The perception by an SME buyer of the economic environment and its impact on post-takeover performance have not been investigated by the French-speaking literature. This research aims to fill this gap. A questionnaire was administered to 90 managers of French SMEs and revealed the perception of three distinct types of economic environments: dynamic, heterogeneous and hostile. The results indicate a significant impact of the perception of the economic environment when it is heterogeneous or hostile on post-recovery performance. Internal buyers succeed when the environment is dynamic, as do external buyers in a heterogeneous environment. However, they perform poorly in hostile environments.
This systematic literature review (1974–2024) analyzes 90 papers on workplace commitment in the public sector by French-speaking researchers, selected from an initial corpus of 382 studies. It pursues two objectives: (1) mapping the evolution and structure of francophone research on workplace commitment in public administrations; (2) identifying its conceptual and cultural specificities in comparison with dominant English-language models. The methodology combines thematic analysis, keyword co-occurrence, bibliographic coupling, and co-citation analysis. Findings reveal the dominance of the Allen and Meyer model and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), alongside limited attention to multi-target commitment. Although francophone studies emphasize relational, collective, and institutional dimensions, these remain marginal, highlighting underexplored opportunities for theoretical development.
This study examines the evolution of gender norms in family businesses through the transfer of Champagne houses to female winegrowers. Using an interpretive approach, it analyses the trajectories of two generations of women committed to preserving the family heritage while working in traditionally male-dominated occupations. The findings identify three factors that have contributed to the sector’s gradual opening to women: the determination of female winegrowers, the exemplary nature of certain female trajectories, and the development of women’s collectives. The study also shows that changing gender norms affect not only women’s access to family business succession, but also the way the transfer process itself unfolds.
What do helping practices truly stand for? At the very moment this special issue is being published, this question holds up a mirror to organizational practices that have become institutionalized across the organizational world, to the point of generating a certain uniformity, despite resting on fragile conceptual foundations. In doing so, it opens up a vast field of existential inquiry, inviting a careful examination of the stakes involved in practices of power. This article traces the ethical and political implications woven through the complexities of coaching and mentoring (C&M), in order to foreground the political dimension underlying what is often presented as mere technique.
Developed within a market-driven framework, the application of theoretical models of value co-creation to non-market environments poses a major challenge. This research proposes an integrated model tailored to this context, with a focus on international development projects. Qualitative data collected from twenty-six project stakeholders in Burkina Faso and Senegal, and analyzed using a conceptualizing categories approach, enabled the development of a model with four interdependent dimensions: essence, experience, systemic, and contextual. Unlike market-driven logic, value co-creation in international development projects is a human, subjective, and contextual process. This process is rooted in authentic relationships nourished by the perceptions and emotional engagement of the actors.
Because it concerns coaching and mentoring practices in companies, the concept of support benefits from being examined from a multidisciplinary but also intercultural perspective. From this perspective, the dialogue proposed by Sybille Persson with philosopher and sinologist François Jullien invites us to take an unprecedented shift away from European thinking in order to encounter the thought derived from Chinese tradition. This alternative way of thinking, which also dates back thousands of years, developed in complete indifference to the European civilization forged in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The dialogue therefore offers a “de-coincidental” reading of the concept of coaching, through its variations in terms of strategy, change, and situational potential.
This study examines how financial and operational leverage, along with the COVID-19 crisis, influenced corporate investment during crises. Using panel data from 776 firms listed on Brazil’s stock exchange (2010–2022) and fixed-effects regression models, we find that both leverage types and the pandemic significantly reduced investment levels. In contrast, firm growth and revenues positively affect investment decisions, while size and age also play important roles. The results indicate that highly leveraged firms with growth potential tend to reduce investments and rely more on operating revenues during crises. The study highlights the importance of cautious financial strategies for leveraged firms in emerging economies during pandemic shocks.
This article examines women’s leadership trajectories through the lens of the belonging paradox in leadership roles. Based on an inductive qualitative study conducted with two cohorts of women executives, it shows that although access to positions of power is increasingly encouraged, recognition of leadership often remains conditional and reversible. Five paradoxical configurations shape these trajectories: access, acceptance, expectations, visibility, and work–life balance. Together, they express the same enduring tension, making the legitimacy of women’s leadership difficult to stabilize over time. The article thus rereads the labyrinth of women’s trajectories as a dynamic of fragile recognition rather than a mere succession of obstacles, and highlights its effects on legitimacy, well-being, and professional identity across organizational settings and careers
This study examines how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) enable multinational enterprises (MNEs) to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on the under-researched SDG 14 (Life Below Water). Through a qualitative case study in the household goods industry using the Gioia methodology and elite informants, the research explores how NGOs act as catalysts for change. Applying a loose-coupling lens, findings reveal that maintaining structural independence fosters the adaptability and innovation needed to address complex environmental externalities. NGOs drive value chain transformations by bridging knowledge gaps, while top management support acts as a decisive moderator. These results advance international business and sustainable supply chain scholarship by providing a framework for achieving systemic sustainability through purposeful, loosely-coupled collaborations.
