Thomas Durand

L'alchimie de la compétence

L’entreprise s’efforce aujourd’hui de transformer des actifs et des ressources en profit a travers des competences specifiques. Elle met ainsi en œuvre une nouvelle alchimie de la competence. Apportant des definitions claires et operationnelles de ce concept, souvent utilise de facon confuse dans la litterature en gestion, l’auteur propose ici un modele de la competence articule autour de trois dimensions qui relevent de la connaissance (les savoirs), des pratiques (les savoir-faire) et des attitudes (le savoir etre). Et il inclut dans ce modele non seulement les processus de management mais aussi la structure organisationnelle, la decision strategique et l’identite.

Dual technological trees: Assessing the intensity and strategic significance of technological change

Abstract The paper addresses the issue of the potential impact of technological innovation on competition. It aims at reviewing Abernathy and Utterhacks dominant technology, Dosis technological trajectories, Clarks design hierarchies, Abernathy and Clarks transilience concepts. We recognize that the intensity of innovation falls along a continuum and introduce the concept of “micro-radical” innovation. We choose to qualify the strategic significance of technological change through the transilience concept, leading to the principle of “competence relatedness”. We introduce Dual Technological Trees (DTT) as a way to present a hierarchical map of the many technological options that may be searched to fulfil a certain generic function in the market place. The complex and unpredictable nature of technology is recognized: the paper essentially suggests to map the various technological options and suboptions that one would think plausible at the present time, keeping in mind that technology will end up finding its own peculiar ways. The dynamic interaction between the DTT and some “Customer Concept Tree” on the market side is also discussed. We finally turn to the use of the DTT to assess the potential strategic significance of innovation. Several examples are presented.

Correspondence factor analysis of the publication patterns of 48 countries over the period 1981–1992

This study illustrates the application of a descriptive multivariate statistical method, Correspondence Factorial Analysis (CFA), to the analysis of a dataset of over 6 million bibliometric entries (data from ISI). CFA is used to show how the 48 most prolific nations stand in relation to each with regard to their publication interests in 17 specific disciplinary areas and one multidisciplinary field over the period 1981-1992. The output of a CFA is a map displaying proximity among variables (countries and disciplines) and constitutes an impartial working document for experts interested in the evaluation of science. The present study focuses on three aspects of a CFA : (1) The normalized publication patterns of countries with a common feature ( e.g., that belong to the same geopolitical zone, economic union, etc.) can be pooled in order to highlight the position of the union with respect to individual countries ; (2) complex CFA maps can be simplified by selecting reference countries or disciplines and observing how the remaining countries and disciplines relate to these references ; (3) data on additional countries (new publication profiles) or on additional variables (e.g., socio-economic data on all the countries under study) can be introduced into the CFA maps used as mathematical models. Our CFA of the ISI dataset reveals the scientific interests of nations in relative terms. The main cleavage (the first factorial axis) is between countries that still concentrate on the disciplines of the industrial revolution such as physics and chemistry (or that have turned toward their offspring, materials sciences) and those that have veered toward more modern disciplines such as the life sciences (e.g., clinical medicine), the environment, and computer sciences. The second cleavage, along the second factorial axis, is between countries that focus on the agricultural sciences (the land surface) and those interested in the geosciences (the sea, earths mantle, and mining). The third and fourth axes discriminate even further between earth, life, and abstract sciences highlighting the ostensible relationship between (organic) chemistry and all life science disciplines and between physics and disciplines related to engineering, materials sciences, etc. The CFA maps disclose the specific behavior of each country with respect to these cleavages.

Strategies for business schools in a multi‐polar world

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the contours of the emerging business education and institutions in a multi-polar world and to identify the causes of the strategic convergence of management education, to explore the limitations of the dominant models of management education and to propose a range of strategic alternatives for business schools operating in the diversity of a multi-polar world. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a critical review of the development of Anglo-American modes of business education, and an evaluation of alternative strategic approaches to business school development that might engage with different contexts of business. Findings – There is a tension between the continuing ascendancy of dominant Anglo-American paradigms of management education, and the increasing recognition of the diversity of a multi-polar world. This tension may be resolved by business schools following more distinctive strategies that are responsive to local contexts. Research limitations/implications – The research suggests business schools work towards greater recognition of culturally diverse business models, and develop tools of analysis appropriate to this context. Further research is necessary of the efforts to develop different approaches to business education, and of the strengths and limitations of these approaches. Practical implications – The analysis offers a rationale for exploring different strategies for business schools, and proposes some different models to examine. Originality/value – This paper provides a critical assessment of the development and convergence of international business schools and business education, and an outline of alternative possibilities.

