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Published issues

Number 22

Marc Maurice, Is the ‘Societal Analysis’ Still Useful Today in a Globalised World? A Revised Approach after Twenty Five Years of Development, Criticism, and Discussions., p.1213-1239.

Abstract : After twenty-five years of practice and development of “Societal Analysis”, it is interesting to revisit it, not as an ancient monument but as a time situated approach, and today facing  new issues. What are the consequences of the “economic globalisation” but also of the renewal of interest in the “local” level, for an approach originally based on the Nation-State ? Do we have to think again about the “societal” as a borderless space where new productive systems are structuring themselves and new kind of actors are emerging through many intermediations ? Doing so the Societal Analysis could contribute, along with other approaches to the renewal of the social sciences and the recombining of their paradigms.

Florence Lefresne, Towards a New Segmentationist Approach., p.1241-1267.

Abstract : Towards a new segmentationist approach. The author discusses segmentationist theory in order to take into account the changes in the labour market and within corporate governance during the last twenty years. The old internal labour markets founded on the exchange of a high subordination of employee to employer for a high employment and social protection are about to disappear. It doesn’t mean that the external labour market is now the only type of regulation. The proposal here is to take into account the plural and sometimes unstable links between internal (or occupational) and external labour markets in a dynamic analysis. Considering individual trajectories, the paper underlines the flows between thedifferent segments of the labour market and the continuing displacement of frontiers between these segments. The integration of young people into the labour market gives an illustration of the changing rules of mobility and restructured internal labour markets.

Liêm Hoang-Ngoc, Macrofundations and Selection of Institutions in Modern Economic Systems., p.1269-1296.

Abstract : This paper tries first to define the macro-fondations of the institutions of capitalist and socialist systems as cases of the modern economy. Such an modern economy is considered as a monetary and wage-earner system. Secondly, the criteria of selection of the institutions is discussed in order to explain endogeneous changes and structural transformations. The criteria of organisational or transactional efficiency is minored. It doesn’t only characterized the capitalist systems. The thesis of a technical or organizational determinism is rejected. The hypothesis of a systemic relative non-determination is developped. It is justified by uncertainty (characterizing a monetary economy) and by the social confrontation (characterizing a wage-earner economy).

Vincent Wauquier, Françoise Larré, The indirect employment relations : a heuristic approach, p.1297-1314.

Abstract : During the last 20 years the management of employment has been transformed, in particular by the development of indirect employment relations.  These new relations have both a conceptual and practical interest, in that they are not subject to the traditional direct relationship between employer and employee.  Integrating an intermediary into this relationship has the effect of making relations more disperse, as different actors become responsible for various elements of the employment relationship.  This article focuses on those forms of employment organised by temporary agencies, internal contractors and groups of employers, with the aim of identifying the principal factors that structure the use of indirect employees.  The process is heuristic and is intended to provide some insights into interpreting current practices.

Caroline Lanciano-Morandat, Hiroatsu Nohara,  Societal Analysis on Labor Market of Scientists: International Perspectives, p.1315-1347.

Abstract :

Michel Lallement, Social Regulations of Time in France and in Sweden, p.1349-1367.

Abstract : This article takes for starting point the results of an empirical research devoted to the comparative analysis of the relationships between working time and way of life in France and Sweden. Two results are important to take into account:  the greatest mobilization of the French trade unionism in the negotiation and the strongest valorisation of the family, in Sweden, in order to benefit from non working time. In this contribution, we argue that the cultural theory is not relevant in order to explain these two facts. According to our point of view, an institutional approach is more likely interesting to use. We also explain the results our empirical research by the paradoxical alliance of institutional structures (types of industrial relations, place of the  family within the society) and of social changes (evolution of the  public action, emergence of a so-called  “post-modern” family).

Number 23

Héloïse Petit, Cambridge E.U. versus Cambridge G.B.Two segmentationnist approaches facing the 1980s turning point, p.1-26.

Abstract : This article critically looks over segmentationnist interpretations of changes in the labour market structure from the 1970s to the 1990s. Our analysis focused on institutionalist segmentationist theories as they were traditionally the most developed. We distinguished two strains, one grounded in Cambridge, U.K. the other in Cambridge U.S., which interpretation diverge in an interesting way. This will lead us to study the link between the definition of a theoretical framework and facts interpretation.

Gilles Allaire, Professional Cooperation and Qualification, and Accountability regimes, p.27-65.

Abstract : The farming profession, as other professions, is confronted with a crisis of confidence (food scares, environmental concerns…). This present professional crisis corresponds both with an external challenge expressed by the social and public demands and an internal trend of competencies change in front of a new context for innovation. From the case of farming, this paper aims to draw a general framework for the analysis of profession and professional mode of production. The point of departure is a definition of the modes of economic coordination that includes collective governance. Springing from scholar’s works on professions that use convention theory or competences-based approaches, a general model is framed. Conventions of cooperation allow the construction of collective knowledge and the regulation of collectives (communities). Conventions of qualification design the status of professional groups and professions. Professional qualification steams from shared core competences and from and accountability regime corresponding with the professional ethic and code of practices and the public regulation of profession. The professional crisis results from changes in the social forms, or conventions, of qualification and in the accountability régime.

Philippe Lemistre, Remuneration with the seniority and merit pay in France: topicality of the theory of the differed payment, p.67-88.

Abstract : Within the framework of the emergence of personnel economics,  the differed payment model is confronted with the evolution of human ressource management in France.  From the assumptions of the differed payment model we show, in particular, that the renunciation of the systematic wage increases with seniority in France is due to the demographic trends and the inefficiency of this mode of remuneration to encourage the employees to provide a high effort level .  In addition, it proves that the principle of the differed payment is more in adequacy with the current merit pay that with systematic remuneration with the seniority whereas this last assumption is usually retained.

Erwan Charles, Jean-Pierre Boude, The exploitation of a natural resource and quality enhancement policy : the  sea bass fisher in Brittany, p.89-112.

