Year
2016
Abstract
Two organizational paradigms have emerged and are historically competing: the organization as an information processor, coherent with the identification of management as a control function, and organization as a system of collective action, coherent with the Identification of management as a heuristic support function: the methodological support of the reflexive inquiries conducted by operational teams on their own activity. The concept of rational representation, representation of action (Taylorism) or representation of thought about action (cognitivism, Herbert Simon) is at the heart of the first paradigm. At the heart of the second paradigm is the concept of inquiry, stemming from the pragmatist philosophy and developed in the business world by the Quality management movement. It emphasizes two methodological rules: any organizational improvement is experimental and there is no substitute for the direct experience of activity (“learning by doing”). These two rules are intended to take into account the complexity of situated action, which cognitivist representations tend to underestimate.
LORINO, P. (2016). Préface : Le management et l’action complexe : contrôler ou explorer? Dans: De la complexité de l’action dans les organisations. 1st ed. Growth Publisher.