Mafia-like groups or a virtuous network ? The fight against corruption in an argentinean company 

Philippe d'Iribarne

The question of ethics has special pertinence in Argentina, a developed country in the throes of an unprecedented economic recession and a moral crisis. Sapped by  corruption, society apparently lacks practical norms that,     embodied in morals and the law, can provide it with an acceptable conception of good and evil. Everyone is torn between moral bearings (in particular honesty) and membership in close-knit groups whose relations with         nonmembers are governed by the law of silence and a not so scrupulous defense of  interests. To sure up its development, a major French firm's local subsidiary has had to try to help its members overcome such inner conflicts and doubts.
 

On the difficulty of popularizing in-house a successful pilot project

Jean-Pierre Segal

Admiring our technological feats and big projects, France's European neighbors are surprised by this modern avant-garde's coexistence with what they see as archaisms. Why do exemplary successes, for which their creators gain admiration and recognition elsewhere, more often arouse   sourness and scepticism in the homeland instead of stimulating people to draw inspiration from them? Torn between some employees' deep-seated refusal to discuss the positive aspects of an outstandingly successful pilot project based on the personnel's skills and their ability to implicate themselves to an innovative procedure, the firm under study herein illustrates a situation that the advocates of modernizing "public services" will see as being         paradoxical. What are the prospects? Will we, once again, observe a so typically French quirk that leaves people outside the country perplexed ?
 

Mediation, an unmanageable skill ? 

Damien Collard

For the theorists of organizational learning, the organization is learning when the beliefs, values and ideologies that shape individual and collective cognitive representations come under question and when the organization's  members are able to assess the premises underlying their decisions. 
Tested against reality via a study requested by the French railway system (SNCF) about the effects of the program "New services, young jobs", this theory has encountered evidence of positive repercussions on the organization at the le vels of both various parties' beliefs and managerial practices.
 

TRIAL BY FACT

Instill the entrepreneurial spirit in big compagnies and organizations
Does it amount to taking a magic potion or drinking a brew of germs ?

Alain Fayolle

The concept "intrapreneuriate" taps values related to a sense of  risk, a   sense of responsibility and the willingness to change. It values  behaviors such as accepting risks, taking initiatives, assuming responsibility and working on a team. It advocates placing people in specific situations     (in-house start-ups, projects, etc.). But who will transmit these values and attitudes? How to prepare persons who want to experience such entrepreneurial situations? How to develop good behaviors coherently without causing ruptures or exclusions ? Nothing can replace an increasing 
number of  meetings and exchanges with those who create companies.
 
 

Hervé Laroche : OCEANO VOX  : On Richard Henry Dana's Deux années sur le gaillard d'avant (translated with an introduction by Simon Leys).

Blanche Segrestin : INDUSTRY IN SEARCH OF ARCHITECTS : On Annabelle Gawer & Michael Cusumano's Platform leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco drive industry innovation.

Eric Godelier : THE EMPIRE OF FOREMEN: On Philippe Lefebvre's L'invention de la grande entreprise. Travail, hiérarchie, marché (France, fin XVIIe - début        XXe).

Dominique Jacquet : REESTABLISH CONFIDENCE BETWEEN FIRMS AND INVESTORS: On Jean-Yves Léger's La communication financière: bâtir et mettre en     oeuvre une stratégie de communication financière.
 

WHILE READING

Have you read françois chadeau ?
Marcel Dassault's itinerary reviewed
Michel Villette

During the period between the two World wars, a few major businessmen sprouted who would fully bloom in the 1950s and 1960s, men who have  marked capitalism's development in contemporary France. Among these mythical individual success stories are Marcel Bleustein Blanchet, who invented modern advertising, and Sylvain Floirat, who founded UTA and then  moved on  to the mass media. But one figure unquestionably stands out above all others: Marcel Dassault, the escapee from Buchenwald and pioneer in aeronautics who built an industrial empire and became an atypical politician. François Chadeau retraces Dassault's itinerary in a book    that will serve as a reference work on the ecology of firms. A must on our
reading lists !
 

IN QUEST OF THEORIES

WHAT DOES COLLECTIVE WORK BECOME IN TRANSITORY, CROSSCUTTING GROUPS ?
A Simmelian analysis
Régine Bercot & Frédéric de Coninck

Most sociological and ergonomic studies made of cooperation in work have focused on cooperation in stable work teams and among persons who know each other. What to say about the future of such teams and of their way of working together at a time when wage-earners are involved in more and more cross-cutting groups ?