Christian Rouillard

An empirical exploration of psychological contract violation and individual behaviour

Purpose – The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the impact of psychological contract infringement (independent variable) on organizational commitment, exit, voice and neglect (dependent variables) within a Canadian federal public organization located in Quebec, where individual (e.g. age), organizational (e.g. stricter rule enforcement) and situational (e.g., employment alternatives) variables are controlled.Design/methodology/approach – A pre‐tested questionnaire (204 questions) on the psychological contract was distributed to 357 Canadian civil servants in a one site federal department. One hundred and thirty‐two questionnaires were returned and considered usable for research, for a 37 per cent response rate. Bivariate analysis was performed on the various determinants and individual responses to psychological contract violation, including organizational commitment, departure designs and counterproductive behaviors.Findings – Results clearly illustrate the great complexity of the link between or...

Bringing Public Organization and Organizing Back In

Since the late 1990s social science-based studies have allocated much less attention to public organizations. Based on the sixth Organization Studies summer workshop, this introductory paper suggests a diagnosis of such a decline as well as a research agenda. It lists some fundamental issues still to be explored such as publicness and governance. It also considers how social science-based organizational knowledge might be extended to various empirical objects and fields in public domains and set-ups such as inter-organizational arrangements, hybrid organizations, multi-stakeholder arenas, hybrid organizing, and transnationalization processes, that usually are covered by scholars – economists, historians, anthropologists, management academics, etc. – who are not using organizational theory lenses.

Culture and the Democratization of Risk Management The Widening Biotechnology Gap Between Canada and France

This article considers culture in the explanation of the gap between North America and Europe in the area of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Thanks to a comparison of Canada and France, the article distinguishes between two cultures of GMO risk management: the culture of managerial rationality (Canada) and the culture of integration (France). The first culture provides proponents of scientific neutrality the tools to preserve itself from external criticisms. In contrast, the second culture creates a proper environment for its contestation from within. When the democratization of science became an issue in the 1990s, the culture of integration transformed itself significantly, allowing debates within risk management processes. This change contributed to the gap between Europe and North America over GMOs.

Issues and Strategies Pertaining to the Canadian Governments' Coordination Efforts in Relation to the 2010 Olympic Games

Abstract The purpose of this article was to understand the government stakeholder groups coordination issues and strategies in mega-events, here, the 2010 Olympic Games. The case study was built by means of archival material, interviews, and observations. All three levels of government were included (i.e., the two host municipalities, the host province, and the federal government). Findings highlight five contextual-based issues (time, geography, funding, other resources, and the political situation) and eleven other types of issues (accountability/authority, activation/leveraging, knowledge management, legal, operational, planning, power, relationships, social issues, structure, and turnover). Eight strategies were used to address these issues: communication processes, decision-making frames, engagement, flexibility, formalized agreements, human resource management procedures/principles, strategic planning, and structural framework. The relationships between issues and from issues to strategies are discussed, as are within-group stakeholder heterogeneity and the impact the findings have on public administration theory and practice.

Public Administration and The Managerialist Fervour For Values and Ethics: Of Collective Confusion in Control Societies

Recent managerialist discourse on modernizing, reinventing or reengineering the State has often placed strong emphasis on values and ethics as a preferred means (so-called strategy) for large-scale organizational change (Frederickson & Johnston, 1999; Kettl, 2000). Building on a pragmatist understanding of organizational cultures and identities, managerialism presupposes a fusion between rule-value and action, where individual behaviour can be modulated by a flexible set of norms secreted by spontaneous “leaders.” Hence, from this perspective, proper values should lead to proper behaviour in a context of individual autonomy. Building on a syncretism of critical theory (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000) and poststructuralism (Foucault, 1975, 2004; Foucault & Deleuze, 1972; Hardt & Negri, 2000), this paper intends to discuss the theoretical relevance of the managerialist perspective on values and ethics for the renewal of public administration and, in the larger scheme of things, the renewal of public governance. Simply stated, the paper asks: Does the current emphasis on ethics and values in public administration, most notably in regards to its claims of individual and organizational empowerment, lead to unintended consequences, such as collective confusion (Rouillard, 2003)? Indeed, we state that the managerialist shift in public administration appears as a symptom of a more global shift from a disciplinary society to a control society.