Abstract : The sustainable management of the natural resource, such as the marine resource, has undergone much research combining biological, economic and social concerns. It is not in the purpose of this paper to study the effectiveness of the various policies which aim at implementing  sustainable exploitation schemes. But, the authors focus on analysing the impact that a quality enhancement programme using labels can have first on fishermen’s incomes, but also on resource level resulting from the changed fishing effort and producer’s fishing strategies, mainly through the development of a new labour-leisure trade-offs. A common Hicksian consumer model underlies the analysis. So, the purpose is to provide an economic interpretation fishermen’s exploitation practices  describing the impact of adopting a collective label in terms of financial benefits, working time and resource preservation.

Georges Liagouras, On the flexibility of atypical self-employed and the rigidity of official statistical data. The case of Greece, p.113-145.

Abstract : The general point of this article is that the usual conception of flexibility is very problematic for countries like Greece, where the main bulk of flexible employment is found outside or, in the margins, of the wage-earners. The blurring boundaries between the statuses of the wage-earners and the self-employed workers is a typical example of flexibility that is usually ignored by the official statistical data. In order to illustrate this phenomenon, the article uses the notion of « travail parasubordonné », which has its origins in Italy (lavoro parasubordinato). The whole argument is presented in three parts. The first part is devoted to the discussion of the evolution, the advantages and the problems associated with the notion of « travail parasubordonné ». In the second part evidence is presented from a field research on the employment of Greek engineers. The main outcome of the empirical research is that this atypical form of employment is increasing among young graduates. Finally, the third part discusses the question of public policy. The point here is that the power relations between the two contracting parts make redundant policies that aim to transform the atypical self-employed to wage-earners.

Florence Jany-Catrice, Comparing employment systems in the hotel and catering industry in France and the United States, p.147-181.

Abstract : The aim of this paper is to understand the reasons for which the levels of employment in the hotel and catering industry are so high in the United States compared to France. Different economic factors (such as working time, consumption levels, productivity and service quality) are used to shed light on the differences in the volumes of work. But the responses given are still limited. Indeed nothing is said on the reasons why American workers accept very low wages in this particular sector, when compared to the French situation or even to the rest of the American economy. We therefore adopt a societal approach, and we show that different spaces (regulation, competition, organisation, social and family space) intervene in the explanation of the massive use of a very young labour force in the American hotel and catering industry.

Number 24

Bruno Lamotte, Bargaining in complex organizations : a problem of efficiency, p.1845-1875.

Abstract : The complexity of work was a subject of many studies for the theorists of value and exploitation. Nowadays, economic analysis focuses on other problems : complex organizations and problems brought by complexity are numerous in industry and services. We discuss here three of them : the organization of production and the question of skills, wages (how to account for the results of the workers ?) and the efficiency of the bargaining process in the case of complex organizations.

Ariane Ghirardello, For an affirmative economic analysis of discrimination, p.1877-1902.

Abstract : This article proposes to address the progress of the economic analysis of discrimination, based on the existence of tastes for discrimination or discriminatory beliefs, and its deficiencies thought the Arrow’s approach. Some theoretical extensions, able to explain why discrimination can be a persisting phenomenon, will then be outline. This development will draw up some political applications by justifying affirmative actions.

Nadine Thèvenot, The determining factors of work relationship – A qualitative analysis in the domestic waste sector, p.1903-1931.

Abstract : This paper deals with the many levels and interdependent factors which determine the work relationship in the domestic waste sector. Public policies, legal and technological change, strategy of firms and the present state of labor market help to explain firms behaviors. These behaviors are developed in a same context of objectives and constraints but there is a large place for differences in their implementation. The analysis relies on a qualitative survey made on private firms in the domestic waste sector.

Olivier Boissin, Pascale Trompette, The deregulation of the funeral market : an institutional innovation, p.1933-1960.

Abstract : This article analyses the problem of the transfer of the public monopoly to the competitive market on the sector of funeral services. It describes the creation of new rules for the government of the market, through the negotiations between State services and professionals. The main topic concerns the capacity of the professionals to built a collective and autonomous action. The issue is the regulation of the labor market as well as the services/product market.

Valérie Pueyo, Serge Volkoff, To understand that « a worker is variable » : age, schedules and work activity on a quality control workstation, p.1961-1991.

Abstract : This article deals with the variability of individuals in their working activity : variability linked to circadian fluctuations (depending on hours), and age-related processes (deficiencies on the one hand, building up experience on the other hand). Scientific results, out of physiological and psychological research, are synthetized here, and provide a framework for a case study, focusing on a quality control workstation in the steel industry.

Antoine Valeyre, The new forms of work intensification in manufacturing industries : technological, organizational and economic factors., p.1993-2027.

Abstract : This article deals with work intensification in manufacturing industry. It shows its extent over the last twenty years and analyses its new forms linked to technological and organizational changes. It examines the relationship between work intensification and the evolution of employment and the role played by the age structure of the workforce. It studies the contribution of work intensification to the increase in labor productivity and explores the relationships being established between forms of work intensification and profitability.

Number 25

Rachel Beaujolin-Bellet, Pascal Ughetto, Work and Employment Constructions in the Enterprise: Some Multidisciplinary Insights., p.595-599.

Alexandra Bidet, Four Measures of Telephone Calls: The Emergence of a Management Norm., p.601-623.

Abstract : Based on a systematic analysis of the review Annales des Postes Telegraphes Telephone from 1911 to 38, the paper gives a chronicle of how it has been sought to measure telephone calls and, more generally, provides elements for a socio-genesis of management norms of the French historical telecommunications operator. “Traffic” as a managerial category has arisen from a genesis composed of four measuring configurations: a “line economy”, a “connection-employee economy”, a “circuit economy”, and a “network economy”.

Sandrine Barrey, From Manufacturers Merchandising to Distributors Merchandising, or the Collective Creation of a Market Management Device., p.625-648.

Abstract : This paper shows the genesis of a market management device–the merchandising–which aims to favour the encounter between offer and demand through the bias of a controlled arrangement of products in the selling place. The paper describes the raising conditions of this device, as well as the evolutions of links between distributors and manufacturers around the control of its set. The author finally shows the processes through which the merchandising has finally stabilised itself around a definition commonly agreed between the multiples market professionals, all looking for new prospects for their activities.

