Willing to turn a tremendous item of expenditure into a real organizational resource, organizations usually perceive their spaces as potential management tools, but from conceived spaces to lived ones, a noticeable gap is often to be found. This thesis aims at understanding what an organizational space can reveal about the ongoing management practices: what can we understand from the way space is organized, beyond official discourses? Our research is focused on a case: an international bank's headquarter, from its original architectural project document (written in 1989) to 2014, that is to say: six years of construction (as the towers were delivered in 1995) and nineteen years of spatial practice. This is particularly interesting for those towers were supposed to help implement a New Model Worker through a particular spatial setting, favorable to informal communication. From our collected data, we've been able to build up a fresh perspective - an analysis grid gathering space, place, and artefacts - to better understand organizational spaces.
This thesis presents new developments in the literature of non-negative affine interest rate models. The first chapter is devoted to the introduction of the main mathematical tools used in the following chapters. In particular, it presents the so-called affine processes which are extensively employed in no-arbitrage interest rate models. Chapter 2 provides a new filtering and estimation method for linear-quadratic state-space models. This technique is exploited in the 3rd chapter to estimate a positive asset pricing model on the term structure of Euro area interbank spreads. This allows us to decompose the interbank risk into a default risk and a liquidity risk components. Chapter 4 proposes a new recursive method for building general multivariate affine processes from their univariate counterparts. In particular, our method does not impose the conditional independence between the different vector elements. We apply this technique in Chapter 5 to produce multivariate non-negative affine processes where some components can stay at zero for several periods. This process is exploited to build a term structure model consistent with the zero lower bound features.
This thesis investigates pension reforms in developing countries, their ability to provide retirees with a decent income, and the issue of extending their coverage to the entire population, including informal workers. The first two chapters assess the transition from pay-as-you-go to fully funded or multipillar schemes. A case study based on macro-data and pension funds data from 7 Latin American countries show that such reforms had very low effect on coverage rates and labour formalization and did not succeed in protecting people from old-age poverty. The third chapter describes the Moroccan pension system and shows that the reform currently in discussion is not sufficient either to achieve this goal. The last two chapters are empirical studies based on Moroccan labour force survey and household survey data. The first one draws a complete panorama of the non-contributing share of the population and estimates the probability of informal employment depending on both individual and professional characteristics. The second one studies the economic lives of the elderly. Overall results confirm that the informal labour market is heterogeneous and that most informal jobs are involuntary, not a choice made by workers to avoid paying taxes and social security contributions. It also appears that households that include aged members are poorer, the intergenerational cohabitation is high and therefore, creating a solidarity pension will help alleviate poverty at a cost not exceeding 0.5% of GDP.
Income tax in the Republic of Guinea as inherited from the French fiscal regime is one of the most important elements of the Guinean fiscal structure. But paradoxically, this tax, with regard to the VAT, remains less profitable in terms of state budget revenues. Despite the huge fiscal potential, taking into account all revenues from commercial, industrial, handcraft, agricultural and professional activities undertaken by taxpayers, it is yet not judiciously exploited. Indeed, talking about income tax will lead to focus on the two basic dimensions of the notion: Private Income tax (IT) and companies income tax the contributive challenges of which truly characterizing the problem of this tax to be expressed in variety of complex realities of political, social, economical and environmental natures, varying from a country to another and from a community to another.The goal of this dissertation is to proceed to a relevant diagnosis finding in order to be able to retrace the causes and effects of the low contribution share of the income tax in the internal fiscal revenue and to propose efficient solution with a view to improving the profitability of said tax on companies profits, which will impact the performances of fiscal services, state budget, national economy as well as the fiscal system in the Republic of Guinea.
