LES ANNALES DES MINES

Gérer & Comprendre n°108 Juin 2012

FOR OUR ENGLISH-SPEAKING READERS

OVERLOOKED

                                                                                                  

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF LOCAL MANAGEMENT : THE HEADS OF TEMPORARY WORK AGENCIES                                                    
Mickaël NAULLEAU and Bruno HENRIET

Besides the employment contract, wage-earnersand their employer organization are linked by a tacit, psychological bond. Some employees who hold positions as managers in close contact with wage-earners must adopt a more tactful stance. Since they have ties with both “higher-ups” and subordinates, they must ensure a degree of consistency between what they experience and what they make others experience. They must maintain a posture as leader while preserving satisfying contacts with their subordinates. When they feel that their own psychological contract with the organization has been breached, how do they manage to maintain the contract they are supposed to have with their work group? To answer this key question, the theory of a psychological contract is used to shed light on lower-level management’s difficulties. This article is grounded on in-depth fieldwork among the heads of temporary work agencies.

ISLAMIC FINANCE: A NEW STEP TOWARD ETHICS IN THE FINANCE INDUSTRY ?
Virginie MARTIN

The principles of so-called Islamic banking are presented in order to see how they can help
make the classical Western financial industry more ethical. To what extent do they bring something positive to capitalism? Although “halal” finance introduces an important ethical dimension in this industry’s dynamics, it is not free of shortcomings and limits, especially, but not only, with respect to equality between men and women or interference in corporate
activities. France’s reluctance to open its doors to Islamic finance is pointed out.

WAGE-EARNERS’ FREEDOM OF ACTION: MERE THEORY OR AN UNAVOIDABLE FATE ?
Isaac GETZ

Most of those who have given thought to management have, at least since Peter Drucker, criticized the traditional organization of firms with its hierarchical bureaucracy. Case studies are used to focus on firms that, for dozens of years now, have managed to set up a radically different form of organization where wage-earners are completely free to act for the corporate good. This research delves deeper by focusing on the leadership necessary to build this type of organization. Special attention is paid to the performance of these organizations during downturns in the business cycle.

TRIAL BY FACT

THE LAST WORD ON GENERATION Y: A SURVEY OF AN IDEA CIRCULATING IN MANAGERIAL CIRCLES
François PICHAULT and Mathieu PLEYERS
Should managerial procedures be adapted at any cost to newcomers in the labor market, who are usually said to be part of Generation Y ? To answer this question, the literature in management studies has been reviewed to portray this generation and list the principal recommendations about the policies to be implemented to cope with the ME generation’s particularities. This generation’s assumed characteristics were tested on a sample of 851 persons between 20 and 59 years old. The findings suggest that the particularities of this generation are slight, at least with respect to work-related attitudes and values. Besides, the basics of human resource management are a preoccupation shared by all generations.

INTERNATIONALIZATION AND OCCUPATIONAL STRATIFICATION IN BUSINESS SCHOOLS: PROFESSORS OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL STUDIES
Céline DAVESNE and Sébastien DUBOIS
What changes have taken place in big business schools and in the careers of members of their teaching staffs? The professors of language and culture studies have been the most exposed to the new occupational stratification occurring in these establishments under pressure, in particular, from the system for accrediting and ranking institutions.
The emphasis given to research has altered these professors’ expectations and the nature of their work. Not all of them have been capable of adapting to the new rules of the game. This new occupational stratification is also grounded on the social  arrangements that are often brought forward
to analyze careers.

IN  QUEST OF  THEORIES

A COPRODUCTION OF SERVICES : THE “DYADIC” SERVICE RELATION OF MOUNTAIN GUIDES                                                                                                      
Rozenn MARTINOIA
Does the coproduction of services yield qualitative advantages? A study of the services
of mountain guides sheds light on the difficulty of determining the quality of a service in an uncertain environment with a potentially incompetent “partial clientemployee”.
By using information from the literature, interviews and observations, and drawing on the “dyadic relations” theory, this analysis brings to light the problems of information, coordination and power that affect relations between guides and their clients, and threaten the quality of the services rendered. The pattern that ultimately emerges is unique in the management of the quality of services. For reasons related to time and socioeconomic trends, the work of mountain guides barely benefits from the organizational arrangements and forms of learning that are part of the service sector’s traditional toolbox.

 

DEBATED

AMNESIA AND THE SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT
Marie-Josèphe CARRIEU-COSTA

This article is an echo to Bénédicte Vidaillet’s “Work is not play, and other stereotypes
in management: An educational experience”, which was run in the March 2012 issue of Gérer & comprendre.

MOSAICS

 

Christophe DEFEUILLEY : THE ECONOMICS OF WASTE PRODUCTS: AN INSTITUTIONALIST APPROACH
On Sylvie Luton’s Économie des déchets. Une approche institutionnaliste, (Brussels: De
Boeck, 2011).

Ambroisine DUMEZ : BLUEBEARD, OR CURIOSITY IN MATTERS OF MARKETING
On Franck Cochoy’s De la curiosité. L’art de la séduction marchande (Paris, Armand
Colin, 2011).57, 2009).

Arnaud TONNELÉ : THE MANAGEMENTOF PEOPLE IN A QUEST FOR ITSELF :
On Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton’s, Faits et foutaises dans le management (translated by F. Vuibert, 2006).

Michel VILLETTE : THE POSSIBILITIES FOR A POLITICS OF HAPPINESS?
On The politics of happiness: What government can learn from the new research on wellbeing, by Derek Bok (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2010).




 

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