Socio-Economic Approach to Management: Science-Based Consulting for Sustainability [1st ed. 2024] 3031438744, 9783031438745

Table of contents :
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1: Introduction
2: Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM
Hyper-Financial Capitalism Versus Entrepreneurial Capitalism
To Avoid Quackery in Management, a Method of Rigorous Observation of These Effects on Human Potential Is Necessary
Traditional Accounting Is a Relevant Tool for Financial Capitalism. Not for Measuring the Effects of Sustainable Management on Human Potential
A Poor Quality of Management Is a Source of Chronic Social Dissatisfaction and Colossal Loss of Economic Value-Added
Human Potential: The Sole Active Factor in Value Creation
The Taylorian Paradigm of Subordination Is Questioned by SEAM
The Discriminating Value-Added of Intangible Investments in Management Quality
The Citizen-Producer-Consumer of Socio-Economic Values
The Five Natural and Recurrent Characteristics of the Human Being at Work, Observed in Many Situations of Change
An Essential Component of Change Management: Interactive Pedagogy
A Chronic Exogenous Source of Hidden Costs: The Phenomenon of Tetranormalization
The Four Main Domains of Normative Intensity of Tetranormalization
The Assumptions of Tetranormalization to Better Manage Standards and Norms
The Harmful Effects of Normative Inflation for Managers and How to Reduce Them
SEAM: An Incarnation of SRC in Management Based on the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory
The Meaning of History in an Organization, If It Is Managed Badly, It’s Entropy
The Hidden Costs and Performances Method
A Dysfunctions Evaluation Model
Measuring the Quality of Corporate Management and Operations
A Key Metric of the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory: The Hourly Contribution to Value-Added on Variable Costs (HCVAVC)
Learning Curve and Effectiveness of Intangible Investment
Qualimetrics, or the Problem of Measurement in Space and Time
3: The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably
The Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) Process of SEAM
The Objectives of the Political and Strategical Decision Axis
Guiding Principle of the Horivert Process
Promoting the Internal Dissemination of the Intervention
Details of the Horizontal Action
Details of the Vertical Action
Horizontal and Vertical Actions Are Carefully Synchronized
Why Maintain Vertical Action in the Horivert Process?
Four Huge Effects of the Horivert Process
Addressing the Action Domain of “Strategic Implementation” from the Very Beginning of the Process
Greater Commitment on the Part of Executive Management
Faster Dissemination of Socio-Economic Practice and Philosophy
Management Taking Charge of Innovation Actions
More Rapid Intervention Rhythms
The Six SEAM Management Tools
Time Management Tool
Competency Grid
Internal and External Strategic Action Plan (IESAP) and Priority Action Plan (PAP)
The IESAP Tool
The Construction of a PAP
Strategic Piloting Logbook
Periodically Negotiable Activity Contract
A Sustainable Incentive for Staff
A Tool That Requires Confidence
The Principles of PNAC Tool
The SEAM Improvement Process Axis
General Overview of the SEAM Improvement Process Axis
Specific Comments on SEAM Improvement Process Axis
Points to Watch Out for When Carrying Out the Socio-Economic Diagnosis
Qualitative Results of the Socio-Economic Diagnosis
Quantitative and Financial Results of the Socio-Economic Diagnosis
Points to Watch Out for When Carrying Out the Focus-Group Phase
Points to Watch Out for When Implementing Improvement Solutions and Evaluating Them
Three Main Difficulties to Overcome During the Implementation of the Solutions
Participative Aspect of the Improvement Process Axis to Create Sustainable Performance
4: Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM
SEAM: A Scientific Process to Produce Knowledge on CSR
Importance of Scientific Observation for SEAM Intervention-Research
How Do SEAM Intervener-Researchers Create Databases?
Three Pillars of the Epistemology of Socio-Economic Intervention-Research
Representation of the Objects Studied and Construction of Knowledge: Contributions of Qualimetrics
The Quality of the Relationship Between SEAM Researcher and the Scientific Observation Field
Analogy Between Intervention-Research in Management Consulting Sciences and Research in Medical Sciences
Longevity Is a Common Thread
The Validation of the Knowledge Developed Through SEAM Is Done by Experimentation Then Replication
Replicating Applied Research Leads to Fundamental Research
Negotiating a Scientific Consulting Process Through SEAM
Convergences and Specificities Between Consulting and Intervention-Research
SEAM Intervention-Research Is Scientific Consulting
The Epistemology of SEAM Intervention-Research Is Integrated Within Its Consulting Processes
Towards a Structured and Rigorous Method of Selling Intervention-Research
Sell and Get Paid to Be Respected by the Client
The Three Stages of the Sales Process for SEAM Intervention-Research
First Stage
Second Stage
Third Stage
How to Determine the Fair Price of Intervention-Research?
Selling the Price of Intervention-Research
When Refusing to Sell Intervention-Research?
The Importance of an Account of Signature
The Sale of the Research-Intervention Continues During Its Realization
The Intervention-Research Agreement: A Tool for Steering the SEAM Intervention
The Search for “Accomplices” During the Intervention to Secure It
SEAM: A Strong Contribution to Evidence-Based Management
Two Sources at the Level of Organizational Sciences: Action-Research and Socio-Technical Approach
The Reference Paradigm of SEAM Intervention-Research: Evidence-Based Management
The Epistemological Principles of Intervention-Research Are Integrated into Its Consulting Tools
Why SEAM Is of High Interest to Management Consulting Researchers?
Enhancing the Balanced Scorecard Concept
Employee Empowerment
The Postmodern Aspects of SEAM
Change Management and Strategic Adaptation
Methodological
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Socio-Economic Approach to Management Science-Based Consulting for Sustainability Laurent Cappelletti Henri Savall Véronique Zardet

Socio-Economic Approach to Management

Laurent Cappelletti • Henri Savall Véronique Zardet

Socio-Economic Approach to Management Science-­Based Consulting for Sustainability

Laurent Cappelletti CNAM LIRSA Paris, France

Henri Savall CNAM LIRSA Paris, France

Véronique Zardet ISEOR IAE Lyon Écully, France

ISBN 978-3-031-43874-5    ISBN 978-3-031-43875-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

