9 Contributors to this issue
15 We are all professionals!
Maurice Thévenet
The paper presents the issue of managing professionals. It describes the characteristics of the population and the peculiar managerial problems that organizations are confronted regarding these people. It emphasizes some ideas in order to tackle these problems. The paper discusses why the management of professionals is helping us to consider and approach what manager may become in the future when more and more people consider themselves and approach work and companies as professionals.
35 Managing knowledge workers. Challenges and outlook Jean-Pierre Bouchez
This contribution proposes to present the different managerial forms associated with Professional Knowledge Workers. However, concerning this population of Knowledge Workers, whose conceptual terminology is not completely stabilized yet, we will propose beforehand a detour, thanks to a multi-criteria matrix, in order to get a better grasp of what it covers. Thus, we will be better able to catch and illustrate the associated managerial forms, concerning more specifically the qualified Knowledge Workers, that we will have defined beforehand, taking into account that the stakes related to them are more critical.
55 How managing American physicians has evolved Junko Takagi
This article describes the changes in the focus of physician management and the reactions of American physicians working under varying degrees of non- professional management. Despite the advent of managerial practices to control professional work in the healthcare field, I find that physicians continue to be strongly attached to professional values and conclude that healthcare managers will need to negotiate within the boundaries of these values.
issue 168-169 November – December 2006
MANAGING PROFESSIONALS Guest Editor: Maurice Thévenet
83 Academic mission and governance of people Pierre Tapie
The article examines the issues of governing academics in the institutions they belong to. After having described the academics as professionals and clarified the different missions of their job, the article argues that a coherent governing process may be translated into organizational choices and designs, but also into concrete solutions that should enhance the level of excellence of academic institutions.
107 Managing sports professionals. The case of a handball club Béatrice Barbusse
In this article we shall outline the principles and practices of professionnal sportsmen management. Participative observation shows that this management is not only handled by professional coaches by also by a variety of other actors.
125 Management and social work Brigitte Bouquet
Social work has been considered from a professional perspective for a long time. However this activity is currently confronted to major managerial challenges. It becomes more and more complex and its managerial models get closer to the companies’approach of management considering the issues of effectiveness, productivity and quality. It however remains real peculiarities that are related to the nature of social action, stemming from a both public and private origin and to its final goals of social utility in an ethical perspective.
143 Organizational commitment of IT professionals Isis Gutiérrez-Martínez
The human resources management of IT professionals represents a major challenge for the firms involved, since high turnover rates, between 25% and 35%, have been reported in the IT sector. Therefore, enhancing organizational commitment becomes extremely important for firms eager to avoid their key employees from leaving. In this article, we will develop a finer understanding of the determinants of organizational commitment for IT knowledge workers, since the potential conflict between the commitment to their professions and the commitment to their organizations is likely to be stronger for them, in comparison to other categories of employees.
157 Consultants and IT professionals. A model of management of professionals at a large scale
Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann
Large professional consulting and IT firms offers a mix of two worlds: the large bureaucratic or industrial organization and the regulations and logic of 370 Revue française de gestion – N° 168-169/2006
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professions. Besides the conflicts which may result between the two, they develop hybrid organizational models and special forms of management of professionals “at a distance”. From our field research, we induce that they use peer control and competition among peers as well as seven types of vertical direct control, whereas professionals develop five types of professional strategies that we describe in this article.
177 How to lead to success high-performing professionals Philippe Alloing
Managing human resources in top notch professional services companies in Strategy Consulting or Web solutions consulting and implementation is a very different challenge: high level professionals are devoted to their own development, ignore hierarchy, cherish diversity and are difficult to select, attract and retain. The article presents the key success factors of effective HR management behind the success of two once famous companies: Arthur D little Europe and Asia and Cambridge technology partners EMEA where the author was in charge of the “People” fonction. He describes the strategic differentiations which ADL and CTP established to become the «employer of choice» for the specific talents they needed and how they structured their organisation, business model, employee development processes and other internal management structures and processes.
193 Managing astronauts. Conversation with Jacques Ratié Maurice Thévenet
The interview of the former director of the French astronauts describes the very peculiar experience of these professionals who have made such an important personal choice for their career. The interview emphasizes the issues of the manager’s legitimacy, the importance of a personal relationship and of presence as key managerial practices.
205 Banking professionals. The example of account managers Didier Retour, Michel Dubois, Marc-Éric Bobillier-Chaumon
We seek to describe and analyze the authentic activities performed by account managers working within a highly complex and swiftly changing environment that involves the interplay between clients, information systems and the goals and expectations of the employer, that is, the bank itself. Our analytical viewpoint focuses on the interactions between the account managers and others, by bringing to light the dynamics of the rules which apply to the workplace. By paying close heed to two major parameters, the present study reveals the complexity of the authentic cases analyzed and the crucial role of the client’s knowledge with respect to banking. Our result show the importance of a client’s knowledge with respect to the kinds of rules and interactions that arise. The
complexity surrounding the case under study has no effect on the types of interaction which take place with the client. The second part of our study draws on the foregoing results with respect to personal management and emphasizes the necessity of assisting the account managers through various means.
