This paper is an attempt to understand how rules operate in organizations. I focus on the links between organizational routines and rules that are incomplete in their application. I analyse the role of routines in managing the incompleteness of rules. I present a case study where management introduced a productivity bonus in the middle of 1992. This allows for the study of the extent to which the new rule modifies the prevailing routines of work organization. Based on team observations, interviews and statistics that I carried out over a period of nine years (1992-2000), I show that in an initial period, the productivity bonus has partially biased the task selection process. In a second period-'the normal period'-our observations indicate that following the rules consists in translating the abstract rules into concrete reference points, and adding in what the rules have not specified. The translation process conducts to a routine since the interpretation is stabilized. Routines provide a pragmatic, local and temporary solution to the incompleteness of rules. Since routines emerge only in the course of action, they come with no guarantee of success. That constitutes their dynamic.
Using a large annual data base of French firms (1994-2000), this article examines the determinants of a workforce reduction of publicly-listed and non-listed companies and their consequences on firm performance. Firstly, workforce reduction appears to be a defensive response to an adverse economic shock. However, publicly-listed firms anticipate better than the others the decision to cut jobs. Secondly, using a Difference in Differences model, the estimates indicate that there has been a very small but significant improvement in the major performance indicators of the non-listed companies. For listed-companies, the estimates are no significant.
[fre] L'incomplétude du contrat de travail entraîne la nécessité d'instaurer des règles pour évaluer les comportements individuels et définir les modalités de l'échange. Le présent article étudie le traitement des règles dans le paradigme standard, en situation d'incertitude qualitative. On montre pourquoi l'incomplétude du contrat de travail constitue un défi lancé au modèle walrasien. Puis les difficultés d'intégration des règles du marché interne du travail à l'intérieur de ce paradigme, sont analysées. [eng] The incompleteness of the labor contract requires that rules evaluate individual behaviors and define the terms of exchange. This article focuses on the analysis of rules in the standard paradigm, in the case of qualitative uncertainty. It shows why the incompleteness of the labor contract is a puzzle for the Walrasian model. Then some difficulties which arise from an integration of internal labor market rules into this paradigm are analysed.
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