1 I ntroduction  1 2 Socially  Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM  5 Hyper-Financial Capitalism Versus Entrepreneurial Capitalism    7 Human Potential: The Sole Active Factor in Value Creation   14 The Citizen-Producer-Consumer of Socio-Economic Values   19 SEAM: An Incarnation of SRC in Management Based on the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory   29 3 The  Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 43 The Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) Process of SEAM   46 The Six SEAM Management Tools   61 The SEAM Improvement Process Axis   78

v

vi Contents

4 Carrying  Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 97 SEAM: A Scientific Process to Produce Knowledge on CSR   99 Negotiating a Scientific Consulting Process Through SEAM  114 SEAM: A Strong Contribution to Evidence-Based Management 128 B  ibliography141 I ndex147

About the Authors

Laurent  Cappelletti  is a graduate of EDHEC Business School and holds a PhD in management sciences from the University of Lyon. Starting his career as a financial auditor for KPMG, he is Chair Professor of Accounting and Management Control at the French Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (CNAM University of Paris), of which he is general secretary of the Assembly of Chairs. He is also a researcher at the LIRSA laboratory, director of intervention-research programs at ISEOR, expert for the think tank Institut Sapiens and deputy mayor of Mauguio-Carnon (France) for trade and digital development. Over the last 20 years, he has made 270 publications dedicated to management consulting and control of companies and organizations of all sizes and sectors, including four articles awarded by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management (USA) and five books labeled by the French Foundation for Business Learning and Education (FNEGE). His latest co-­edited book “Crise de la connaissance et connaissance de la crise” was published in 2022 (Edition EMS). His latest report “Economic dynamics and sustainable reindustrialization of French territories” was made for the High Commission for Planning of the French Government in 2022. Henri Savall  is Professor Emeritus at Jean Moulin University. In 1975, he created ISEOR, of which he is now President, www.iseor.com. After obtaining a PhD in economics in 1973, he decided to focus his research vii

viii 

About the Authors

on management sciences. His complementary doctoral dissertation in management sciences in 1974 marked the beginning of his work on socio-economic theory: Enrichir le travail humain; l’évaluation économique (Enriching human work, economic evaluation), published one year later by Dunod, then in the USA and Spain. For the past 53 years, his research has focused on socio-economic theory and the theory of hidden costs and performance in companies, organizations and territories. His research focuses on strategic management, sustainable improvement of economic and social performance in companies, public organizations, and non-for profit organizations, as well as qualimetric (qualitative, quantitative, and financial) intervention-research methodology. Author of 33 books in French, English, and Spanish and 312 articles, he has coordinated 46 collective works and directed more than 90 doctoral theses and Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA). In 2001, he received, jointly with Véronique Zardet, the Rossi Prize from the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (Institut de France, Paris) for their work on the integration of social variables in corporate strategies. Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, he was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor) in 2017. His latest book “SEAM Treatise: Theory and Practices” (1002 pages) co-edited with Véronique Zardet, was published in French (2021), English and Spanish (2023). Véronique  Zardet  is Professor of Management at iaelyon, Université Jean Moulin (France), where she is responsible for the EUGINOV center (university school of innovative management) and the master’s degree in socio-economic management. She directs ISEOR, alongside Henri Savall, founding president. Since 2012, she has chaired the academic association ADERSE, which promotes teaching and research in corporate social responsibility. Within ISEOR, she conducts socio-economic intervention-researches in companies of all sectors and health organizations. She has directed 53 doctoral theses in management sciences and “Doctorate in Business Administration” (DBA), published 25 books and more than 280 articles and communications. Her last article was published in 2019 in the Revue Française de Gestion: Valorisation de la recherche par l’expérimentation en entreprise. Case of the socio-economic management model (Savall, Zardet, Bonnet & Cappelletti). Together with Henri

  About the Authors 

ix

Savall, she was awarded the Rossi Prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (Institut de France) for their work on the integration of social variables in corporate strategies. Her latest book “SEAM Treatise: Theory and Practices” (1002 pages) co-edited with Henri Savall, was published in French (2021), English and Spanish (2023) (www. iseor.com).

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 The three axes of SEAM consulting model Fig. 3.2 Training-job adjustment schema Fig. 3.3 Abstract of a competency grid: a team of consultants in a consulting and training firm Fig. 4.1 The creation of scientific-based knowledge to sustainability Fig. 4.2 Matrix of a OMSP tool

44 65 67 98 121

xi

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Main principles of socio-economic theory Table 2.2 Costs of absenteeism within a technical department of a large transportation company in Belgium Table 2.3 Hidden costs in a hospitality and catering school Table 2.4 Measurement of the creation of organizational value in a law firm Table 2.5 Actions contributing to the creation of organizational value in a law firm Table 3.1 Example of priority objectives and indicators toward priority actions (case of an insurance agency) Table 3.2 Extract from socio-economic diagnosis carried out in an accounting firm Table 3.3 Extract from socio-economic diagnosis carried out in an industrial company manufacturing corrugated cardboard Table 3.4 Hidden costs general calculation model Table 3.5 HCVACV of an accounting firm Table 3.6 Abstracts from calculations of hidden costs in an accounting firm

12 18 35 36 37 74 82 84 86 87 89

xiii

1 Introduction

Abstract  It is the first time that a summary work on the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) is published, focused on its three dimensions—theoretical, scientific and applied—and their articulation which make it a unique model of scientific-based consulting process for sustainability. Since 1974, teams from ISEOR—University of Lyon, CNAM University of Paris, EADA Business School in Barcelona and Benedictine University in Lisle (USA), have been involved within 2200 companies and organizations of varying sizes, sectors and countries to foster their sustainable performances. Based on the results of these 2200 interventions-researches, the scientific-based consulting framework presented in the book is of huge interest either for academics as well as students and researchers and/or reflexive consultants and practitioners. Keywords  SEAM • Scientific-based consulting • Sustainability • Intervention-research This book should be of great interest for its readers because it is the first time that a summary work on the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) has been published, focused on its three