221 Managing Experts at Thales. Conversation with Yves Barou Olivier Basso, Maurice Thévenet
Thales, a world leader in electronics and systems, employs a large number of experts and has developed a real experience in managing them and helping them work effectively with the rest of the company. Mr Yves Barou, the VP for Human Resource Management of Thales describes the challenges of managing experts and puts forward an evaluation of the policies in this matter.
225 Can intrapreneurs be managed?
Olivier Basso
Entrepreneurial dynamics within large companies, which are a key component of their competitiveness, seem to depend largely on a specific player at the heart of the business development process: the “intrapreneur”. How exactly we are to define what an intrapreneur is, however, remains to be seen. Are they a breed apart? Do they call for a specific managerial style? Beyond the choice between two organizational approaches (that of a separate entity devoted to new projects and that of an entrepreneurial spirit spread throughout the whole company), business systems that do not acknowledge the specificity of such entrepreneurial employees often allow their role to be determined almost entirely by the interpersonal dimensions of management
243 The impact of mobile technologies on the work of professionals in companies
Charles-Henri Besseyre des Horts, Henri Isaac
It is widely recognized that ICT have modified organizational structures and processes during the last decade, notably with the general usage of laptop computers and mobile phones. A number of research works have pointed out the deep transformation of work situations allowed by these technologies with the development of more autonomy and responsibility. However, in the case of mobile technologies, the impact of these technologies on professionals’ work situations appears to be far more paradoxical: on the one hand, being connected
«anywhere, anytime» induces new expectations because of the abolishment of time and space and, on the other hand, being able to access everywhere crucial information to complete work gives these professionals a reinforced control power upon their activities. Using the theoretical framework suggested by the
«demand-control» model (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Karasek, 1979), results of an exploratory study conducted in 10 French organizations confirm this 372 Revue française de gestion – N° 168-169/2006
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hypothesis of paradoxical consequences of mobile technologies on work situations by within firm professionals. Learning for the managers of these nomad professionals and future research orientations is proposed as a conclusion.
Varia
267 Effects of ERP implementation strategies on the cross-functional view of the firm
Redouane El Amrani, Frantz Rowe, Marc Bidan, Bénédicte Geffroy-Maronnat, Rolande Marciniak
This paper aims at testing the impact of factors linked to ERP implementation strategies (preparation (prior organizational vision, business process reengineering), engineering (customized software developments), deployment (number of modules, speed)) on a more cross-functional perception of the firm.
The methodology is based on a survey of 100 large and medium size firms. All factors play a significant role, but functional coverage through the number of modules seems particularly important to be taken into account for future research.
287 The use of groupware or the development of a socio-technical resource Isabelle Comtet
In the current context of global exchange the use of technology would seem to favour, authorise or facilitate interpersonal links in a context where spatial and temporal distances are becoming greater. Of all the areas concerned by this evolution, the domain of professional activity is particularly affected. Indeed, new forms of work organisation lend themselves well to the use of computerised interpersonal links. What is at stake here is the modification of working practices linked to the use of new information technologies. Therefore, it would be interesting to understand how the development of mediated communication, linked with the actors’ use of new technologies, permitted them to modify their interpersonal exchanges in the work environment.
303 The transformations in Accounting Information Systems (AIS) in France.
A global view Éric Tort
Based upon quantitative surveys, the author studies the global evolution in accounting organization of French companies in a financial context affected during this last decade by substantial normative and technological changes. The results give five major tendancies of the evolution in practices regarding financial and management accounting and budget.
321 Construction of the budget of the rural communes Didier Le Maître
The article treats construction of the budget of the rural communes. The development of the draft budget reveals autocracy there. However, the adoption of the final budget often gives place only to one limited debate and is consensual almost everywhere. The recourse to Boltanski and Thévenot’s approach makes it possible to clarify, in a new way, the existence of the paradox: autocratic development and consensual vote of the budget.
337 The three dimensions of the entrepreneurial decision Émile-Michel Hernandez
The decision to create a new business is for the entrepreneur an essential moment, a unique decision, a founding moment. W e would then expect that all entrepreneurship models would give this decision the place it deserves.
However it is often absent, the entrepreneur appears more as an agent who find himself in a context which pushes him towards entrepreneurship rather than as a fully informed actor deciding to create his or her own organisation. It is this paradox that brings us to look at this problem through a study of the literature and empirical work involving the collection of the stories of forty new enterprise creators. Three main dimensions of the entrepreneurial decision emerge: rationality, logic of action, construction of meaning.
359 Opinion: Cliometrics and management. Towards a new alliance?
Jean-Luc Demeulemeester, Claude Diebolt
This article aims at demonstrating the interest of the cliometric approach not solely for economists or historians, but also for management specialists and decision-makers. Bringing management and history closer is indeed not something incongruous. In this respect, cliometrics can introduce a theoretical dimension grounded on historical evidence. It is also (as history or management themselves) a discipline of synthesis. It should open the way to a management science at the same time taking into account the “lessons of history”, i.e. on an analysis of historical trends enlightened by the use of the social sciences in their quantitative and qualitative dimensions.
369 Summary
375 Instruction for authors
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