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
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 ? 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 ? 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
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 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 Arnaud TONNELÉ : THE MANAGEMENTOF PEOPLE IN A QUEST FOR
ITSELF : 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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