Nathalie Raulet-Croset, Géraldine Schmidt, From the Individual Occupation to the Firm Specific Occupation., p.649-674.

Abstract : “Individual” occupation, “collective” occupation, “firm specific occupation”: these notions use the same terms, but refer to three different realities: the individual work, the collective organisation and the firm’s strategy aiming at creating wealth. In the new organisations, these three notions, which used to be clearly distinct, tend to be interrelated and deeply affect the individual occupations. Several examples are analysed in this paper, in the insurance sector and in the recreational activities, which show the progress of the firm specific occupation within individual occupations.

Gwenaëlle Rot, Knowledge Management and Economics of Knowledge Sharing: A Case Study in Petrochemical Industry., p.675-698.

Abstract : This paper present some results of a comparative case study dealing with European research centers specialized in the petro-chemicals industry. We intend to stress a specific issue which limits the use of the KM system: the way people deal with the responsibility involved in knowledge transfer. We would like to explain why the limited and selective nature of data transfer is a condition for sharing knowledge. It allows for reducing the uncertainty linked to the potential use of knowledge. Such results go against the idea that knowledge transfer can be made completely public and transparent.

Patrick Dieuaide, Cognitive Work and Knowledge Management in Conception Activities., p.699-723.

Abstract : The article analyses management knowledge policies of the firms. In this purpose, the concept of “cognitive work” has been developed to make explicit knowledge process within conception activities. An analysis about “cognitive tools” belonging to these policies is developed too. On this base, management knowledge policies are considered with a double meaning: as an intervention policy on the way of thinking and understanding; as a management policy of “action areas”.

Myriam Campinos-Dubernet, The Cognitive Impact of Quality Standards: Between Organization and Market., p.725-750.

Abstract : This article based on deep empirical work intends to show that the dynamics of learning developed on the process by the quality standards lies in a continuous adaptation of set rules and organization, whereas the effect from the market is quite uncertain. Progress in learning about the process requires to go beyond the limits of set rules as initially planned, and as signaled by the dysfunctionings. It also requires the transformation of the organization so as to correct coordination problems. Such transformations are vital to the dynamics of learning so to carry out the “explorations” March dubbed. However the transformation of the former roles as brought over triggers conflicts which might later block the dynamics initially set.

Delphine Mercier, Corinne Tanguy, Between Homogenisation through Norms and Differentiated Logic Actions: The Oranges Production in Argentina and Uruguay., p.751-774.

Abstract : The paper deals with citrus fruit’s production in the region of Cuenca de la Plata situated in the border between Uruguay and Argentina. Since the beginning of 90s, there has been an important evolution of competition’s context for firms in this region in particular because of the increasing role of European mass marketing, main customer and outlet for agricultural production. The pressure on prices, on competition, the requirements on consistency of quality and quantity are the same in Argentina and Uruguay and should tend to homogenise territories. We observe on contrary the permanence of different sub-systems and resistance to elimination of borders.

Pierre-Jean Benghozi, Sylvain Bureau, The Professionalization of New IT Occupations: The Case of France Telecom’s Intranet Webmasters., p.775-802.

Abstract : The developments of Information and Communication Technology are coupled with competencies that are transforming and occupations which are being redefined. The intranet webmasters’ case is symptomatic of such a phenomenon. This paper studies how, along with the evolution of technology, the webmaster population emerges and attempts to professionalize itself. This article is based on a monographic research regarding an industrial firm and on a comparison between the structures of the webmaster profession in France and the USA.

Marie-Christine Combes, Françoise Lozier, Labour and Skill Management, the Case of a Telecom R&D Center., p.803-825.

Abstract : Human resources management policies and tools structure research and development activities. They strongly influence researchers trajectories in organizations. We study the case of a telecommunication firm and show how human resources management policies and tools can structure its research and development activities, if they are appropriated, and do not stay “dogmatic inventions”, which is a risk in this R&D sector. We study the role of actors or objects in this appropriation.

Number 26

François Eymard-Duvernay, Labour Quality Conventions, and Unemployment, p.1381-1409.

Abstract : This paper intends to emphasize an often neglected aspect of the unemployment process: the role of work assessment related to goods assessment. Attention is focused on the structural unemployment, which is reflected in lasting inequalities connected to job access, and long term unemployment. We try to discover its causes in the ranking of different qualities of work, which are founded on quality conventions. Recommended policies focus on the reconstruction of legitimate agreement, especially about work evaluation, both in firms and on the market.

Claude Gamel, Didier Balsan, Josiane Véro, The Impact of Basic Income on the Propensity to Work: Theoretical Issues and Micro-econometric results, p.1411-1441.

Abstract : In France, there is much debate about “minimum social benefits”, and basic income is still perceived as too daring a proposal, in particular because it is believed to encourage idleness. How can we predict how individuals would use this unconditional income? As regards low wage earners, we look first at the uncertainties surrounding the economic theory as to the behavioural changes that this could induce. This is followed by an econometric study of answers given in 2000 by a panel of poorly qualified young adults who had recently become employed : this indicates that the payment of a monthly allowance of 2,000 FF (approximately 300 Euros) would not result in a massive withdrawal from work. Integration through employment means more than just receiving a wage, and disconnecting work from income rarely encourages individuals to experiment with other types of social integration.

Christophe Ramaux, Employment Is Not Unstable Any More: Explanation, and Consequences on Employment Regulation, p.1443-1470.

Abstract : Will employment instability be the employment pattern tomorrow? Many studies support this view which is first discussed on the basis of various statistical studies already carried out. A general trend of employment instability is not proved to be true by statistical data. These data show that different figures of mobility have been changed along with the development of lack of job security instead of voluntary quits. To explain these changes, we point out that the will of enterprises is more ambiguous than arguments on the employment instability do assert.

Laurent Taskin, Marie Schots, Temporal Flexibility, and the Employment Relationship, p.1471-1501.

