7 Contributors to this issue
17 History and management: twenty years after Marc-Daniel Seiffert, Éric Godelier
31 The JHCM 1995-2008: retrospective and prospects Yannick Lemarchand
Since 1995, the Accounting and Management History Conference constitutes one of the rare French interdisciplinary meeting places devoted to historical approaches to management science; it benefits moreover from a significant international participation. The papers presented during the conference display an array of rich and dynamic research. To further strengthen and develop this field of research, we will need to define a research program centered on some federative questions which will give it more force and coherence.
53 Beyond Chandler Philip Scranton
Even not very close to Alfred DuPont Chandler, P. Scranton offer some reflections on our discipline and its current situation, taking Chandler’s publications as a point of departure. Chandler’s work appears to be a “Business History Classic”. Empirically, Chandler documented and analyzed what he understood as the means to “making the modern”, be it manager, enterprise or economy. Through his accounts of America’s largest corporations and their managerial practices, Chandler provided an origin story for solid modernity in which rational and rationalizing enterprises are the natural and essential foundations for progress, for a society of reliable structures, durable careers, and rising expectations. Yet as solid modernity has vaporized, these concepts and their history become ever less helpful in linking past and present in ways that make sense of both. How is still is possible to use Chandler’s work through a constructive critic?
HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT: TWENTY YEARS LATTER Guest editor: Marc-Daniel Seiffert
with the collaboration of Éric Godelier and the JHCM
I. – Employees and entrepreneurs, facts and social representations
61 Entrepreneurship versus wage system. Construction and deconstruction of a model
Émile-Michel Hernandez, Luc Marco
How the division between paid employees and entrepreneurial contractors did evolve during time in France? A historical assessment, at the same time quantitative and qualitative, is necessary to understand the play of the forces in presence in the research of an unstable balance between paid positions and statutes of independent contractors. The recourse to the history is then essential for better locating the position hinge of the current time on this significant and crucial topic for the economic future of our country.
77 The entrepreneur: a French story Michel Marchesnay
If entrepreneurship is fashionable in France, it is not sure that the entrepreneur be also. In the the “entrepreneurial rhetoric”, ideological reflections and historical lever both contribute to confer to the word “entrepreneur” a (too?) great “performativity”, beeing partially taken in account by the vast corpus of theories and typologies. Indeed, in the French “imaginary”, the word
“entrepreneur” refers to other ones, as “patron”, “chef d’entreprise” (chief of enterprise), “dirigeant” (manager or CEO) with different meanings, legitimities, according to the speaker or listener.
97 The place of wife in the little familial business.
A study from the report of failure (18th-20thcentury) Pierre Labardin, Paulette Robic
This article tries to put forward the place of wife in the French little familial business from the 18thto the 20thcentury. We have worked in 307 files of failure from the departmental archives of Indre-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique. First of all, we point out some methodological issues. Then, we show the division of labour in the couple so as to put forward the place of wife. During two centuries, there is really few changes in her works whatever the kind of businesses she works for.
119 History of a partial representation. Portrait of the executive as a restricted professional
Ève Lamendour
The author objectives is to understand why, despite the enthusiasm shown by Henri Fayol at the beginning of the 20th century; the spread of the administrative function in the enterprise has come up against the image of a
profession that is superfluous. He proposes to analysis what precisely this image was. This essay comes out of ongoing research on management as seen in French features films from 1895 to 2005. The years between 1914 and 1947 witnessed a significant transformation in this representation: the work place became more complex, filled with newcomers such as accountants, clerks and executives, even shareholders. The image of the executives was still indistinct:
on screen they are recognizable but they don’t act. Their reluctance to engage in any managerial situation is due to their fear of making a mistake, or worse, their fear of failure. He wants to use the cinematographic material to better understand why the fear of failure wasn’t recognized as failure itself and how it has transformed into a state of complete ossification of the profession.
II. – Richness and diversity of strategies in action
143 The evolving practice(s) of strategic planning in France and the USA Ludovic Cailluet
Following the strategy-as-practice perspective, this paper challenges the conventional idea that strategic planning has declined and almost disapeared since the late 1970s. Using corporate archives ad secondary sources, it looks at practices in France and the US since the 1960s. The concept of strategic planning and the evolution of its vocabulary is analysed. Using then company case studies, the paper demonstrates the high level of adaptation and transformation of strategic planning in the practices of French and US firms over the last 50 years. Individual planners themselves, once considered only analytical have evolved to handle a role of coherence seekers and communicators.