Drawing on the institution-based view of international business strategy, we investigate the influence of home country and global shock contexts on regional strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The empirical study is based on a longitudinal data set of 57 French and German MNEs (487 firm-year observations) and their geographic distribution of sales. Our findings confirm that home country institutions and global shocks have a significant impact on the regional orientation of MNEs. They also show that the occurrence of a global shock does not mitigate the effects of the home country institutional context on location choices. Our research provides novel insights into the regionalization-globalization debate, which receives particular attention due to the multiplication of global shock events.
Overtourism is an increasing problem in the world’s most popular museums, negatively impacting society and the environment while creating managerial difficulties and unpleasant visitor experiences. This research explains how museums can limit overtourism and improve visit quality using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Based on a multiple-case study of the Louvre, the Smithsonian, and the National Museum of China, the study shows that innovative AI-based devices help avoid space saturation through better flow control, spatiotemporal distribution, and personalized tours. However, high costs and organizational resistance to change often prevent their adoption in museums lacking sufficient financial and technological capacities. Consequently, while AI offers significant benefits for managing visitor flows and satisfaction, its implementation remains challenging for many institutions.
The merger between Air France and KLM, finalized in 2004 but whose integration model has continued to evolve over time, represents a complex example of organizational transformation involving distinct cultures. It illustrates the tensions, resistances, and developments inherent to such processes, particularly in contexts where structural and cultural differences come into play. Serge Moscovici’s theoretical approach—focused on minority influence, norms and counter-norms, and socio-cultural dynamics—provides a valuable framework for analyzing the mechanisms at work in this merger. Beyond demonstrating the relevance of this analytical framework, our research contributes to enriching the theory of minority influence by showing that it may also involve a shift or reappropriation of dominant norms, in addition to the proposal of counter-norms.
This study examines the form of trust that contributes to the management of coopetition in the pseudo-concentration and co-integration strategic alliances. It adopts a mixed-methods approach combining a quantitative survey of 32 Euro-Tunisian alliances with a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews conducted with nine alliance directors and managers. The findings indicate that calculative trust does not play a significant role in managing coopetition. By contrast, cognitive trust supports the management of coopetitive paradox in pseudo-concentration alliances, whereas affective trust facilitates the regulation of coopetitive duality within co-integration alliances.
The literature on crises helps to better understand how organizations anticipate, manage, and learn from them. However, various recent reviews highlight the fragmented nature of existing research. The literature on organizational routines (OR) offers potential insights to partially address these gaps while also enriching the analysis of the endogenous and exogenous dynamics of ORs in crisis contexts. However, it also faces similar limitations. This article proposes a dynamic and integrated model that connects these two bodies of literature with Weick’s work on sensemaking in crisis situations to enable a multi-level analysis at the Individual-Organization-Environment levels. This model is supported by the results of a qualitative study on COVID-19 crisis management in French hospitals.
Our study examines the impact of CSR committees on corporate social performance (CSP) and the moderating effect of capitalism models on this relationship. Using an international sample of 2,066 firm-year observations from 2011 to 2018 across 13 countries, the study employs a multi-theoretical approach combining neo-institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and resource dependence theory. CSP is measured using two approaches: process-based (Wood, 1991) and stakeholder-based (Clarkson, 1995). Our results show that CSR committees significantly improve CSP, with a more pronounced effect in coordinated market economies (CMEs) than in liberal market economies (LMEs). This study highlights the importance of institutional factors in the effectiveness of voluntary governance mechanisms and offers implications for regulators and actors in various national contexts.
This research advances the literature on tension by investigating how actors experience local-global tension and how this tension cascades from the macrolevel to the microlevel. Using a social constructivist approach and an individual discursive perspective, we examine a multinational corporation (MNC) in the tire manufacturing industry. We explore seven virtual communities of practice (VCPs) whose aim is to generate process innovation; and based on 34 interviews, we propose a model that highlights how macrolevel tension cascades into several tensions experienced by VCP participants at the microlevel. Moreover, we reveal how underlying ends–means tension is experienced at the mesolevel and how actors cope with it. We thereby show an interconnection among tensions that crosses organizational levels.