Abstract : Nowadays, flexibility of work and employment constitutes a strategic management tool. This contribution aims at showing how far flexibility makes sense to individuals and groups, how flexibility practices are justified in discourses and perceived, and how the employment relationship finally faces deep changes. Based on two case studies, the authors underline temporal availability as the main stake of those practices, that contributes to the emergence of a new employment relationship, more individualized, personalized and informal, taking place in a reconfigured spatial and temporal framework.

Armelle Gorgeu, René Mathieu, Constraints Governing Action by Plant Management: Analysis of Human Resources Management in the Automobile Industry, p.1503-1530.

Abstract : The study carried out over the last fifteen years or so concerning methods of human resources management in factories within the automobile industry (car manufacturers and suppliers) highlights the spread of the same management practices. In fact, they are, however, different depending on the management of any given factory. Managers on the spot come under pressure from the central management of groups of car manufacturers and suppliers but do have some margin of autonomy. In this analysis of their constraints and their initiatives, theories are examined about domination and the role played by management.

Christine Erhel, Bruno Palier, Understanding the Dynamics of Social and Labour Market Policies Models in Europe: The Contribution of Douglass North, p.1531-1556.

Abstract : Analysing social and labour market policies in Europe is a complex matter: on the one hand, these policies follow divergent and path dependent trajectories; on the other hand, some innovating reforms have taken place. This paper applies a neo-institutionalist framework to the analysis of social and labour market policies dynamics. It focuses more precisely on path dependence theory (as developed in North, 1990), its mechanisms and main conclusions. Then it deals with some more general questions about institutional change theory. From an empirical point of view, this framework helps to get insights about national reforms in the 1990s, and about the new employment strategies coordination process which was launched at the Luxembourg summit (open method of coordination).

Number 27

Olivier Thèvenon, Welfare State Regimes and Family Convention: An Analysis of the Employment-Family Relationships, p.1137-1172.

Abstract : The international differences in the relationships between female labour market participation and family composition are embedded in a variety of welfare capitalism. In order to analyse these differences, this paper exhibits the different “compromises” on which family policy are grounded in different Welfare State Regimes, as stated by Esping-Andersen. The diversity of compromises imply different types of coordination between female labour market participation and family formation. Different types of complementarity between social, family-oriented and employment policies are contrasted, as well as different consequences on labour market gendered inequalities. The French case illustrates a specific midway between two patterns.

Emilie Lanciano, Reproduction Mechanisms of Entrepreneurship and Dynamics of Italian Industrial District, p.1173-1202.

Abstract : The purpose of this article is to understand the dynamics of Italian production systems composed of small and medium enterprises; in particular, we study the industrial district of Bassano del Grappa, characterised by a craft production process, and localised in the northeast of Italy. The results show that this district, thanks to competitiveness, resists to economic fluctuations. These competitive factors are not explained by technological determinants, but by its capacity to generate organisational and social mechanisms, which are necessary to the reproduction of local professional skills. The actual crisis of the Italian districts may be, in this perspective, interpreted as a crisis of the reproduction y system of skills and actors.

Pierre Coutioux, Institutions Dynamics and Local Justice Theories: Consequences for Public Policy Analysis., p.1203-1228.

Abstract : This article points out the contribution of local justice theories to institutions dynamics. As far as the debate concerning persistence of national welfare regime is concerned, we show that local justice theories build a middle range theory of institutional change, which articulates path dependence and radical innovation. Public policies are analysed as heuristic processes which involve an increasing consistency between institutional sectors. Two French case studies–the part time early retirement schemes and the negative income tax (prime pour l’emploi) implementations–are then analysed within this framework, respectively as gradual and innovative changes.

Christelle Havard, Brigitte Rorive, André Sobczak, Client, Employer and Worker: Cartography of a Complex Triangulation., p.1229-1258.

Abstract : Many studies in the fields of Law, Sociology and Management evoke a questioning of the bond of subordination between employer and workers. This transformation of subordination is often explained by the triangulation of the traditionally bilateral labour relation between employer and workers, due in large part to the intrusion of the client or their representatives in the organizational conditions of work, without necessarily distinguishing between the various types of clients, nor between the reality and the rhetoric of the role and the weight of the client. The objective of this article is to propose a classification of the triangular situations between employer, workers and client based on power concept and to analyse the impacts of client on work conditions and employment relations.

Laurence Lizé, Jean-François Lochet, From Hiring to Employment Relationship., p.1259-1277.

Abstract : How organized is the access to stable jobs for young unskilled operative workers in a major of the car manufacturing industry? The entry into the firm to integration process and the renewal of internal labour market are the main focuses of our analysis to understand the employment policy of such a multinational enterprise.

Number 28

Héloïse Petit, Introduction, p.891-896.

Samuel Rosenberg,  From segmentation to flexibility to segmentation amidst flexibility: the case of the United States, p.897-924.

Abstract : Labor market segmentation theory, particularly the dual labor market theory, received substantial attention from economists in the United States in the 1970s.  In the 1980s, interest waned due to theoretical and empirical problems within the analysis itself, and the labor market changes emerging from the “search for flexibility” on the part of employers and government policymakers.  Segmentation still remains amidst the, perhaps, more “flexible” labor markets of today.  The political economy of labor market segmentation is still a useful framework for studying crucial issues facing workers in the United States.

Mickael Piore, Sean Safford, Preliminary Thoughts on Identity and Segmentation in Primary Sector Labor Markets, p.925-940.

Abstract : This paper argues that a shift is occurring in the labor market structure leading to an increase in the use of social networks based on the criteria that were originally the locus of labor market segmentation in low income jobs: race, sex and ethnicity, but also age, disability and sexual orientation. It thus calls into question the presumption of the earlier literature on labor market segmentation that as one moved up the wage hierarchy, jobs were increasingly allocated through formal institutional structures on the basis of objective credentials, and that the adverse labor market outcomes of minority groups in low wage jobs were connected to excessive reliance upon social networks in the labor market.