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2_1

1

2 

L. Cappelletti et al.

dimensions—theoretical, scientific and applied—and their articulation which make it a unique model of science-based consulting process for sustainability. The program of socio-economic research-interventions to observe in a rigorous and longitudinal way the reality of human work and the means of enriching it to develop the social and economic performance of organizations, started in France in 1974 on the initiative of Professor Henri Savall with his teams from the Institute of socio-economics of companies and organizations (ISEOR, Lyon-Ecully, France) which he founded the same year. This on the advice of Jacques Delors, who at this time inspired the policy of the New Society of French Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-­ Delmas and who prefaced Savall’s book Work and People. An Evaluation of Job Enrichment (Savall, 1974, 1979) at the origin of SEAM. Jacques Delors was then Minister of the Economy in France and then President of the European Commission. Since 1974, teams from ISEOR, the management research laboratory partner of the IAE of University Lyon 3, CNAM University of Paris, EADA Business School in Barcelona and Benedictine University in Lisle (USA), have been involved within 2200 companies and organizations of varying sizes (staff from 2 to 20,000 employees), in 48 countries on 4 continents and 72 different sectors of activity; for example, large companies (Brioche Pasquier, Manpower, Hypermarkets Leclerc, etc.), public organizations (Lyon Hospital, French social security, Amiens Town Hall, etc.), SMEs in industry and services (regulated professions such as notaries, architects, chartered accountants; Paul Bocuse Institute, etc.), small local businesses (primeurs, beauty salons, pharmacies, etc.). The results of this intervention-researches have been feeding the laboratory’s empirical database called SEGESE for 50 years, which, to our knowledge, is probably one of the richest in the world for data of this type on human work. The results are the subject of frequent publications, both scientific in French-, English- and Spanish-speaking academic journals and works, as well as the dissemination of knowledge in conference proceedings and forums toward the Society, in particular, in France, in the famous Le Monde, Le Figaro and Les Échos newspapers. This work has been awarded multiple times by the Academy of Management—Management

1 Introduction 

3

Consulting Division in the USA and in France by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (Institut de France) in 2001 (Savall & Zardet, 2021). The results of this research have made it possible, over the course of experiments, to develop the socio-economic approach to management called SEAM that gets three dimensions: (1) the socio-economic theory of companies and organizations called SEAM theory (2) the socio-­ economic management consulting method called SEAM consulting process (3) the socio-economic intervention-research process which is the scientific vehicle of SEAM called SEAM intervention-research. SEAM can therefore be qualified as a science-based consulting method for sustainability in management. First it is used to help companies and organizations to develop their sustainable performance thanks to the SEAM consulting tools. Second it is used to create knowledge in management based on the principles of both the SEAM theory and the SEAM intervention-­research model. SEAM is therefore of great interest to management consultants and managers who wish to develop the sustainable performance of their teams. But also for management consulting researchers, academics and reflective management practitioners seeking to create knowledge in this area. The management data drawn from SEAM collected on 2200 scientific observation sites since 1974 primarily serve economic decision-makers and managers, leaders, managers and their teams. Their extrapolation also serves to inform political and union decisions by proposing orders of magnitude of the cost-values of human activities on a national scale, based on observations of reality. As a matter of fact, if we want to stimulate the attractiveness of the work of a territory, that is to say the quality of the management of human potential within its organizations, we need both horizontality through the own contribution of each organization, but also verticality through impulses from the public authorities negotiated with trade unions, employees and managers. This is a socially responsible vision of capitalism. In our work, this fruitful principle of change which combines HORIzontality and VERTicality, and which applies to the macro as well as the micro level, has been called “HORIVERT”. Therefore, in order to trigger a shock of job attractiveness at a national level, the encouragement of the public authorities is, in our opinion, essential. Not, of course, to manage people in place of managers. But to

4 

L. Cappelletti et al.

bring around the table employers’ organizations and those of employees in all branches (public and private) in order to negotiate specifications for improvement of the quality of life at work and that of the management of human potential if they had difficulty doing so. For instance in such countries as France where the unions do not have a culture of negotiation with employers but rather of conflicts (Cappelletti, 2022; Savall & Zardet, 1987). In order to shed light on these three key dimensions of SEAM—theoretical, applied, scientific—the book is organized into three corresponding main chapters. In the first chapter of the book, the main principles of the socio-economic theory of companies and organizations are presented, which fits philosophically into the paradigm of socially responsible capitalism (SRC) and its incarnation in management, the corporate social responsibility (CSR). In the second chapter, the applied tools and methods of the SEAM consulting process are presented and illustrated by case studies. Finally, in the third chapter, the scientific principles of SEAM are explained through the presentation of the socio-economic intervention-­ research model on which it is based.

2 Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM

Abstract  SEAM is based on the socio-economic theory of companies and organizations which belongs to the paradigm of socially responsible capitalism. Its objective is not to promote financial capitalism but an entrepreneurial one which considers that the creation of sustainable value is based on the economic performance of companies and their social performance, i.e. the satisfaction of their employees at work. For the socio-­ economic theory, the only active factor in the creation of sustainable value is human potential. Sustainable management, which creates economic performance as well as social and environmental performance at the same time, does not consist of a toolbox of ready-made universal solutions but of a methodology for dialogue and negotiation with the human potential to find out satisfactory solutions on an economic, social and environmental level. Keywords  Socially responsible capitalism • Socio-economic theory • Human potential • Socio-economic performance