This thesis is an evaluation of the overall technical and economic mitigation potential in China agriculture and the conditions of putting a carbon price in this sector. The research scope is cropland emissions and particularly those related to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use. The thesis is articulated around the construction of a bottom-up marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) which offers a rational framework for combining biophysical and economic data to reflect mitigation costs. This tool allows the aggregation of the mitigation potential arising from the application of a subset of cost-effective measures above a notional baseline level. An analysis of Chinese climate policies reveals that agriculture is nearly absent in the current national mitigation strategy. We therefore intend to assess the technical, economic and political feasibility of integrating agriculture into domestic mitigation policies. In the first place, the emissions trends and calculation methods are assessed to determine a rigorous approach to build baseline scenarios from projected business-as-usual activities to 2020. Secondly, we identify nine cropland mitigation measures, evaluate their abatement rates and future applicability beyond the baseline scenario to conclude a total feasible technical mitigation potential. The translation to the economic potential is then made by comparing the implementation costs of different mitigation options relative to conventional farming practices. The MACC results show that agriculture provides significant mitigation potential to be able to offset about one-third of baseline emissions and realisation of one-third of the potential is cost-negative for farmers. We finally examine the conditions of using economic instruments to reduce emissions at the lowest cost for the agricultural sector. Given the institutional, behaviour and socials obstacles, we strongly suggest a reform in agriculture fertilizer subsidies to send a clear political signal from central planning. Scaling-up offset projects using carbon intensity as the standardized baseline is recommended and can prepare the grounds for a possible experimental emission trading programme in agriculture. In light with the top priority of safeguarding food security in China, cases studies on regional cereal production are carried out in all these steps, including the analysis of provincial greenhouse gas intensity of production, regional abatement potential related to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use as well as implementation cost disparities in certain regions.
Dans le cadre de l’internationalisation puis de la mondialisation de la sphere economique et financiere, les paradis fiscaux se sont developpes tout au long du XXe siecle. Emergent a l’abri de la cage de l’Etat-Nation, ce phenomene de deconnexion de la sphere residente de la sphere d’activite economique effective, a donne lieu a l’emergence de centres offshore, de maniere embryonnaire durant la premiere moitie du XXe siecle, puis a une echelle industrielle sur l’ensemble des secteurs de l’activite economique a partir des annees 1950. Les observateurs et les acteurs politiques des pays industrialises se sont progressivement saisi du sujet dans le cadre de l’apprehension des effets dommageables de la concurrence fiscale internationale. Les difficultes rencontrees dans la lutte engagee a differentes echelles contre ces territoires traduisent l’ambiguite des relations qu’entretiennent les grands pays industrialises avec la sphere offshore.
Cette these se propose d'analyser les effets des ruptures dans les trajectoires professionnelles sur l'etat de sante des individus en Europe. Nous considerons ici deux ruptures : l'une en debut de carriere -- l'entree sur le marche du travail dans une economie degradee -- et l'autre en fin de carriere -- le passage a la retraite. Entre ces deux periodes critiques, nous portons un interet specifique a l'impact sur la sante d'une rupture cette fois anticipee : la peur de perdre son emploi. Nos analyses empiriques combinent des donnees d'enquetes Europeennes et Britanniques. Afin de pallier les problemes d'endogeneite propres a toute analyse empirique du lien entre sante et trajectoire professionnelle, nous exercons des chocs exogenes sur la carriere des individus. Nous utilisons ainsi une experience naturelle (la crise petroliere de 1973) et les caracteristiques institutionnelles telles qu’elles sont definies dans la legislation de chaque pays Europeen (âges legaux de passage a la retraite, degres de protection de l’emploi, regles de scolarite obligatoire). Les resultats soulignent l'effet nefaste des ruptures au cours de la vie professionnelle sur la sante des individus, a la fois a court et a long terme.Notre projet se propose d’identifier un lien causal entre l'activite professionnelle des individus et leur categorie d'obesite via l’utilisation de techniques econometriques specifiques tenant compte de l'endogeneite et l'utilisation des donnees de la cohorte GAZEL (qui suit depuis 1989 20 000 volontaires employes chez EDF-GDF).
Cette these contribue en quatre chapitres a l’analyse et la mesure du risque systemique. Le premier chapitre discute la notion de risque systemique et detaille les enjeux methodologiques de sa modelisation. Le deuxieme chapitre propose un modele structurel de contagion en solvabilite. Ce modele d’equilibre permet de mesurer le risque de contagion en distinguant l’effet direct d’un choc de sa propagation. Dans le troisieme chapitre, nous fournissons un cadre de valorisation de la dette d’une institution integrant l’effet des interconnexions entre institutions. Nous calculons une prime de risque specifiquement liee aux interconnexions. Dans le quatrieme chapitre, nous modelisons les effets conjoints de chocs a l’actif et au passif d’une institution financiere. Nous adaptons les mesures usuelles de risque pour identifier les risques de marche, de financement et de liquidite de marche. Enfin, nous expliquons comment determiner la composition et le niveau des reserves reglementaires pour limiter le risque de defaut.