Jill Rubery, Developing segmentation theory:  a thirty years perspective, p.941-964.

Abstract : Segmentation theories of the 1970s  made employing organisations the central agents in the shaping of labour market inequality. These theories can be critiqued for offering a very partial and static institutional analysis of labour markets that was also highly American centric.  To remedy these problems three developments were required:  to regard strategies by employers and workers as influenced not only by capital-labour conflicts but also by dynamics of inter-capitalist or inter-worker competition; to introduce supply-side segmentation, including gender, as a factor shaping the creation of  good and bad jobs; and to allow for  the impact of variations in national institutional arrangements on the strategies and practices of employers. In combining segmentation with societal analysis it remains vital to continue to see employers as active agents and not, as in current employment debates, to allow their influence in shaping the national and international employment landscape to remain hidden and unexplored.

David Marsden, Labour market segmentation in Britain: the decline of occupational labour markets and the spread of ‘entry tournaments’, p.965-998.

Abstract : This paper reviews the changing pattern of labour market segmentation in Britain since the mid-1970s. In the early 1980s, industrial labour markets in Britain, along with Germany, could be characterised as dominated by occupational labour markets for skilled workers compared with the predominance of firm internal labour markets in France and Italy. These provided for structured entry paths into the relevant occupations and jobs. Britain’s position in this picture has changed as a result of the decline of industrial employment and the institutions on which these occupational markets were built. The second part of the article searches for new models whose importance is increasing in Britain. It examines the spread of highly competitive conditions for entry into certain service sector activities, such as the media, and ‘knowledge intensive’ services where employment has been growing rapidly. The paper presents evidence that some of these sectors have come to be characterised by prolonged ‘entry tournaments’. These are driven by ease of entry at the bottom, growth of earnings at the top, and a struggle for access to the higher status, stable, positions within the occupation.

François Michon, What became of labour market Segmentation in France: its changing design, p.999-1026.

Abstract : A survey of thirty years of French literature suggests an assessment of the segmentationist perspective today: a compulsory theoretical reference as soon as one debates the varied nature of the employment relationship; and an old-fashioned reference that is now obscured by more general analyses either of social inequalities or of historical dynamics of productive systems. Reformulations of segmentationist models could  give them a better place today.

Bernard Gazier, Héloïse Petit, French Labour Market Segmentation and French Labour Market Policies since the Seventies: Connecting Changes, p.1027-1056.

Abstract : The article analyses how the changes in firm’s practices and public policies since the 1980s shaped the dynamics of labour market segmentation in France. First, considering firm’s human resources practices at the end of the 1990s, on the basis of statistical exploratory analysis, we were able to draw the contours of labour market structure as composed of an upper primary sector, a lower primary sector structured by renewed internal labour markets and a differentiated secondary sector. Second, the analysis of labour market policies puts high unemployment into the picture. Here, we show how public policies first aimed at preserving the 1970s pattern of internal labour markets but were subsequently focused on lowering labour cost and shortening the work-week. Regarding the labour market structure these policies finally yielded more differentiated segments rather than the promotion of transition to good jobs.

Burkart Lutz, Christoph Köhler Holle Grünert, Olaf Struck,   The German model of labour market segmentation – tendencies of change, p.1057-1088.

Abstract : In the first two decades after the Second World War a specific labour market structure emerged in the Federal Republic of Germany as integral part of “Rhenish Capitalism”. Basic elements were the hegemony of internal labour markets, a strong protection of wage labour against market forces and a far reaching “vocationalism” in the employment system. In the last two decades there is an increasing evidence of change: a growth of external and secondary markets, de-regulation and re-commodification, and a downgrade of the socio-economic space for vocational skills. East Germany plays the role of a testing field and forerunner. We interpret these tendencies as modifications of the German model rather than as fundamental change and expect path dependency for the future. The analyses demonstrate that segmentation concepts are still useful heuristic instruments and that a better understanding of external labour markets is crucial for research and policy development.

Number 29

Juliette Duveau,  The Role of the Compensation Systems in the Civil Servants Payroll Regulation, p.1839-1867.

Abstract : The compensation systems in civil service are a way to take the workers contributions into account. However, those bonus don’t differ much according to the nature or the amount of labour carried out by the servant. Then the bonus development can be explained through the lacks of the indexes’table which provides some difficulties to maintain the purchasing power of the civil servants and also encounters some difficulties to take the new work’s qualifications into account.

François-Xavier Devetter, Sandrine Rousseau, Does the Emergence of Companies on the Market of Paid Domestic Services Allow the Professionalization of the Workers?, p.1869-1893.

Abstract : The new public policies in favor of the development of the domestic services sector are increasingly based on the creation of private companies. For the government, these companies should support a professionalization of the sector. The term of professionalization can however have two very different meanings. It could be intended to the customers of these services or to the workers. We would like to show in this article that the workers’ professionalization runs up against very great difficulties in a competing and low skill sector.

Marilyne Dupont-Dobrynski, Family Policies, Familialism and Women’s Employment in Poland: A Transition without Transformation, p.1895-1923.

Abstract : The analysis of polish public policies patterns related to women’s employment is the main subject of this paper. From more than ten years, numerous studies emphasize the importance of family policies for women’s employment. In this context, the persistent European heterogeneity have triggered many analysis connected to the Welfare State regimes identification. The behaviour of the State in Poland is strongly familialistic, his model of intervention being very close to those observed in Southern Europe. The persistent institutional continuity between socialism and the present times puts forward the importance of history and his legacy as well as the strong resistance of the State to change.

Aline Valette, French and British Employment Systems: Evolutions between 1980 and 2001, p.1925-1957.

Abstract : The aim of this research is to study the modification of French and British employment system segmentation from years 1980’s to 2000’s. Based on a multiple correspondence analysis form national labour force surveys in 1982-83 and 2001, this work brings in light the evolution from a ternary structure of these systems to a fourfold division of their labour market with the appearance of a “stable secondary market”.

Cathel Kornig, Choosing Agency Work: Under Which Conditions?, p.1959-1977.