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2_2

5

6 

L. Cappelletti et al.

The SEAM management consulting method is based on the principles of the socio-economic theory of companies and organizations forged since 1974 by Professor Henri Savall and his teams at ISEOR. This theory is part of the paradigm of socially responsible capitalism. Its objective is not to promote financial capitalism for which the creation of value results above all from the financial markets, but an entrepreneurial capitalism which considers that the creation of sustainable value is based on the economic performance of organizations and their social performance. i.e. the satisfaction of their employees at work. Basically, for socio-economic theory, the only active factor in the creation of sustainable value is human potential, that is to say the teams of men and women who work in an organization and who must be managed at best to create sustainable performance. Based on the observation of more than 110,000 people who were involved in the 2200 SEAM interventions, the socio-economic theory has fertilized a theory of human behavior at work and a theory of the hidden costs-performances of human activities which are also presented in the chapter. Knowing the main principles of socio-economic theory is important, not only for management researchers but also for practitioners, consultants and managers. On the one hand, as Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) as well as Van de Ven (2007) have written, one can doubt the effectiveness of management consulting methods that are not based on solid theoretical principles and evidences, built through repeated observation of real situation. On the other hand, sustainable management, which creates economic performance as well as social and environmental performance at the same time, does not consist of a toolbox of ready-made universal solutions. It consists of a methodology of dialogue and negotiation with the human potential to find with it satisfactory solutions on an economic, social and environmental level. In this sense, knowing the principles of socio-economic theory that share the same objective of sustainable management with socio-economic management, will help practitioners find relevant concrete solutions. In fact, to be relevant, these solutions will have to go in the direction of the main principles of the theory.

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

7

 yper-Financial Capitalism Versus H Entrepreneurial Capitalism At the policy level, the paradigm on which SEAM is based is that of socially responsible capitalism (SRC). Thus, SEAM aims to be a concrete embodiment of SRC within companies and organizations. SRC is a viable and relevant alternative to the contemporary economy. It is clearly distinct from hyper-financial capitalism, which leads to speculative practices and dries up the investment flows that would otherwise irrigate companies and organizations, all of which produce added value. SRC contributes to entrepreneurial capitalism to solve contemporary social problems, linked to the crisis of employment and purchasing power or to the degradation of societal, environmental, national and global performances (Savall, Péron, Zardet, Bonnet, 2018). The socially responsible capitalism in which the socio-economic theory fits promotes an entrepreneurial capitalism which considers that the creation of value comes not from hyper-financialized markets but from men and women who work including the executives and the owner-­ managers. The results of our 2200 research-interventions in management show that the attractiveness of work, the social satisfaction it provides and the productivity it generates are intimately linked. And that it is possible to significantly improve all three through a local management mode that breaks with the anachronistic Taylorian type (Savall, 1974; see below “TFW virus”) that affects the six levers of job satisfaction or quality of life at work, which also turn out to be those of sustainable productivity and the attractiveness of work: (1) both physical and psychological working conditions, (2) work organization, (3) communication-coordination-­ cooperation and meaning at work, (4) time management, (5) integrated training and career, (6) implementation of the strategy (in particular compensation strategy and distribution of the economic value created). These areas must be the subject of regular close negotiations between the manager and his employees in small companies, the manager and the members of his team in larger ones, to periodically adapt them to the desired level of social satisfaction. The reduction of hidden costs—hidden in the sense that they are not taken into account or very imperfectly

8 

L. Cappelletti et al.

by the traditional accounting information systems (budgets, income statements, balance sheets) which result from this, making it possible to self-finance the investments made in this area, because our research shows that one euro invested in management quality yields four to six, on average, in increased productivity. The necessary condition for implementing and disseminating this management method is to capture clearly its socio-economic results, hence the need to have an appropriate method of non-accounting observation in this area (Savall, 1974; Savall & Zardet, 1987; Cappelletti & Savall, 2023a).

 o Avoid Quackery in Management, a Method T of Rigorous Observation of These Effects on Human Potential Is Necessary The first result of 50 years of socio-economic intervention-researches that we wish to highlight, because everything starts from there, is that to improve the quality of management you need an appropriate method to observe its effects. However, and this is its tragedy, the direct effects of management on human potential, most often remain hidden when they occur, from conventional accounting information systems. To understand this, return to a few small basic definitions is necessary. “Management” comes from the old French word “ménage” which means to take care of a living being so that it survives and develops as well as possible. This is, in our opinion, the right definition of management which is therefore not, by definition, a toolbox of ready-made solutions but a method for taking care of the members of an organization in the best possible way so that they last and that it lasts. “Taking care of the best” means seeking the best balance between social satisfaction and the economic performance of the managed. It is amazing to see that by definition management should be sustainable! The social performance of an organization allows the satisfaction of the qualitative needs of a person, a group or a population. These needs are physiological, psychological, sociological, political (in particular contribution to the life of the city: societal utility, preservation of the environment, etc.). Economic performance refers to the production of resources to acquire goods or services likely to

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

9

satisfy qualitative needs. Sustainable economic performance depends on the level of competitiveness of the company or organization. It consists of two elements: immediate results, identified by the creation of resources available in the short term and the creation of potential to produce sustainable results later. Socio-economic performance refers to social performance compatible with economic performance and vice versa. The classical dichotomy between economic performance and social performance thus defined is therefore very questionable. Indeed, economic performance is social performance and vice versa (Savall, 2018). However, the tragedy is that the accounting information systems, because they were not designed, do not make it possible to shed light, or very imperfectly, on the socio-economic performance caused by management. Take the case of professional training. When it is integrated into employment, i.e. aimed at controlling an operation, it is undeniably a vector of socio-economic performance through greater working comfort for the trainee (social satisfaction) and improved work effectiveness and efficiency (economic performance). But what does the accounts show when the phenomenon occurs? A visible cost, that of the cost of training, and nothing on the socio-economic performance created. In other words, if we manage on the basis of accounting, the less we train the better off we are. Take the case of degradation of working conditions that leads to absenteeism at work. What does the accounting show when this absenteeism occurs, which inevitably leads to nonproduction? Nothing, this is a completely hidden cost. It also follows that the national accounting which aggregates all local, public and private accounting, in particular to measure the annual GDP, also leaves in the shadows the cost-performance of the management of organizations at the time it is deployed. This is, in our opinion, one of the major reasons that explain the “total nonsenses in management” theorized by Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) in their famous article. As we see nothing, everything is allowed! Is the four-day week a good managerial solution? Is working remotely 50% of the time or more a good managerial solution? Many managers ask us today. And we invariably tell them to estimate the hidden costs and performances of their decision with regard to the reality of the human potential it concerns. The evaluation will show that in some cases this is a promising solution to experiment and then evaluate. In others it would be catastrophic.