Redesigning Management Education And Research

The field of management education and research has become an industry of its own – an industry with fierce international competition in a global arena. Here, the authors argue that a series of mechanisms has led to mimicking and thus strategic convergence among business schools. The authors further argue that this has resulted in a loss of relevance and diversity of the management knowledge produced and taught in a multipolar world. They view this as counterproductive to business schools, students, firms, societies and other stakeholders, including scholars themselves.

Economy of scope, added value chain and cost dynamics: A tentative optimization model

Abstract The added value chain model shows how products flow through successive design, manufacturing and distribution activities: the added value steps [1]. In firms with related product strategies some of these added value steps may be shared across various product lines [2]. Others may be specific to one product line. The economy of scope concept describes how a firm may enjoy synergies among its products sharing expertise and experience accumulated on cross-sectional activities. Although the economy of scope concept has been widely developed over the years, more has to be done to provide an explicit model of the phenomenon. This paper first presents an illustration of the concept of ‘shared activity’. It stresses that activities embody the real technological core of a firm. An organizations expertise, its real accumulated experience, are embedded in its various cross-sectional activities where competitive advantages are built and defended. The paper then develops an optimization model that evaluates the impact on cost of activities shared among product lines. It builds upon the added value chain model. It further assumes a cost/production relationhship which may or may not be that given by the experience curve, i.e. cost decreases as a function of the accumulated volume of production. The model leads to selecting out the products that bring a global negative financial contribution to the firm. However, it shows that some money-losing product lines should be kept alive since the decrease in cost they generate on related products through shared activities actually increases the margins of these related products. The direct loss on the one side is then more than balanced by the indirect economy on the other side. The optimization model is presented both under monopoly and pure competition conditions. It leads to the well-known ‘bang-bang’ solutions: either stopping the product line totally or keeping the output at maximum sellable volumes. However, the test for keeping a product alive or not is no longer a simple cost/price comparison. The model shows that the test should be modified to include a ‘shared cost’ that explicitly takes into account the ‘shared economy’ that each product will induce on related products. Under simple assumptions, analytical expressions for both the shared cost and the shared economy are provided. The model presented thus explicitly shows why in related product situations the economy of scope concept may suggest the advantage of keeping some products that at first may be regarded as money losers.

Public research/industry relationships: Efficiency conditions

If economists of technical change dealt with the public research/industry interface, the literature lacks empirical contributions. The present paper is clearly empirical. It investigates the efficiency of the relationships between public research institutions and industry from the point of view of the firm looking for solutions to its problems. The empirical work is based on the study of 32 cases of partnerships in France. It suggests that the efficiency of the interface depends on the context (nature of innovations, public research skills needed, duration of relationships, technological strategies of firms) and on the strategies of public research institutions (organizational linkages adopted). Four hypotheses are examined to test these efficiency conditions.

Trends and Challenges in Management Education around the World

The various chapters focusing on specific countries that our colleagues from around the world have kindly contributed to form the two volumes of this book provide a fascinating account of both specificities and commonalities in the current dynamics of management education across a wide range of countries. This chapter deals primarily with the commonalities that we identify across these contributions. Yet some of the specificities will also be mentioned along the way.

Humanizing the future: managing change with soft technology

Technology has always inspired social change, but its scale and complexity have begun to bewilder even the politicians and policymakers. Several recent national foresight studies point to a need for socio‐organizational or “soft” technologies to help Europe manage change and respond to major new economic opportunities. Research is required in fields such as neuro‐linguistic programming, the psychology of knowledge management and the ergonomics of the man‐machine interface. “Electronic pets” showed that we can learn to love machines – now the challenge is to embed technology in such a way as to marry science with society.

Higher Education in Management: The Case of France

When compared to the social sciences, the science of management is an altogether new field in France. J.B. Say taught his first courses at Cnam in what was called at that time “applied political economy” from 1805 onwards. The first major management schools in France appeared between the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, notably with the founding of ESCP in 1819, HEC in 1881 and ESSEC in 1907. These business schools were created primarily by the Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI), a group of public institutions fashioned by Napoleon in 1803 in order to sustain the development of both private companies and the regional economy (De Montmorillon 2011). Until the 1960s, most knowledge of business management belonged primarily to practitioners and consultants. It was only in 1955 that the first master’s degree in management was offered by a public university, followed by Pierre Tabotoni’s creation of the first institute for business management (Institut d’Administration des Entreprises, IAE).