La gestion de l'eau peut etre un domaine complexe, incertain et conflictuel. Dans differentes regions du monde il se confronte a de nombreux problemes, tel que la disparite des interets lies a la ressource de l’eau, plusieurs decideurs, des reseaux administratives complexes, la distribution d'eau inefficace, divers evenements socio-politiques et le changement climatique. Par consequent, la prise de decision a lieu dans un systeme fortement interconnecte, dans lequel ni les ramifications decisionnels ni la complexite de ses impacts peuvent etre negliges. Dans la region des Pouilles, la rarete de l'eau est le principal probleme croissant qui touche les communautes humaines et plus qu’humaines.La penurie d'eau genere la necessite d'ameliorer les processus decisionnels collaboratifs avec agents multiples. Les chercheurs suggerent que la «tragedie des communs» pourrait etre evitee si une ressource partagee etait geree de maniere collective. Cela necessite le developpement d'outils dynamiques d’aide a la decision. Ceux-ci devraient etre capables d'integrer les differents cadres de problemes detenues par les decideurs, de clarifier les differences entre les cadres, de soutenir la creation d'un processus collaboratif pour la structuration d’un probleme et de fournir des plates-formes communes et des espaces d'interaction.A cet egard, nous avons construit un espace d'interaction dynamique (DIS), mettant en evidence les points critiques operatoires et permettant aux analystes d'identifier une definition commune du probleme. Les nouveaux defis de la collecte et de l'echange de connaissances et de la representation des concepts structures peuvent etre resolus par une approche combinee. Les systemes multi-agents joints aux systemes dynamiques pourraient fournir des alternatives non conventionnelles qui utilisent des composants physiques et sociales, avec une attention particuliere sur les comportements individuels et collectifs dans la gestion des ressources avec plusieurs decideurs.Dans notre etude de cas, le modele a ete utilise comme une plate-forme pour la modelisation des organisations multi-agents, afin de soutenir la prise de decision collective dans la gestion de l'eau. Le modele est capable de representer un systeme de gestion de l'eau distribuee complexe, ou les comportements simules sont basees sur des observations sur le terrain et sur la participation des parties prenantes. De plus, l'approche de systeme multi-agents permet l'interaction et la formalisation des comportements des usagers de l'eau dans le processus de gestion. Une modelisation type systemes dynamiques dans un environnement d'interaction entre agents de decision, nous permet d’integrer explicitement les differents cadres et de simuler les interactions lors de l'adoption d'une nouvelle politique. Le modele peut montrer comment la comprehension limitee de l'espace d'interaction affecte les actions suivies par chacun des decideurs et, enfin, comment elle pourrait conduire a des mecanismes de resistance systemique. En conclusion, le resultat est l’image la plus riche possible de la situation du probleme existant, qui traite de la gestion de l'eau d'irrigation dans les systemes agricoles.
This thesis deals with social inequalities in health-Related behaviours such as lifestyle risk factors for health (precisely, obesity and alcohol consumption) and the utilisation of health care services, in a number of OECD countries. This work relies on an applied micro-Economics approach, using several national health survey data. This thesis aims to (a) compare social inequalities in health-Related behaviours across countries with different settings; (b) shed light on the understanding of social disparities in health-Related behaviours; and (c) examine how self-Reporting may affect the rating of behavioural risk-Factors, and therefore affect the measurement of social inequalities.