10 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 raditional Accounting Is a Relevant Tool for Financial T Capitalism. Not for Measuring the Effects of Sustainable Management on Human Potential What are the main principles of this hidden cost method without which one cannot seriously manage people and, beyond that, create solid knowledge in management sciences? At the origin of the method, Henri Savall had come to the conclusion that the macroeconomic approach did not make it possible to account for the process of value creation (Savall, 1974). In 1972, the Malinvaud team (Carré et al., 1972), carefully studying French economy growth over 30 years, demonstrated that, roughly speaking, half of the value creation calculated according to econometric models could not be explained by the variation of the quantities of capital and the quantities of labor, according to the classical formula Y = f (K*L), where the value of production Y is a function of the quantity of capital and the quantity of labor. There was therefore an unexplained residual of 50% of the value produced. Savall drew two conclusions from this. First, that an essential variable was missing from this traditional formula, moreover accepted in various forms by classical economists, Marxists, neoclassicals and Keynesians. Secondly, measuring instruments such as national accounts, based on business accounts, do not make it possible to detect and measure this unknown variable (Cappelletti et al., 2018). Convinced that scientific progress had been accompanied, throughout history, by progress in measuring instruments, Savall resolved to solve the “mystery” of the residue of 50% of the unexplained value. His working hypothesis, from an epistemological and methodological point of view, was to change the level and position of observation, by penetrating within organizations to observe the processes as well as the phenomena that accompany the creation of value. Indeed, isn’t national accounting based on the results of the accounts of private and public organizations? It was therefore necessary to admit that the accounting model, both national and corporate, was incomplete and that a rigorous scientific demonstration required the discovery of other variables that could explain the creation of value. This is how he created the methodology of socio-economic intervention-research in order to better study phenomena and better

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

11

measure the creation of value within organizations. It was also necessary to qualify the residual corresponding to unmeasured variables. This is how he proposed the concept of hidden costs and performances. The idea was simple, the observer, researcher or actor, perceives certain—visible— elements and does not perceive others, which are hidden. Since research is a process of discovering new knowledge, Savall directed his work toward the exploration, identification and use of these hidden costs-­performances, largely ignored by the literature of economics and management. The hidden costs of management flaws are assessed through a socio-­ economic diagnosis composed of three qualitative, financial and mirror-­ effect modules (Savall & Zardet, 1987). Dysfunctions at work caused by management flaws are first identified during qualitative interviews with the management and employees of the organization studied. Then new interviews, this time financial, are carried out to identify the consequence of the dysfunctions using five indicators: (1) absenteeism, (2) work accidents or work-related illness, (3) personnel or staff turnover, (4) lack of quality or poor product quality or service quality, (5) direct productivity losses. The hidden costs are then assessed financially through the cost of the acts of regulation of the dysfunctions. The evaluation is done using six components: (1) overconsumption, which corresponds to goods or services consumed in excess; (2) excess salary, which is used when an activity is carried out by a person holding a position that is better paid than the person who should perform it, or when salaries are paid to absent persons; (3) over time, which corresponds to regulatory activities that take additional time; (4) nonproduction that occurs in the event of absence of activity or work stoppage; (5) noncreation of potential and (6) risks which correspond to future noncreation of potential or probable (risk) regulations. Indeed, the regulations of dysfunctions are costly because they are of two types: human activities and overconsumption of goods, materials or services. The human time spent regulating dysfunctions is valued at the hourly contribution to value-added on variable cost (HCVACV) which is equal to the ratio of the margin on variable costs (or value-added on variable costs, VAVC) to the number of hours of expected work. The consumption of goods or services generated by the regulation of dysfunctions is assessed on the basis of the actual costs of the goods

12 

L. Cappelletti et al.

and services (purchase cost). Once carried out, the diagnosis is presented to the people interviewed in a session called “mirror-effect” to validate collectively by consensus the dysfunctions and the hidden costs identified. Once validated, the socio-economic diagnosis serves as a working platform for the socio-economic focus group. Its role is to invent solutions to reduce identified dysfunctions and convert hidden costs into performances. Once implemented, the solutions are evaluated to measure the reduction of dysfunctions and hidden costs and the performance generated.

 Poor Quality of Management Is a Source of Chronic A Social Dissatisfaction and Colossal Loss of Economic Value-Added Having integrated a rigorous observation method, the main results of the 2200 intervention-researches that have forged the principles of socio-­ economic theory are summarized in Table  2.1. Not surprisingly such results are totally ignored by the financial capitalism literature. The 2200 intervention-researches that involved more than 110,000 people, executives, managers and staff, made it possible to identify more than 5000 generic dysfunctions that disrupt the quality of life at work (Savall et  al., 2019). The remarkable point is that these dysfunctions Table 2.1  Main principles of socio-economic theory Identification and typology of 5020 generic DYSFUNCTIONS (organizational pathologies) which are classified in six areas modeling the quality of management Measurement of the level of HIDDEN COSTS, economic impact of dysfunctions: between 20,000 and 70,000 euros per person per year Recovery of added value: between 35% and 55% through a participatory process to increase the level of commitment and cooperation of internal actors (leaders, managers, staff) Design and experimentation of generic solutions based on increasing intangible investment in qualitative development of HUMAN POTENTIAL Evaluation of the VERY HIGH PROFITABILITY of intangible investment in the quality of the management of human potential: between 210% and 4040% (rate of return on investment: between 2 and 40, average of 4 to 6)