Abstract : Temporary work appeared in France in the 1950s and developed in an exponential manner. Temporary workers compound instability with relation to work, to career and to employer. However, 20% of temporary employees wish to remain in temporary employment. Why does this minority choose precariousness? The analysis of working and employment conditions of temporary employees highlights a differential management of interim employees. Two types coexist: mass intern employees and individualized interim employees. The interests of companies and professional temporary employees forge a particular employment relationship, which is co-constructed between agency and temper that in turn makes it possible to explain this choice.

Number 30

François Michon,  “Henri Bartoli, 1918-2008: In Memoriam“, p.1-2.

Emmanuelle Marchal, Géraldine Rieucau,  Ways of Intermediation and Selection: The Contrasts between Job Ads and Social Networks, p.3-26.

Abstract : This article analyses the specialization of hiring channels, which enable to recruit specific applicant profiles. The paper relies on the hypothesis that this specialization is not only produced by job search methods, but also by the type of selection associated to each channel. Two recruitment channels are examined, job advertisements and social networks, in two countries, France and Spain. Data from surveys show that in both countries, the profiles of individuals who find a job via these two channels are contrasted. Differences are attributed to the matching markers and to the evaluation processes relevant in both cases.

Florence Audier, Maya Bacache, Access and career of public servants: the specific case of prosecutors in France, p.27-54.

Abstract : The judiciary system offers a specific example of how careers evolve in the public sector in France. Magistrate can always choose between a career as a prosecutor or as a magistrate. This paper addresses the following issues: on the demand side, what variables do affect this choice, and on the supply side, is it efficient to restrict the choice to one specific career? In order to become a prosecutor rather than a magistrate: is there a specific skill to acquire, and to invest in? This issue is relevant in the French debate where prosecutors and magistrates are hired through the same school and the same rules of careers. We invest this issue through three different data sources. We find that there is no evidence of a specific skill but rather a choice, an exogenous preference linked to age or matrimonial status, or a preference revealed by experience. Thus we find no efficiency argument in favor of segmentation between prosecutors and magistrate.

Nicole Gadrey, Florence Jany-Catrice, Martine Pernod-Lemattre, Unskilled Employees: A Group Neglected by Gender Equality Policies., p.57-86.

Abstract : This paper goes back over the progressive and continuous increase of the “unskilled employees” observed in the French labor market. This analysis is undertaken through the relations between this category and equality policies: Who are the unskilled employees in France? How can the recent growth of this category be explained? What is the place devoted to this category in the recent French gender equality policies?

Thomas Couppié, Dominique Épiphane, Long term expansion of female schooling and recent changes in occupational gender segregation: is there a link?, p.87-121.

Abstract : This paper focuses on the evolution between 1996 and 2002 of the occupational segregation between men and women, measured by the Karmel and Maclachlan index. The analysis is based on a decomposition method that separates an occupational segregation component inherited from educational segregation from another component related to the labour market. The first objective is to appreciate the part of the decrease in occupational segregation that can be related to the expansion of diplomas in the labour force between the two years. The second objective is to differentiate what, in those evolutions, can be attributed to structural changes in the labour demand and supply, and what can be attributed to changes in the economic agents’ behaviours. Last, it shows the degree of variability of those changes depending on the type of occupation.

Annie Dussuet,  “Private” as gender inequality, p.123-143.

Abstract : The recent development of jobs marked by the notion of proximity, such as “personal services” promoted by the plan Borloo, is mainly aimed at women, by leaning implicitly on their supposed specific qualities. This gendered reference conceals precarious conditions of jobs and recreates, in wage labour, gender inequality, forcing women to adopt positions which lower them compared to men. The actual and future importance of these jobs requires wondering about the building of a public working space in close relationships.

Thierry Ribault, Time Use, Women Employment and Conventions in Sweden and Japan, p.145-175.

Abstract : Considering the comparative child convention in Japan and Sweden, and in spite of the Swedish gender equality context, it comes out that Swedish women have a relatively heavy domestic time burden which can explain their availability for jobs in the social service sector adapted to their time supply. Consequently, we can detect for both countries, two different mechanisms of social construction of working and non-working time, and we can identify the two gender inequality regimes to which they belong.

Number 31

Richard Sobel, Defining the work force, missing piece of the regulation theory?, p.1379-1411.

Abstract : In this article, we try to clarify the theoretical status of the work force in the regulation approaches. At first, we attempt to clarify the epistemological dimension of this issue by mobilizing contemporary debates of history of the economic thought. Secondly, we point out the existing difficulty in giving a positive theoretical status to the work force. We plead for an institutionalist theory of the wage nexus which links the tradition of the political economy to the socioeconomic perspective.

Jean Saglio, Wage careers in France: the pluralism of ruling, p.1413-1441.

Abstract : Studies about wage career norms are very few. Analysis of such norms are possible in France in public service status for civil servants and in most of industrial branch national collective agreements for employees in private firms. Such an analysis brings out some differencies between public services and private firms, and also according hierarchical levels. In the French case, assuming the uniformity of such norms is an inadequate hypothesis.

Abdrahmane Wane, Astou Diao Camara, Véronique Ancey, Nathalie Joly, Ndiobène Samba Kâ, Wage-Labour in the pastoral exploitations of the Senegalese Sahel (Ferlo), p.1443-1468.

Abstract : The organization of farm management in Ferlo opens with wage labour, confirming the monetisation of the Sahelian system of transhumance. Today, 25% of the pastoral exploitations of Ferlo resort to wage-labour for various reasons: needs for the production management in general and small ruminant in particular, social status of the stockbreeders and improvement of the living conditions. In return, the wage-labour improves the incomes of the encampments, attenuates the risks of conflicts, helps the employees to constitute their own livestock, and contributes to the durability of the way of life and the production of the pastoral societies. Individual choice at the beginning, the wage-labour leads to the collective protection of the exploitations, but does not erase social pattern of production. Therefore many differences remain between types.

Philippe Lemistre, Should the educational expansion be pursued?  The short and long term effects., p.1469-1501.

