and a sense of play in project management
By Charles LILIN
Ingénieur Général du GREF, en retraite
In countries to the South, too many development projects since the 1970s have run afoul and failed to reach the objectives set for them. We usually think that the interpretation of this situation is to be left up to experts. The “occupational culture” of engineers, managers and even experts has led to the disappearance of the “prudence” (in Aristotle’s sense) required for formulating and then implementing projects. Certain professional, organizational and political contexts shape “occupational cultures” without a “feeling for interaction with the field”.
IN QUEST OF THEORIES
Can small and midsize businesses choose not to relocate?
By Martine BOUTARY
Professeur à l'Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse
and Didier HAVETTE
Chargé de mission France Investissement à la Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, à Paris
Given intense worldwide competition, relocations enter into the strategies adopted by firms in industrialized lands. Few studies have evaluated this phenomenon in the case of small and midsize businesses. Given their deep roots in a local economy and, in many cases, their locally oriented management, SMBs — less “internationalized” than big firms — are more affected by factors in the immediate environment. Their prices have to be attractive without making them lose their competitive advantages. The problem of shifting production offshore involves a tension between sometimes contradictory requirements.
Understanding and managing tensions in human relations
By Michel PERRON,
docteur en sciences de gestion, chargé de mission Appui au Dialogue Social à la Direction Régionale du Travail de l’Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle de Rhône-Alpes
Tensions in social relations inside firms are usually set down to diverging interests. But some conflicts have nothing to do with a conflict of interests between employers and the personnel or its representatives. In deadlocks, the intervention of a third — outside — party turns out to be indispensable for restoring confidence.
Mosaics
The theory of meta-organizations
On Ahrne Göran and Brunsson Nils’s Meta-organizations (Cheltenham UK and Northampton MA, US: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008).
By Hervé Dumez
Chaperoned behavior: The history and current interest of “governing one’s self” in firms
On Eric Pezet’s (ed.), Management et conduite de soi: Enquête sur les ascèses de la performance (Paris: Vuibert, 2007).
By Sébastien Gand
Company strategies
On Thierry Weil’s Stratégie d’entreprise (Paris: Les Presses Mines ParisTech, 2008).
By Raymond-Alain Thietart
A new sociological subject
On Philippe d’Iribarne’s Penser la diversité du monde (Paris: Seuil, 2008).
By Alain Henry