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

13

systematically fall under six major areas in which they are classified in the ISEOR database: working conditions, both physical and psychological, work organization, communication-coordination-cooperation and meaning at work, time management, integrated training and career, implementation of the strategy (in particular compensation strategy and distribution of the economic value created). On the basis of our observations, by induction one might say, these six major areas therefore model the quality of the management of an organization, the quality of life at work and, basically, its social performance, i.e. its level of social satisfaction. The systematic measurement of the hidden costs generated by these dysfunctions reveals that they are within a range of 20,000 euros up to 70,000 euros per person per year. This shows that an organization, whatever its size, status, mission, financial performance, has an endogenous reserve of efficiency, between 20,000 and 70,000 euros of hidden costs per person per year, consisting, on the one hand, of excess expenses and, on the other hand, of insufficient income and margins (opportunity costs). Intervention-research also shows that a proportion of 35 to 55% of hidden cost sources can be converted into value-added within a few months (6 to 15), through an improvement in the quality of management by playing on the six areas on which it is based. The problem with hidden costs is not so much that of their existence, since human activities produce them spontaneously, as that of their accumulation over time. However, the very fact of measuring the hidden costs and presenting these measures is part of a renewed pedagogy of costs, which arouses within the company an awareness and human energy to control them. Our holistic, longitudinal approach to business found that an organization completes a learning journey of recycling its hidden costs over time. Indeed, we have been supporting certain companies for years, even decades, for example the Brioche Pasquier group or notary offices, in their development journey and we have measured that the level of recycling of hidden costs is gradually rising to over time. A real phenomenon of learning is driven by the company, whose actors discover through experience that they have the power, the competence and the energy to reduce dysfunctions and hidden costs, hitherto considered inevitable. The management of human potential is therefore a phenomenon of

14 

L. Cappelletti et al.

learning and balancing that is not static. It is learned and requires periodic negotiations between the manager and the managed persons to set socio-economic performance at the expected level (Cappelletti & Savall, 2023b).

 uman Potential: The Sole Active Factor H in Value Creation The role of human potential is at the heart of the genesis of sustainable economic performance. However, the dominant models of macroeconomic and managerial decision-making processes often ignore this fundamental fact. As a result, these typical models of hyper-financial capitalism inspire decisions that can be wrong, irrational and anachronistic. Basically, they represent a danger for the survival-development of organizations, whether small or large, public or private, but also for the human being. One of the fundamental hypotheses of the SRC and therefore of SEAM is that the qualitative development (quality of behaviors and development of competences) of human potential constitutes an intangible investment, which generates a high level of economic added value and social satisfaction at work, and a competitive advantage for the company, which is only reproducible with great difficulty. The level and intensity of organizational human potential are a function of three main components: human energy, the behaviors of the actors at work and their skills that are mainly ignored by classical economic theories. As a matter of fact, economic theories, classical, neoclassical, Marxist or Keynesian have in common the production function and its two factors, capital and labor (Savall, 2018; Savall & Zardet, 2011b). According to these theories, the creation of value in a company or a nation is a function of these two factors considered to be substitutable. Industrialization, robotization, and automation are considered, in economic models and subsequent strategic business choices, as alternatives to human labor, making it possible to greatly increase economic returns. However, our

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

15

research on hidden costs in the industrial world has shown: a) that the level of hidden costs increases on the contrary with the automation of production processes b) that the two factors, capital and labor, are not on the same level, because only human potential—a concept that we are replacing that of work—is an active factor in the creation of value. It is made up of three components: skills, behaviors, and individual and collective energy. Indeed, it is human beings who install a technology, train the actors in its use, adapt the concrete organizational processes and adjust the electronic or robotic systems. If these acts are not done correctly, significant hidden costs cancel out the potential gains expected from the new technology. Human potential, as we define it, is not human capital, a concept popularized from the work of Gary Backer (1964). On the one hand, the human collective of an organization is not a stock, neither material nor financial. It is plastic, in particular according to the quality of the management practiced. On the other hand, the concept of capital induces the notion of contractual possession of it by a stakeholder, while the human being at work is, by nature, inalienable and uncontrollable in the accounting and legal sense. For SRC, sustainable socio-economic development strategies therefore consist in investing in human potential that is often undervalued in companies and organizations: by developing the professional skills of those involved, by improving the interest and meaning given to work, by activating communication, coordination and cooperation other than by information and communication technologies, by improving the material conditions of life at work which are still often deficient, by involving the actors, managers and personnel in the deployment of the corporate strategy. And this in all kinds of companies and organizations, private or public, large, medium or very small. Our SEAM intervention-researches prove that companies and organizations do not suffer from an excess of managers, but on the contrary from a lack of benevolent and courageous management, which deals with and takes care of people to develop their potential and promote their personal and business development.

16 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 he Taylorian Paradigm of Subordination Is T Questioned by SEAM Classical theories of organizations, and Taylorism in particular, are based, according to our analysis, on an underlying paradigm, that of subordination. The hierarchical working relationship would consist of a superior giving orders to a subordinate who would apply them spontaneously and correctly. However, the observation of dysfunctions in organizations and the listening of more than 110,000 actors have shown an extremely frequent phenomenon of “organizational disobedience”, most often expressed by inertia in the face of orders received until excessive turnover of staff reflected in the contemporary concepts of “big resignation” or “quit quitting”. Although this phenomenon has been observed for a long time by researchers in psychosociology and sociology of organizations (Savall, 1974; Graeber, 2018), organizational and managerial practices have remained, more or less, based on the belief, unconscious or not, in the principle of obedience to increasingly intrusive instructions or standards. However, “organizational disobedience” is the source of many hidden costs, particularly in terms of opportunity cost, because non-action or their delay in action is a source of hidden costs, such as quality of service defects or a lack of product or market innovation. Regarding the origin of this dysfunction and many others in the field of management, we have come to the conclusion that companies and organizations, particularly in France, are “infected” by a virus that has invaded organizations for more than a century. This “TFW virus”—Taylorism, Fayolism, Weberism— organizes contemporary organizations and their functioning based on the principles of strong specialization of work, separation of design and execution bodies, formalization of standards of rules and processes in all activities of organizations (Savall, Péron, Zardet, Bonnet, 2018). The metaphor of the TFW virus refers to the anachronistic application, by contemporary actors, of the principles of the Classical School of Organization, proposed by Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol and Max Weber. These have, moreover, contributed, in their time, to economic and social progress, in a completely different context than in the present time. It is