Abstract : This article attempts a synthesis of issues and debate related to the educational expansion in France. It examines the limits of projections to 2015 concerning the 50% of graduates goal, this against over education. Over education is the negative side of educational expansion in the short term. The long-term effects are considered as negative composition effect (devaluation of diplomas) and positive (endogenous growth, structuring productive systems, macro economic effects), the latter seem to outweigh the first. This perspective is supported on a theoretical level and placing it in the current debate between an analysis in terms of school inflation and innovation economy.

Armelle Gorgeu, René Mathieu, Female factory workers in the automobile industry: What are their recruitment and working conditions?, p.1503-1529.

Abstract : Women continue to reject factory jobs and today they only represent 20 % of factory workers in France. This article, based on a case study, rests on interviews carried out since the beginning of this century with factory managers, trade unions officials and both male and female factory workers in the automobile industry (car makers and suppliers). In this industry, tasks traditionally given to women have been, to a great extent, relocated in low wages countries.  Female workers now do jobs that are mixed or in the main done by men, but which are not very enhanced and often precarious.  Women accepted them or applied for them a a second best. All the female workers who were interviewed in 2006, whatever their age and professional path, have diseases linked to their working conditions.

Caroline Lanciano-Morandat, Hiroatsu Nohara, Robert Tchobanian, Call centres in France: mobilization and mobility of employees facing a hybrid system of work, p.1531-1564.

Abstract : The call center is increasingly becoming a strategic customer relationships organisation. This device aims at the same time to decrease production costs by industrialization of customer service and to improve the service quality. It produces a hybrid system of work, driven by the tension between quantity and quality production criteria. Based on data collected from 210 French call centers, this paper aims to test the relations between business contexts, choices of production model, HRM tools and working conditions. Indicators such as voluntary quit rates and of illness absenteeism are used to characterize the diversity of forms of employees’ mobilization and mobility.

Number 32

Rachel Beaujolin-Bellet, François Grim, How union activists cope with professional transition, p.1129-1156.

Abstract : The purpose of this paper is to analyze the professional transition of union activists having played a leading role in managing a conflict linked to a restructuring project entailing job losses and having lost their jobs. How do union activists face involuntary professional transition? How do these adjustment tactics and the resources used articulate? After formulating the theoretical framework in the first part, we will then offer a typology of professional transitions undergone by these union leaders, articulating bounce back management and the resources implemented.

Michèle Tallard, Catherine Vincent, Between expertise and partnership:  trade unions facing new forms of human resources management in the hospital, p.1157-1183.

Abstract : Within the context of budgetary rationalization in hospital care supply and the introduction of a management oriented policy, the provisional employment and skills management (GPEC, in French) has been introduced in the public hospital. Our purpose is to analyze how hospital staff, and especially unions and managers, can appropriate these tools. Trade rationale, that rules hospital functioning, seems to reduce union participation and to turn the GPEC into a more technocratic than joint approach. For example, beyond its different uses, the trade directory shows that unions positioning remains tricky, indeed evasive.

Isabelle Georges, From forms of labour to types of trade unionism. Three case studies (São Paulo, Brazil)., p.1185-1211.

Abstract : In the actual context of globalization and labour market transformations, this article discusses its implications on labour unionism and their forms of legitimacy in a Southern country such as Brazil. In a historic perspective, the analysis focuses on the sense of the activity of the activists for themselves and the potential of « professionalization » of this social, economic and political occupation, by questioning the relations between activists, trade union members and the public sector. The comparison of three sectors and figures of trade unionism – all from low-level, low-wage and more or less informal occupations, such as telemarketing, street sellers and domestic workers – allows to show their specificities, as well as to ask some more general questions about the sense of the actual transformations.

Bruno Lamotte, Emmanuelle Puissant, Segmented Labour Markets, and Job Insecurity: An Application to the French home support sector., p.1213-1239.

Abstract : The home support sector, considered as a potential pool of jobs by the public authorities, has a reputation for offering insecure and low qualified jobs. From a descriptive work grouping together social partners trying to reduce this job insecurity and from a monographic work on the sector, we have adopted a segmentationist approach to the job market and propose a dualistic reading of job insecurity in this specific business sector. After having shown the multidimensional aspect of job insecurity, we demonstrate why home-support jobs can be analyzed by the yardstick of secondary job markets. On this basis, we then analyze the variety of secondary-market types together with the stakes that access to an upper segment of the secondary market would represent in this sector. These stakes include a possible decrease in the number of job insecurity situations.

Ramon Alós,  Labour market segmentation and employment relations: new challenges for collective action, p.1241-1269.

Abstract : Changes in the organizational models and changes of management styles have sharpened the segmentation of the labour markets. Labour markets segmentation acquires increased consistency since it discriminates with regards to workers’ personal, family and social situations. Since it gives rise to different kind of interests, values and behaviours between labour segments, it helps us to explain why the individual relationships and the micro corporative action acquire a greater space in the social employment relations. Trade unions must confront with this panorama.

Number 33

Jacques Freyssinet, Responses of the Systems of Industrial Relations to the Economic Crisis: The Example of Six Western European Economics, p.1227-1264.

Abstract : The economic crisis offers an experience to compare responses of systems of industrial relations in Western Europe according to national specificities of the modes of production of the rules of the employment relationship. Three typical situations are distinguished. They enable to invalidate the hypothesis of a strict path dependency and prove the absence of a one best way response to the crisis. The persistence of the crisis creates an opportunity to implement changes in the rules of the employment relationship which were included for a long time in the social agenda.

Florence Lefresne, Catherine Sauviat, Social Models in the USA and in Four European Countries Facing the Crisis, p.1265-1300.

Abstract : A comparison of the impact of the crisis on the trajectories of social models in the United States and in four European countries –Denmark, Germany, France, Spain– leads us to a twofold diagnosis. First, significant changes, even breaking points, occurred within each national trajectory, under the pressure of norms of flexibility and the containment of public expenditure. A high degree of heterogeneity persists because of the way these norms are implementing and are supported by specific social compromises. Furthermore, the crisis revealed the absence of a “European social model”, clearly differing itself from the US social model.