161 Project management. New object for business history Philip Scranton
Project management is big business nowadays, at least in the domains of academic publishing. This literature, designed for practitioners, tends to focus on the “single-shot project”. Recently, critiques have surfaced concerning the inadequate contextualization of project analyses and theories, both historically and environmentally. This brief contribution would like to reflect on two issues that derive from this discussion: 1) ways to extend correctives to what Engwall terms “the lonely project” syndrome, where the project is “conceptualized … independent of history, contemporary context and future,” and at the close, 2) means to expand the existing set of project histories, a task business historians have in large measure neglected.
175 The relationship between innovation and control systems and the history of pharmaceutics industry
Xavier Deroy
The history of the pharmaceutics industry is embedded in the general evolution of institutions and characterized by salient specificities. We illustrate this association through a typology composed of three periods in the history of pharmaceutics industry: the artisanal era, the modern era and the post-modern era. The dynamics of this historical evolution is located in institutions and in the specificities of the relationship between innovation and control systems at the micro level. We show how the management of this relationship characterizes at the macro level the change of era in the history of this industry.
185 Organizational innovations and radical innovation in computers’ industry Marie Delaplace
Whereas the large firms seem to have some disadvantages in developing radical innovations, the aim of this paper is to show that those disadvantages can be overcome if these innovations are accompanied by organisational innovations. We will illustrate this thesis by the case of the passage of mechanical data processing to electronic computers’ industry inside two large American firms, IBM and Remington Rand, after the Second World War. Indeed the failure of Remington Rand and conversely the success of IBM in computers’ industry can be analyzed through their different organisational strategies in their research centres, in formation but also in the organisation of this emerging product marketing.
201 Subsidiaries’ fever at AFC (1921-1939). Group accounts and financial reporting
Didier Bensadon
This article shows the relationship between external growth strategy carried out from 1921 to 1939 by the French company Alais, Froges et Camargue and the introduction of news managerial practices intended to control subsidiaries and to assess all the financial effort of the group since 1923 to 1932. The establishment of financial reporting in 1921 and the development, in 1927, of a financial statement whose conceptual foundations are based on group accounting, are the main directors answers to the group’s development.
219 Historical approach “à la Chandler” and Evolutionary theory.
The birth of trajectories and competitive advantages of three world aeronautic industry’s leader
Marc-Daniel Seiffert
The aim of this paper is to strenghen the evolutionary theory by using a historical approach. We shall study the technological, organisational and human
trajectories of three enterprises with common roots, as well as the organisational capacities of the company founded in the 50’s by Max Holste. In fact, each of these three firms – Embraer, which is the third aeronautic group in the world, ATR, and Reims Aviation Industrie – have become leaders on different niches. They have built their success from the original technical and marketing paradigm which enabled the foundation of Max Holste’s firm. The crisis that the latter was faced with has led to the birth of these new firms, which, later, had to make new strategic choices.
III. – Persistence and transformations of organisations on a long-term basis
239 Governance and performance performances. An economical-history analysis the Opera of Paris
Philippe Agid, Jean-Claude Tarondeau
Since its creation in 1669, the Opera of Paris knew various forms of governance. It was royal, imperial, and then national. It always maintained close relations with the State but carried out its best performances when those relations were slackened to leave more autonomy to the management teams. But Baumol and his law returned to the State its past strength and power…
271 Co-operatives’ enterprises: from occidental utopias to African practices Robert Noumen
The Clerk’s Office of the imported co-operative companies find their originality at the same time in the construction of an exogenic model and its integration in an environment or cohabits two types of organization of opposite logic: one is the emanation of the networks of traditional solidarity unsuited to a structured economic environment, the other is the product of a management style not making it possible to meet the conditions of effectiveness and competition necessary to the good performance of Co-operative in an economic context which is not structured.
IV. – The historical approach to failures in management
285 The historical approach of management’s failures: a necessity Marc-Daniel Seiffert, Pierre Labardin, Marc Nikitin
291 “Success” and “failure” of a management tool. The case of budgets’ birth and beyond budgeting
Simon Alcouffe, Nicolas Berland, Yves Levant
The budget is being more and more criticized. Its abandonment is even suggested. This would be the failure of a management tool that was born in the 1930s and that had since a great success. It seems too early to tell whether this criticism will lead to its disappearance. However, we can symmetrically compare the rhetoric that has accompanied its birth with the one developed in order to suggest its abandonment. Interestingly, they are in many ways very similar. In the name of environment uncertainty and managers’ empowerment, the budget has alternatively appeared as a solution or a dead-end. We propose an explanation of this phenomenon in the discussion of the paper.
