This study explored how managers implement complex strategic changes with multiple, often conflicting, influences and initiatives. A large, regional operating division of a French electrical utility was implementing a top-down, enterprise-wide digital transformation and developing broad agile capabilities in a participative way. Conclusions from the 18-month collaborative research effort suggest that three change activities made pragmatic and theoretically insightful contributions. First, diagnosis – a process not integrated in theories of strategic change and adaptation – served as a powerful source of tailored solutions that orchestrated diverse change activities. Second, the organization's existing culture and identity – typically considered a target of or constraint to change – became an important source of change congruence. Third, managers collectively leveraged and re-framed hierarchical authority in leading the change. Exercising authority in traditional ways kept emerging changes safe. Reframing authority as the power to convene conversations helped to focus expertise on key issues.

When it comes to negotiating over a collective dismissals plan, the French national legal framework explicitly encourages social partners to favour outplacement services over significant indemnity payments. However, significant above-mandatory redundancy payments are commonly granted to laid-off workers. Based on these factual observations, this article aims to identify the antecedent conditions, or, more precisely, the combinations of conditions, that lead to the granting of a large severance pay. We conducted a qualitative comparative analysis (Crisp set QCA) methodology applied to 20 monographs on downsizing operations that took place in France during the 2000s. The results show that above-mandatory severance payments are closely related to two major dimensions characterizing the economic and social context in which restructuring processes are carried out. The first one is about the balance of power prevailing between the company decisionmakers and the employees. This balance of power dimension is subsumed by two distinct conditions: the availability of financial resources and the presence of active unions. The second dimension relates to the moral and economic damages inflicted upon laid-off workers. This dimension is intrinsically connected to two downsizing process features, i.e. the perceived degree of legitimacy associated with the downsizing process and the degree of employability associated with the laid-off workers. Most notably, it appears that none of the identified conditions is sufficient by itself to induce the payment of a significant above-mandatory indemnity. However, some causal conditions may induce the outcome variable when they are combined with some specific other antecedent conditions. Thus, our research shows that the financial resource condition leads to the granting of an above-mandatory indemnity either in conjunction with a low degree of worker’s employability or in conjunction with both a weak perceived legitimacy of the restructuring process and the presence of active unions.Les dispositifs légaux français qui encadrent les suppressions d’emplois incitent explicitement les partenaires sociaux à négocier des accords mettant l’accent sur le reclassement des salariés licenciés plutôt que sur l’indemnisation financière. Pourtant, l’octroi d’indemnités supra-légales semble bien inscrit dans les pratiques des entreprises françaises. Cet article tente d’identifier les conditions ou, plus précisément, les combinaisons de conditions qui conduisent à l’octroi d’indemnités supra-légales. Pour cela, nous avons mené une analyse qualitative comparée (Crisp set QCA) de 20 cas de restructurations ayant eu lieu en France au cours de la décennie 2000. Les résultats montrent que les indemnités de licenciement sont conditionnées par deux dimensions principales du contexte économique et social dans lequel se déroulent les suppressions d’emplois. D’une part, l’instauration d’un rapport de force favorable aux salariés est nécessaire. Celui-ci dépend soit de la disponibilité de ressources financières, so...

L’art est-il susceptible d’apporter un nouveau type de connaissance sur les restructurations d’entreprises ? C’est autour de cette question que s’est construit le projet de recherche européen qui est à la base de cet article. Nous rendons compte ici des premiers résultats de ce programme de recherche qui a réuni chercheurs, artistes et acteurs des restructurations autour de productions artistiques en nous efforçant d’identifier et de qualifier la nature spécifique des connaissances que le recours à la représentation artistique peut permettre de produire. Suivant l’invitation qui nous est faite par Becker (2007) de considérer la représentation artistique comme une représentation possible et potentiellement riche de la société, nous défendons l’idée que les représentations artistiques des restructurations d’entreprises sont susceptibles d’enrichir, voire de renouveler la nature et les modes de production des connaissances académiques sur ce phénomène, plus précisément par le recours à deux œuvres artistiques de natures différentes (un travail photographique et une pièce de théâtre). Cet article présente les œuvres d’art comme un matériau riche et complexe permettant le dévoilement de certaines dimensions, délibérément ou involontairement cachées ou occultées, des processus de restructuration. Par le biais d’une connaissance expérientielle, les œuvres d’art fournissent en effet un regard décalé, tantôt complémentaire, tantôt contradictoire, sur les représentations des restructurations majoritairement proposées par la recherche académique.

Organizations can be approached both as entities and as constantly evolving phenomena. The former are associated with the term ‘organization,’ while the latter are specifically associated with ‘organizing.’ In the second meaning, organizations, such as constantly evolving flows, can make observation problematic. Three of these problems deserve special attention. Many events take place at the same time, which poses a challenge for observation. Then there is a question of what to observe, especially for the researcher outside the organization. And finally, the coordination between the actors is not always directly observable. This paper shows how observation by means of multiple- researcher shadowing (Czarniawska, 2007) or ‘multi-shadowing’ makes it possible for the observer to tackle these three difficulties. For the observer, shadowing (McDonald, 2005; Mintzberg, 1970) involves physically following the actors of the organization as part of a weak or even nonparticipating observational approach. ‘Multi-shadowing’ combines simultaneous instances of shadowing different actors in the same unit of time but not of place. We compare shadowing and multi-shadowing with other approaches of solo and multiple-researcher observation. Then, we show the interest and the limits of using multi-shadowing to observe hunting with hounds, which involves activities that, while traditional, borrow a number of characteristics from modern organizations if considered through the prism of organizing.

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