This doctoral thesis examines Robert’s (1991) conceptualization of accountability in conflicting situations. In organizational contexts, individuals give account in two ways; at a distance, to show that their actions are aligned with the main goals of the company – hierarchical accountability -; in face-to-face situations, to provide explanations to people they meet - social accountability. First I study how accountability takes shape when an individual faces two antagonist demands for accountabilities towards the same act. Interviews were conducted with employees from CSR departments, whose mission is about providing an answer to social demands in the name of the company, while staying aligned with business principles. With the help of Foucaldian concepts of “Ethics” and “Moral” (1991), I show that employees interpret those two demands within their own norms and provide an answer that satisfies themselves first. This specific answer is rejected. Accountability is interrupted. In order to re-establish accountability, a community is created around that specific answer, gathering employees from various companies. This community provides a space to give accounts and confirms CSR managers are acting appropriately.Second, analysing ethnographic material, I try to understand how accountability takes shape when certain employees oppose the mission of their colleagues. Precisely, the discussion takes place regarding a product, which has been developed especially for poor rural populations, who are assimilated into the “underdeveloped world” and with which the Malian elite would not be associated. First, with the help of Said (1978) and Fanon’s (1952) work, I explain the reason for that class conflict through the dichotomy between “North and South”. This dichotomy has been translated south to “local elite / rural population”. Second, I show that to overcome difficulties, employees develop alternative forms of accountabilities toward villagers and toward themselves. The second form aims to develop mutual support but also reinstate accountability toward hierarchy by using their personal positions and degree of power in order to take a coordination action.Overall, this doctoral thesis shows that hierarchical accountability can be momentarily interrupted and later can be restored by the development of alternative types of social accountability.
This PhD dissertation examines how management accountants construct their professional identity in organization. To answer this question, we have built a conceptual framework based on the sociological french work of Dubar and based on identity regulation as organizational control. The construction of identity is the result of two transactions : a biographical transaction (individualchanges himself) and a relational transaction (individual attempts to change others’ eyes). We focused our attention on management accountants of a french organisation : Saint-Gobain. Our results lead us to discuss about the financialisation of organisations. Moreover, we offer a new vision of who business partners are.
After generics, which are of chemical medicines, copies of already patented biologics (biosimilars) are entering the biologics market and competing with their originators. Many uncertainties remain regarding the development of this newly emerging market, and the ability of biosimilars to compete with other innovative biologics. As in the case of generics, the objective with biosimilars is to ensure optimal and equitable patient access to treatment as effective and safe to use as their originators, but at significantly lower costs. Following the analysis of the first experiences with these products in the European Union and Japan, we have noted the limits of existing policies to encourage their use as well as noting pitfalls in the development of this market. To remedy these problems, we make recommendations for the construction of an ambitious and coherent policy for biosimilars in France.
As only very few studies have investigated how intellectual (and hence mainly digital) work affects our embodiment, my case, a dance intervention in a bank involving employees, was a good way to study bodies in action. During their work with the artist, employees were standing on the boundary between work and leisure, hesitating between professional and personal embodiment. Observations, interviews and an analysis of their gestures relying on various visual data give a complete description of their embodiment process in this specific moment. On the one hand, bodies remain very constrained, distant and closed, but on the other hand, some employees open up to play, displaying rare and sometimes risky gestures. My findings suggest that the body’s boundaries are much more unstable than we think and that artistic experimentation is one way to understand what a body can do at work. Embodied play is not only an individual experience; it also has the potential to criticize dominating bodily norms existing in an organisation. Alternative embodiments thus propose a way out of organisation.
Marketing has been criticized for its lack of accountability, which is qualified by a misalignment with strategic objectives. Most of the researches propose that marketing accountability must be reinforced with more performance measures. In this doctoral thesis, we employ a different approach in treating the marketer as unit of analysis. We identify a marketers’ professional identity and make a distinction between two types of felt accountability: an accountability felt in a decision-Making situation (ASR) and an accountability felt within an organization (AOR). ASR is positively influenced by self-Determination that is a component of marketers’ professional identity, where self-Determination reduces conformity. In making marketers accountable, we show that that they seek to make the best decision according to marketing objectives even if they are conflicting with strategic objectives. In studying managers’ behavior, we show that role ambiguity, which is consistent with marketing practice, reduces AOR. Organizational cultures that promote accountability increase the likelihood of role conflicts detrimental to performance. However, the likelihood of role conflict is moderated by organizational cultures provided they encourage collaboration and initiatives. This type of culture is consistent with marketers’ professional identity therefore contributing to performance. Finally, we propose an accountability model tailored to marketing practice within the organization.