307 The failure of Panama canal, from the great expectations to the financial distress
Jean-Guy Degos, Christian Prat dit Hauret
The Suez canal was one of the great successes of the 19thcentury. After his first success, Ferdinand de Lesseps wished to make one second attempt, which appeared all the more realizable after a not very thorough analysis that the distance to be dug in Panama was half of that of Suez. But Suez was a well known country by Europeans, flat, well marked. anama was unknown, with its mountains, its unstable grounds and its unhealthy climate. Lesseps, according to its practice, forced the destiny to create the French company of Panama canal, but he will was not enough to avoid the financial failure and a scandal of first order. There was initially a time to the great expectations, with the foundation of the French Company of the Channel, and a time of the dark following days which, with a troop of unresolved technical and financial problems. The sumof the unforeseen difficulties involved a financial crash and a scandal out of standard. Final failure of a famous man, the canal, thanks to American engineers, will be built all the same, and its inspirer will be right, after his death.
325 How to predict and explain failure in organizational change?
Monique Combes, Laëtitia Lethielleux
How to interpret the phenomena of failure met in the introduction of organizational changes? In a first part, from a research led on an operation of repurchase of a big publishing conglomerate by a French industrial group in July, 2004, we shall identify warning indicators of measure of the failure of an operation of external growth: the trust in the future, the degree of involvement and the developed logics of survival. In the second part, from case of French companies, we shall analyze the failures met in the implementation of new structures or new tools. We shall clock two deeper causes of the failure: a lack in the management of change projects and the misunderstanding of the organizational phenomenon.
341 Shopkeepers bankrupcies in 18thcentury Paris. Part regulatory and part practical failure management
Natacha Coquery
In the 18th C. France, money is difficult to collect in the absence of credit institutions and specialized financial market. Hence, most exchanges are based on credit. Shopkeepers are the main actors, because they both offer and require credit. Credit favours exchanges but also fosters the risk of bankruptcy.
Bankruptcies do not necessary signify inaptitude, mediocrity, drama or definitive fall. Misfortune rather expresses the difficulty to avoid the credit net, which command is the key of success. Throughout the study of bankruptcies, we chose to emphasize two points in orde to show the intertwining between social, judicial and accounting practices, so characteristic of the “Ancien Regime”: firstly, bankruptcy law, which shows how shopkeepers keep amongst themselves; secondly, bankruptcy accounting, a technical and legal instrument at its beginnings.
359 Nineteenth-century bankruptcies. Legal aspects and accounting practices Nicolas Praquin
In terms of bankruptcies, the nineteenth century is characterized by a process of judicial proceedings and professionalization of the profession of trustee.
However, the judicial management of bankruptcy that the political will want to change has to face the social practices inherited from the former Ancien Régime. The legislature is therefore obliged to adapt to twice the Commercial Code, once in 1838 in easing the procedure, again in 1889 taking into account the diversity of situations. The accounting is the technical infrastructure to the court proceedings; it is primarily the means by which proof is, before becoming the tool of the evaluation of the debtor’s assets. The liquidator is the key player in the system because it lies at the crossroads of many interests: the bankrupt, creditors and the court.
383 The difficulties of accounting standardisation in France Béatrice Touchelay
During the Second World War, French accounting standardisation registered important progress. Global accounts, cost accounting, rules and regulations of the profession of chartered accountant were clearly established. The circumstances overcame the famous secret of business, which stopped every reform before the war. Yet, the heritage has been much criticized after the Liberation. The stamp of the Vichy and German Authorities are too visible to maintain these reforms as they were. Only the principle of accounting standardisation will be conserved, but at the price of a considerable selection.
403 The limited growth of accounting academies. Failure of a policy or policy of failure (1974/2004)
Pascal Fabre, Marc Nikitin
This study aims to analyse the causes for the limited growth of accounting academies MSTCF and throw a light on the state role which has choice to invest massively on “post bac” formations of secondary education. It stresses also the limitations inherent to the position of MSTCF in the university structure, in particular the lack of a management first round formation and inadequate staffing professors.
423 Summary
