Hedley Malloch

The formation of professional identity in French apprenti managers

Purpose – The paper aims to show how professional identity is constructed at a very early stage of initial management education. In so doing, it questions the notion of le metier in management.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a study of the experiences of six French management apprentices (or apprentis) who participated in a management apprentice programme in 2005. The research methodology is qualitative and illuminates the process of professional identity building. The central question of the study concerns the manager as an individual, an actor, and the link between the individual and his or her metier.Findings – The findings suggest that from their very first immersion into the real world of corporate employment at junior management level, students construct different types of professional identity which can be shown as a 2×2 matrix whose independent axes are the type of acting displayed by the apprentis; and the degree to which the apprentis enacted their roles. This can be interpre...

The rule of Saint Benedict and corporate management: employing the whole person

Purpose – The “classical” logic of organisations existing as generators of shareholder value, with the human “resources” seen as a means to this end, has been the subject of criticism regarding alienation in its members and the instrumentalisation both of work and of people. This paper aims to look at the way a medieval monastic rule is used to govern secular for‐profit organisations and trace its potential relevance as an alternative example for the structure and governance of organisations today.Design/methodology/approach – Based on an in‐depth case study, the paper critically discusses the feasibility of applying aspects of the rule of Saint Benedict (RSB) to modern organisations.Findings – Some of the principles of the RSB (such as fitting jobs around people, inverse delegation, and a critical attitude towards organisational growth) are quite different from standard management practice. Yet these monastic organisations turn out to be highly successful businesses with remarkably low employee turnover ...

A French model of craft training: its strategic relevance and recruitment issues for a UK firm

This paper is a study of the recruitment to the first version of the International Journeyman Programme (IJP), a project to recruit and train young workers from the north-east of England for a craft and technician training programme in engineering organized by a French trade guild, Les Compagnons du Devoir (CdD). The initial version of the project was unsuccessful and the paper highlights the role played by UK state agencies and institutions in the recruitment process in the projects lack of success. The paper examines the strategic relevance of a model of French craft training to a UK firm, describes that system of training and development, and analyses the recruitment difficulties faced by the IJP organizers when they attempted to launch the programme. The study finds that key elements of the UK VET system have severe problems in delivering high-skills training, and that there are in-built structural barriers that limit the extent to which such training can be easily imported.

Les Compagnons du Devoir: a French Compagnonnage as a HRD system

Purpose – To describe and analyse the Compagnons du Devoir (CdD), a French Compagnonnage; that is, a labour brotherhood and a community of practice; and to identify the reasons for its success as a human resource development system (HRD).Design/methodology/approach – A one‐off case study of the CdD using data gathered by the authors in their capacity as members of a Conseil Scientifique evaluating a project to internationalise the CdDs approach to vocational education and training (VET). Primary sources include the UK apprentices who passed through the system, and employees of the Compagnons du Devoir.Findings – Much of the success of the CdD rests on its capacity to develop knowledge, skills, and savoir‐etre in young people through the volume of off‐the‐job training; near‐peer and peer mentoring, the systematic use of older and retired workers and the management of movement and change through a network of residential colleges.Research limitations/implications – The research design is a single case study...