n°100 Juin 2010
By Michel BERRY
Director of the Ecole de Paris du Management
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The prince’s eyeglasses
By Claude
RIVELINE
professor at
École des Mines de Paris
According
to the philosopher Heidegger, what we see worst is the pair of
spectacles
which, in front of our eyes, we see through. This saying is still
pertinent.
The prince, as a metaphor of those who hold power, has turned his eyes
toward
other objects: the overriding concern is no longer the imbalance
of trade
but unemployment. But does he freely choose his pair of glasses? Lenses
have
changed, but the powers-that-be still too often eschew contact from
reality.
THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDIZATION OF ACCOUNTING:
THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF THE IASC/IASB
By
Bernard
COLASSE,
CREFIGE,
The
International Accounting Standards Board and International Association
for
Statistical Computing produce information for investors. These private
international organizations draw a legitimacy for setting bookkeeping
standards
from the English-speaking world but have no power to actually enforce
the
standards they approve. They have to constantly prove their legitimacy
and seek
support from more powerful organizations, such as the International
Institute
for Facilitation and Consensus (IFAC), the International Organization
of
Securities Commissions (IOSCO) or the European Union, itself divided
between a
shareholder model (in English-speaking lands) and a partnership model
(on the
European mainland). The recent rejection of standards 32 and 39
suggests that
supporters of the continental model are opposing specifications based
on the
Anglo-Saxon model.
THE GLOOMY SIDE OF PROJECTS: WHEN WORKING ON A PROJECT
JEOPARDIZES INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS
IAE
Lyon, Euristik
Gilles GAREL
Université
Paris-Est, OEP Prism
and Thierry PICQ
Professor EM Lyon
In
writings on management,
projects represent the myth of fortune smiling… Invest in your job!
Find
self-fulfillment through involvement in the project! But does a project
not
also destroy meaning, destabilize personnel and convey the germs of new
pathologies? In companies, projects are machines for making
requirements and
judging people. No doubt, there is a gloomy side to projects, as shown
by this
analysis of verbatim accounts from participants in projects and a
review of the
scant managerial writings on this topic. For working conditions to
worsen in
direct proportion to an increase in the stimulation to outdo oneself
through
involvement in a company project, something must have gone awry in the
realm of
human resources — at the very heart of capitalism.
In
By Philippe
D’IRIBARNE
In
analysing the reaction of local workforce to the management style
introduced by
Lafarge in its cement division
subsidiary in
China (Box 1), we came up against a general question that puzzles
companies rooted
in the West but with subsidiaries in that country. These firms seem to
face a
key dilemma: should they adapt themselves to “Chinese” management? Or
should
they —and can they— practise management in conformity with the
orientations
taken by the parent company? Or yet again, should they look to
implement some
sort of synthesis taking into account both Chinese and “Western”
practises
(with all the ambiguity implied by the latter)?
WESTERN AND CHINESE
STYLE MANAGEMENT:
COMMENT FROM A
PRACTITIONER
ON PHILIPPE D'IRIBARNE'S
ARTICLE:
“IN
An analysis by
Philippe d‘Iribarne, a real Chinese
delight!
By Dominique Poiroux
Vice-president for
Middle East, and
A FRENCH JOURNAL ON MANAGEMENT: SURVIVING AND THRIVING -
THE CASE OF GÉRER & COMPRENDRE
For anyone familiar with
journals in management, Gérer
& comprendre stands out. Its many
graphics are offbeat in relation to the text; and its articles appear
under
unusual headings: Overlooked…; Trial by fact; Other times, other
places; Live;
In quest of theories. In addition, the date of creation on the cover is
intriguing: 1794. These peculiarities are to be set down to the special
setting
in which the journal was created and to the opportunities at that time.
After
explaining this, this article concludes that, rather than trying to
blend in
with a set of standards, international exchanges would be more
beneficial if
they capitalized on the diversity of traditions and institutions around
the
world.
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DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH OR GLOBISH?
By
Jean-Paul NERRIERE,
former vice-président
of Digital Equipment Europe,
sales
manager of Peugeot automobiles,
vice-president of IBM-USA
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Sociologist
As
a sign of tension between natural and economic forces, failed landings
in bad
weather represent an original risk situation. Natural factors play
their part,
as wind and rain, crucial variables, are hard to determine precisely at
any one
time. But economic factors are equally important: rerouting is
expensive,
competition is strong, runway ends (known as blast pads) are managed to
the
square yard, etc…
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Women, an object of innovation
By Hervé DUMEZ
Centre de Recherche en
Gestion, École Polytechnique, Paris
Specialists
of innovation usually talk about computers, automobiles, aeronautics,
medicine
or biotechnology. There was no book on innovations in techniques
related to
women and their bodies. Teresa Riordan, a science journalist
specialized in
the study of patents (for The New
York Times in particular), has taken up
the challenge of writing the missing book. The result is a
gripping
surprise with an original, offbeat view of innovation, its nature and
processes.
By Michel CALLON
Professor at
ENSMP
Reading
Timothy Mitchell’s
abrasive Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity forces us
to change
our way of looking at development policies, experts from international
organizations, the social sciences,
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Electronic
communications
On Marie Bia
Figueiredo and Michel
Kalika’s
La communication électronique, Paris, Economica 2009.
By Philippe
FACHE
research
professor at ICD-Lara and lecturer
at the UFR
of Communication Sciences,
Human resource management in mass-market
retailing
On
Christophe Vignon’s (ed.) Le
management des ressources humaines
dans la grande distribution, Paris, Vuibert,
2009
By Youcef
BOUSALHAM
Doctoral
student (allocataire-moniteur),
IAE in
The game of rules, a
multidisciplinary approach
On
Hervé Dumez and Jean-Baptiste
Suquet’s (eds.)
Les jeux de la règle, une approche interdisciplinaire,
Paris, Editions L’Harmattan,
2009
By Daniel
FIXARI
Professor
- Mines ParisTech.