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

17

indeed regrettable that a century later, theoreticians, experts and practitioners continue to propagate voluntarily or not three principles that have become obsolete: the maximum division of labor, the dichotomy between conception, decision and realization of activities, as well as the depersonalization workstations, organizational charts, processes, methods and rules. The dramatic evolution of management in the hospital sector for instance in France, Italy or Great-Britain is a confusing illustration of this, as well as that observed in many SMEs buried under quality processes and reporting. However, these principles no longer contribute today to overall sustainable performance, given the changes in behavior and skills, in the current social, economic and political environment, which has become very demanding (Cappelletti & Savall, 2022). Our in-depth studies have shown that approximately 53% of the hidden costs of organizations are very closely associated with this virus, whether the organization is very small (a bakery for example) or very large (production sites of a large industrial group). Then, the transformative actions tested have shown that a significant part of these hidden costs can be converted into added value, by modifying the organizational characteristics according to an alternative paradigm: that of contractualizing performance with the actors. It is a question of developing within the company practices based more on listening, explanation and then negotiation, instead of inefficient imposition. Our recent observations show that the TFW virus is characterized, if we sum up, by an excess of procedures and a lack of regular professional dialogue and proximity between the manager and the members of his team. This in all kinds of organizations: small, large, public and private. Over time, it induces reciprocal mistrust between managers and their teams, which is the source, in particular, of organizational disobedience at all levels: non-actions, delays in actions or lack of quality of actions among employees; managerial abstentionism among managers. On this last point, our recent observations show, in fact, in the face of the disarray caused by team management, a growing reluctance to become a manager in companies and organizations, or to recruit employees when one is a leader. The emergence of training courses for “rebellious management” executives illustrates these developments, for example those developed by ESSEC Business School of Paris graduates around Valérie Rey-Millet (Savall et al., 2019).

18 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 he Discriminating Value-Added of Intangible T Investments in Management Quality Managers are often unable to assess the profitability of intangible investments such as training, recruitment, or actions to improve the quality of life at work, i.e. to measure the cost/performance ratio. However, the hidden cost-performance method makes it possible to evaluate the gains generated by an intangible project thanks to the reduction of the dysfunctions and hidden costs that it generates. This evaluation can be done upstream of the project, in a provisional way as a tool to help operational or strategic decision-making, then downstream to measure its effective profitability. These evaluations show that the effective return on an intangible investment is between 210% and 4040% (Savall, Zardet, Bonnet, 2008). To illustrate, let us take the example of the reduction of absenteeism thanks to a SEAM intervention within a department with one hundred staff of a large transportation company in Belgium (Table 2.2). The annual hidden costs of absenteeism amounted to €960,000 made up of the following amounts: –– €183,000 per year corresponding to the wages paid to absentees by the company taking into account the social security schemes in force; –– €15,000 of over time corresponding to additional acts of regulation carried out by those present due to absences; –– €15,000 of overconsumption due to additional purchases of external services to compensate for absences; Table 2.2  Costs of absenteeism within a technical department of a large transportation company in Belgium Excess salary

Over time

Overconsumption Nonproduction Total

Absenteeism €183,000 €15,000 €15,000 (annual rate: 17,3%) © ISEOR 1974–2023

€747,000

€960,000

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

19

–– €747,000 of nonproduction corresponding to the work of absentees not paid for by those present and left in abeyance. For this department of a hundred people, the hidden costs of absenteeism therefore amounted to approximately €9600 per person and per year (€960,000/100 p.). Faced with the magnitude of these amounts, a forecast socio-economic balance was carried out comparing the cost of a project to reduce absenteeism with the expected gains represented by the fraction of reduction in hidden costs envisaged. €184,000 has been earmarked for carrying out the project through investments in improving working conditions and over time spent by managers with teams to organize work, set objectives and encourage people. By comparison with the absenteeism rate of other similar companies, the possible reduction in the absenteeism rate and hidden costs has been estimated at 50%, i.e. a forecast reduction in hidden costs of approximately €480,000 at department level studied. The project was therefore launched on the forecast of a sufficiently large net gain of €296,000 (€480,000–€184,000). After one year of implementation of the project, its effective profitability was measured showing a reduction in absenteeism of about 40%, for a project cost substantially equal to that planned, for an effective profitability of around 92%. Two years after the implementation of the project, the reduction in absenteeism reached 60% for a return on the investment made of more than 200%.

The Citizen-Producer-Consumer of Socio-Economic Values SRC supposes the end of wait-and-see and unambitious strategies, considering that in a changing world, not moving means going backwards. This involves moving from status quo strategies to permanent transformation strategies. This is why SRC and therefore SEAM unlike hyper-­ financial capitalism refuse to see the level of staffing as the essential adjustment variable in times of crisis. This is reflected in times of crisis not only by a reduction in the workforce, but also by a reduction in

20 

L. Cappelletti et al.

working hours, a shrinking in training budgets or the cessation of salary increases. Such a policy can only lead to discouraging “surviving” personnel, causing them to demobilize and therefore generating a high level of hidden costs. The discrepancies between labor supply, market expectations and job seekers are often blamed on training programs provided by specialized institutions, often accused of having caused such situations. Based on a SRC point of view, we think that this could be explained above all by the insufficient consideration in the management of the companies of the interests of the employees, the absence of consideration of their expectations of both empowerment and improvement of working conditions. As a matter of fact we have observed that human being is a citizen, a producer and a consumer with a high level of expectations at work that management has to take into account.

 he Five Natural and Recurrent Characteristics T of the Human Being at Work, Observed in Many Situations of Change SEAM intervention-researches have led to the identification of five natural human characteristics, observed in professional situations of metamorphosis of work situations in companies and organizations. These characteristics are important for understanding dysfunctions and behaviors in situations of change, in order to take them into account in the conduct of socio-economic innovation processes that lead to “working differently”. They are ignored or greatly underestimated by the classical school of organization and financial capitalism (Savall, 2018). Thus, anyone: (a) is endowed with a significant dose of intelligence, i.e. an ability to understand its immediate environment in order to find courses of action to survive and achieve its objectives, whatever its level of skill education, his hierarchical level and responsibility in the organization chart of the company; (b) has acting skills that encourage him to adapt his behavior to the situations and people with whom he interacts. Indeed, a very useful

