Robert Tchobanian

Institutional Change and the Restructuring of Service Work in the French and German Telecommunications Industries

This study analyses recent changes in collective bargaining institutions and their implications for employer strategies in the French and German telecommunications industries, drawing on case studies and survey data from call centre workplaces. Findings demonstrate that differences in both formal institutions and past logics of action influenced actor responses to changing markets and ownership structures. French trade unions were more successful in establishing encompassing bargaining structures and reducing pressures for pay differentiation, due to state support for the mandatory extension of agreements and unions’ strategic focus on centralizing bargaining. In contrast, bargaining in Germany has become increasingly fragmented and decentralized as unions and works councils focused on company-level bargaining at major employers. This focus allowed worker representatives to preserve their strong influence over employment practices in core workplaces but has contributed to declining bargaining coverage and growing wage inequality.

From IS to organisation: analysing the uses of a collaborative IS in a high-tech SME

Researchers and practitioners generally observe a disparity in organisations between the actual uses of Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) and what was expected of them prior to implementation (Bowers, 1995). In order to investigate this phenomenon, Orlikowski (2000) developed a coherent and structured conceptual framework that can be used to analyse why actors develop such different uses for a given technology. While our paper uses her theoretical propositions as a framework for analysing uses, it seeks to extend her approach by means of a theoretical framework that can be used to understand the spirit of the technology and interactions between individuals and artefacts. Following an outline of these various concepts, a case study of the uses of a collaborative IS in a high-tech SME will serve as a basis for an initial test of this analytical framework and for discussing the contributions it makes.

Résultats "Développer les usages des logiciels collaboratifs"

Dans la presentation de ces resultats, nous allons tout d’abord souligner que, bien que nous ayons fait le choix d’analyser un outil unique — LiveLink — afin de pouvoir comparer les usages identifies dans nos differents cas, nous nous sommes retrouves face a une tres grande heterogeneite des usages. Cette variete est coherente avec la litterature en SI (Orlikowski, 2000). Elle constitue neanmoins une difficulte pour notre etude. Il nous a donc ete necessaire d’analyser en detail cette variete et d’en saisir les facteurs explicatifs (I).

Introduction "Développer les usages des logiciels collaboratifs"

Cet ouvrage pose la question suivante: les structures organisationnelles et les politiques RH influencent-elles les usages des outils collaboratifs?