March 2022
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 147
OVERLOOKED
What are the strategic positions of employers’ alliances? A proposed typology
By Anne JOYEAU
Maître de conférences en sciences de gestion, Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM – UMR 6211, Rennes, France
Sébastien LE GALL
Maître de conférences HDR en sciences de gestion, Université Bretagne Sud, Laboratoire LEGO (EA 2652)
and Matthieu MANDARD
Maître de conférences HDR en sciences de gestion, Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM – UMR 6211, Rennes, France
Employers’ alliances were established in France in 1985 to enable small and medium-sized companies to join together to hire labor. Despite the undeniable advantages for economic actors, these structures remain little known and little used, as they are not very visible. The objective of this article is therefore to attempt to remedy this problem by presenting the different strategic positionings that can be adopted by employers’ alliances. To do this, we propose a typology that lists these positions. We then present the key characteristics of each of them. Finally, we discuss the implications of this work at the level of the groups, the member companies and the employees.
Family spirit, are you there? Strategic practices associated with the mobilization of ‘organizational ghosts’ in family businesses
By Hervé COLAS
CNAM, Groupe CHD
and Antoine SOUCHAUD
NEOMA Business School, i3-CRG, École polytechnique, CNRS, IP Paris
This article describes and analyzes how, in order to reaffirm the independence and durability of their group, the leader of a family business has activated the literature on the remanence of founding leaders following their death, that on the notion of memorial ritual and that on other particular forms of organizational evocation. On the theoretical level, this article validates the typology proposed by Bazin and Leclair (2019) on ‘organisational ghosts’, and goes further by analyzing strategic practices associated with the mobilization of this concept and the literatures that inspired it. From a managerial perspective, this article is a useful reference point for all managers, especially those of family businesses, who cohabit with the traces and ‘revenants’ of their departed predecessors. This article shows that these missing persons can constitute an intangible asset that the organization can mobilize in a concrete way in its strategic practices.
Can cities become food self-sufficient? The case of Paris
By Emile BALEMBOIS, Louise SIRVEN and Nizar CHAFII
École polytechnique
Both environmental and food problems arise from the growth of cities. Research has been conducted to explore the possibility of implementing agriculture in urban areas to achieve food self-sufficiency. In this article, we present current urban agriculture experiments and review existing self-sufficiency models. We raise the question of how to implement food autonomy in Paris based on a simple model. From the inventory of available spaces and the attribution of different types of agriculture to these spaces, we aim to feed the reflection around the development of agriculture in Paris. We project an autonomy in fruits and vegetables of about 10% in a realistic model, and of more than 40% in a voluntarist scenario. Obtaining this result implies costs: the city and its uses must be rethought in order to produce. However, this result makes it possible to introduce a new vision of the sustainable construction of a city as dense as Paris, benefiting from all the positive externalities of these scenarios in terms of contact with nature, education, employment, health, and the environment.
TRIAL BY FACT
The making of the employee as an “actor of their own career development” - Immersion into the real work of internal career counselors!
Plongée au cœur du travail réel des conseillers internes en mobilité !
By Laetitia PIHEL
IAE de Nantes, Économie & Management – Université de Nantes, Laboratoire d’Économie et de Management Nantes-Atlantique (Lemna)
This contribution initiates, supporting evidence, a discussion on the contemporary discourse built around the figure of the employee as an “actor of their own career development”. It shows how the HR world and academic research in France have seized on this discourse, while eluding structuring and determining thoughts related to the performance of firms. In order to analyze the underestimated tensions of this new language, we have decided to investigate the real work of internal career counselors of a big company, who are at the crossroads of modern injunctions and their deployment. Based on the results of a qualitative research, our work underlines the need for a company to introduce a discussion on its strategy, on the role devoted to internal counselors, and, furthermore, on what internal counseling means.
When Gillette Venus celebrates all the beauties in Animal Crossing - Deciphering an in-game advertising operation
Décryptage d’une opération d’in-game advertising
By Sophie RENAULT
IAE d’Orléans, Laboratoire VALLOREM
In terms of advertising communication, it is no longer only models of standardized size and beauty that embody the brands. Other types and shapes of beauty are now represented. The Gillette Venus brand is part of this trend and celebrates women whose looks are not stereotyped. Because the issue of representation transcends the boundaries of real life, the shaving product brand also took the gamble of running a decidedly inclusive marketing operation in the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons in 2020. The idea was to offer a line of clothing associated with body particularities: vitiligo, acne, mastectomy... The reasons and stakes of this communication operation are detailed and analyzed in this research.
Mosaics
On Franck Vogl’s The Enablers: How The West Supports Kleptocrats And Corruption - Endangering Our Democracy ” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) 2021
By François Valérian
On Albéric Tellier’s Nouvelles Vibrations
By Pierre Poinsignon
Is the Apocalypse now?
On Gérald Bronner’s Apocalypse cognitive
By Antoine Masingue
On René Badache’s & Vincent de Gaulejac’s Mettre sa vie en jeux
By Agnès Vandevelde-Rougale