Brand management systems (BMSs) are of prime importance to monitor an effective brand management and enhance firms’ performance. The lack of research about brand management practices makes the evaluation of their impact on performance difficult to assess. In order to fill this gap, this doctoral research tries to: (1) identify the BMS’s main practices and components; (2) define a BMS scale; (3) test the BMS mediating role in the relationship between market orientation and brand performance; (4) determine to what extent brand management systems contributes to brand performance, measured at subjective and objective levels, globally and in five sectors; (5) study the moderating effects of firms’ and sectors’ characteristics. The research was carried out with a sample of 359 managers. The results demonstrate the mediating effect of BMS on subjective brand performance to objective financial performance. Multigroup analyses show moderating effects which influence BMS and market orientation valuation, which provides relevant information for top managers’ decision making.
This thesis has set a comprehensive framework to assess the relevance of financial stress tests, identifying their main drawbacks. Three robust and flexible model frameworks have been proposed to improve current practices in each of the tests’ stages. This is achieved through: (i) a semi-parametric EVT–Pair-copulas model for financial risk factors, with a specific focus on extreme values, (ii) a valuation model to assess the impact of risk factors on a financial system, through direct and indirect effects, contagion channels, and considering private and public response functions, and (iii) a Bayesian-based approach to run a systematic selection of stress scenarios for nonlinear portfolios. The presented risk model has proven to outperform commonly used specifications, hence increasing the test’s credibility. Estimated for the French banking system, the valuation model revealed the related risk profile and the main vulnerabilities. Public responses turned to be of vital interest. Finally, the Bayesian approach allows replacing the traditional subjective scenarios and including the tests’ results in quantitative risk management alongside with other conventional tools
According to economic research, the general practitioner is considered as an agent that offered information and intellectual services in health to principals. Imperfect convergence between their objectives, like the presence of uncertainties and information asymmetries, lead the physician “to fix” the quantities, the effort and the quality of the care and services delivered. Based on three articles, this thesis aims at identifying the role of the characteristics of the general practitioners and of their practice organization, on activity performance. The first articles analyzes the determinants of the antibiotic prescription for acute rhinopharyngitis variability, the second evaluates the impact of team working with nurses on the quality and the efficiency of the care for diabetic patients, and the third evaluates the impact of multi-professional group practices on the activity and the productive efficiency of GPs and on the utilization of ambulatory health care and by their patients. These researches question the relative weakness of the ambulatory health care regulation in France in terms of health care expenditure containment policies in comparison with that bearing on demand.
Social responsibility standards voluntarily set by a company create obligations both in respect of their issuers and their receptors. Law operates a double movement of legalization (they shall become binding for employees) and control (this binding nature is to exist only if it satisfies the justification and proportionality criteria) to standards that create new constraints for employees. The employer may, espacially by means of a code of conduct, restrict the exercise of freedom of its employees provided that such limitation is justified by the interest of the company and proportionate to the aim pursued. In addition, under the influence of a renovated corporate governance, social interest is now open to the interests of stakeholders. This changes the responsibilities of executives and forces them to set up and report on their corporate social responsibility policies. Once acquired the idea that a company has to integrate social responsibility into its business, the question of the legal nature of the measures implemented comes into play. One may distinguish on the one hand unilateral initiatives of the company, usually by means of a code of conduct and, on the other hand, concerted initiatives taking the form of international framework agreements. Both of these CSR instruments are relatively foreign to lawyers. After comparing codes of conduct and unilateral commitments, I attempted to legally qualify international framework agreements through a contractual perspective. From these analyzes, it appears that commitments entered into by a company, whether unilaterally or adopted after consultation, generate binding obligations. Standards of corporate social responsibility are subject to a process of legalization and individuals can now usefully use them as part of a trial to assert their claims.
Our aim in this thesis is to propose efficient algorithms for solving difficult combinatorial optimization problems. Our algorithms are based on a generic method of ordered enumeration. Initially, we describe the principle of ordered enumeration which consists in generating in a specific order solutions of a relaxed problem associated to the difficult main problem, until meeting a proof of the optimality of a feasible solution. We construct a generic procedure in the general context of combinatorial optimization problems. In a second step we discuss applications of our algorithm on some difficult problems which admit the assignment problem as relaxation. The first special case we study is the search for a compromise solution to the multiobjective assignment problem. The second application is the asymmetric travelling salesman problem, which contains sub-tour constraints in addition to the constraints of the assignment problem.