Rachid Belkacem, Cathel Kornig, The Social Construction of Temporary Work: From Its Emergence in the USA to Its Institutionalization in France., p.1301-1327.

Abstract : The aim of this paper is the study of the historical development of temporary work. Temporary workers agencies (TWA) appear first at the beginning of the last century in the United States and in the United Kingdom. From the years 1940 on, their fast development carried by large companies of temporary work would be based first of all on the secretarial work needs. Introduced in France during the 1950s, its institutionalization (economic, social, and political recognition as a useful activity for the community) has been progressive.

Baptiste Françon, Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, Poverty Policies in the Economic Crisis: Changes and Continuity., p.1329-1357.

Abstract : This paper proposes an analysis of poverty development in Europe during the recent economic crisis considering policies that have been implemented to fight it. We focus on five countries namely France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK, each of them standing for a social protection model. The rising unemployment that comes along with the economic downturn increases the risk of poverty and challenges European models’ capacity to contain that risk. The joint analysis of pre-crisis situation and of measures implemented in immediate response to the crisis shows that social protection systems that were already at work before the crisis and their relative levels of generosity remain essential in the fight against poverty. Besides, the recent implementation of employment policies centred on “activation” – in spite of that they do not rely on the same principles in all countries – may have had perverse effects on poverty in the context of economic crisis because of their cost-containment goal.

Christine Erhel, Labour Market Policy in Europe: What Reactions Facing the Economic Crisis?, p.1359-1385.

Abstract : Before the crisis, labour market policies have undergone several years of reforms, focused on activation, work incentives, and flexicurity. Most European countries share the same trends, partly supported by the European Employment Strategy since 1997, even though important differences between national models remain. The economic downturn in 2007 has led to a very spectacular rise in unemployment in some countries, especially concentrated among low educated and young men. Facing this new context, the reactions of labour market policies seem ambiguous. On the one hand, institutional reforms and in work incentives still follow previous reform trends, especially the activation framework. On the other hand, a large number of countries also develop internal flexibility devices (including partial unemployment), and reinforce unemployment insurance or minimum income policies. These types of policies may have contributed to temper the direct impact of the crisis on labour market trends (especially in continental countries). They also lead to the reintroduction of some old debates (on working time sharing, on the minimum wage), especially in the new member states. Nevertheless, it seems that the turn towards restrictive budgetary policy in the first half of 2010 is compromising these trends, and even endangering last decade’s virtuous models, especially the Danish model.

Number 34

Franck Bailly, François-Xavier Devetter, François Horn,     Could job quality of personal services activity be improved? An analysis in terms of ‘worlds of production’, p.1101-1128.

Abstract : Russian enterprises’ reaction to the violent and long systemic recession of the 90s was based on intra-organizational adaptation aiming to avoid mass redundancies. Such a reaction is explained by management policies that attempted to keep necessary skills to face the output crisis and the obsolete state of the physical capital. Applying the conceptual framework developed by Boltanski and Thévenot to this Russian case leads to better understanding of common mental representations that sustained the internal adjustments.

Mireille Bruyère, Laurence Lizé, Employment contract and security of career path in the labour market, p.1129-1158.

Abstract : This article aims to study the role of the employment contract in the security of mobility in the labor market. More analysis assumes that the employment contract alter the efficiency of the labor market. In this analysis, the employment contract played a key role in security and in labor market dualism. Permanant contract, which was too stable, has the effect of delay on the temporary contracts the job insecurity. We examine the mobility on the labor market according to three criteria of security, we show that the employment contract does not play an important role in this security. Indeed, we observe a high portion of permanent employees familiar fragiles trajectories and temporary employees familiar secure trajectories. Finally, we point out other explanations for the security on labor market as the sector.

Rouslan Koumakhov, Russian enterprises facing systemic crisis: organizational compromises et principles of justification, p.1159-1182.

Abstract : Personal services are in the heart of employment policies for twenty years and namely since 2005. The main aim (creating jobs) have tended to emphasise job quantity at the expense of job quality which, despite the avowed efforts of employers and regulators, remains poor. The article analyses the series of mechanisms at work. While some of these mechanisms are the same as those at work in all personal services, others vary according to the activity in question. Care activities, for example, are caught up in a ‘vicious circle’, while those employed in domestic services are caught in a ‘precarity trap’. The fact that these two areas of activity belong to different ‘worlds of production’ means that the prospects for improving job quality are greater in one (care activities) than in the other.

Virgile Chassagnon, Power and intra- and inter-firms cooperation, p.1183-1210.

Abstract : The debate about the opportunity to work towards the emergence of a system of “flexicurity” is in fact structured around the opposition between two major options. The first one attempts to implement an “ideal” capitalism, made of individuals become independent by the possession of sufficient allocations in different “capitals”. The second one refers instead to a vision that can be advantageously compared to that of J.R. Commons when he imagined the ways to implement a “reasonable” capitalism.

Sylvie Morel, Securing of career paths, transitional labour markets and institutionalism, p.1211-1240.

Abstract : In this article, the objective is triple. Foremost, an original theoretical framework of power relationships, which take into account certain approaches to organization theory (notably the resource dependence-based view), is proposed. Second, it is argued that power represents the methodological key needed by economists to analyze the emergence of intra-firm cooperation and collective social identity in the employment relationship. Finally, the focus is on the analysis of inter-firm cooperation (subcontracting relationship) in order to describe the cohesive role of power in the genesis of the network-firm and to compare the internal and external governance structures of power relationships.

Christophe Lavialle, Flexicurity Projects: “Ideal” capitalism vs “reasonable” capitalism?, p.1241-1268.

Abstract : The securing of career paths, as conceived by the transitional labour markets approach, is not so much theorized, lacking a conceptual framework that could give it real theoretical substance. J. R. Commons’s institutionalist theory can overcome this problem. This paper presents a Commonsian theorization of the securing career paths inspired from a transactional analysis of the employment relationship.