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

21

­ etaphor in the conduct of change consists in considering any prom fessional situation as a play; (c) can be considered as a strategist, endowed with one or more mobilizing objectives and following a certain path to achieve it, using the resources he or she has or acquires; (d) has a natural capacity and a propensity for disobedience, that is to say, he spontaneously experiences difficulty in carrying out instructions or orders from others; (e) is amnesic, his memory capacity being limited at all times and his natural propensity to forget being, on the contrary, unlimited and recurrent. When these five natural characteristics are taken into consideration in driving change, they lead to robust and relatively sustainable results. The tools of socio-economic management make it possible to “exploit” these five characteristics in order to succeed in socio-economic innovation actions, both at the service of people, as well as of the company or organization. In summary, rigorous observation has shown that humans are not spontaneously obedient, submissive or even subordinate, contrary to the presuppositions of the TFW virus. He is an agent driven by his contradictory impulses: conflict / cooperation, individualism / team solidarity, autonomy / cooperation. Human and social performance is the result of this system of numerous and eminently dialectical, complex and fluctuating behaviors. In this perspective, current work at ISEOR develops new concepts of collaborative human connection and ego-altruism.

 n Essential Component of Change Management: A Interactive Pedagogy ISEOR’s experiments have made it possible to draw the outlines of the role and mode of action of the “socio-economic” manager by means of interactive pedagogy.

22 

L. Cappelletti et al.

The manager or supervisor plays the role of orchestra conductor, surrounded by musicians endowed with their human potential, that is to say energy, skills and more or less disciplined collaborative behaviors. It uses interactive pedagogy, a concept that we have created and experimented with for five decades, based on the Freinet method. This consists of instilling knowledge by making the learner-collaborators speak, so that they rediscover and appropriate the relevant knowledge to be transmitted, duly prepared by the manager. This animation method is based more on doing than on saying. The principle is that it is by doing that we learn (“Learning by doing”). Interactive pedagogy is a powerful driver of change. It is based on the principle of multidimensional, multiform and stochastic determinism that characterizes SEAM.  Multidimensional, because a result never depends on a single cause (systemic approach); multifaceted, because learning takes place through writing, speaking, experimenting, listening...; and stochastic or random, as learners evolve based on encounters and experiences with other people and teams.

 Chronic Exogenous Source of Hidden Costs: A The Phenomenon of Tetranormalization Tetranormalization (Savall & Zardet, 2013; Cappelletti & Dufour, 2020) is a key concept of SEAM theory. It refers to a complex phenomenon that increases the difficulty of decision-making, then of the action of the company or organization in its dual environment, internal and external. The main components of this additional complexity are the proliferation of standards and norms and the contradiction between them, as well as their subjectivity, which make it impossible, strictly speaking, to perfectly comply with the innumerable standards. Citizens, consumers, producers and employees are expressing a growing need for standards and norms. Public and private institutions are increasingly increasing their competitive supply of standards in the economic and social environment. However, standards are not only sound rules of the game, a factor of fairness, they have a hidden side. They constitute barriers to entry into the competitive game within the public and

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

23

private spheres and are accompanied by practices of interference, even espionage. The theory of tetranormalization (Savall & Zardet, 2013; Cappelletti & Dufour, 2020) describes and explains the impacts of the proliferation of standards and norms and the contradiction between the four poles of standards: social, environmental, accounting and trade. This causes dysfunctions, creates distortions in the rules of the game in the markets and within organizations and territories. They create an additional and growing layer of hidden costs. The management of companies must integrate these multiple, often contradictory standards, without jeopardizing their raison d’être, their economic performance and their ability to survive and develop their human potential. Over the past 20 years, this theoretical framework has been developed in connection with the issue of standards management, which has burst into the business world to become a social issue. For instance in France, the union of business leaders called MEDEF and many leaders with it periodically protest with virulence against the normative inflation which stifles companies, small or large. In 2012, the former President of the French Republic even made the “shock of simplification” to reduce the number of standards and norms that fall on organizations, a central element of his economic program. Faced with these challenges, managers can no longer remain inert. What are the dysfunctions that the excess of standards weighs on the management of companies? What are the solutions to better manage this phenomenon, or even to make standards management a new key managerial skill as well as a competitive advantage for companies? These are the questions that tetranormalization and therefore SEAM theory addresses. And raising these issues is at the heart of SRC.

 e Four Main Domains of Normative Intensity Th of Tetranormalization The theory of tetranormalization initially proposed by Savall and Zardet and since completed by numerous researchers such as Boje (2015), grouped together in the eponymous international and inter-university research network, is of great interest with regard to the management of

24 

L. Cappelletti et al.

standards and norms, because it allows to develop an analysis grid of the institutionalization devices created to effectively integrate a standard. The theory of tetranormalization shows that four main areas of the business environment (tetra means four in Greek) are subject to particularly intense international standardization to which most standards can relate: quality, health safety and the environment with, for example, the ISO standard; accounting, finance and governance with, for example, the IAS-IFRS or COSO standards; trade with, for example, the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO); the social and administrative field with, for example, the norms of the International Labor Organization (ILO) or the labor code. In the broad sense, tetranormalization thus designates the problems posed to managers to integrate standards and norms in these four major areas. One of the assumptions of the theory concerns a paradox of the norm. On the one hand, a standard creates security and reduces uncertainty to promote exchanges and living together. On the other hand, because of the commercial struggles of which it is the instrument, and the contradictions that it can germinate in organizations, the standard can also be a source of disturbances, dysfunctions and conflicts. For example, profitability standards required by investors may conflict with new standards that are costly to integrate, such as the Solvency II financial security standard, which may degrade this profitability, at least in the short term. Interestingly, the theory of tetranormalization poses as a central hypothesis that effective management of standards is possible, based on principles that need to be identified. In short, that normalization can be managed and that it would be as harmful for progress to reject regulation on the grounds of an illusory self-regulation (neoliberal hypothesis in the broad sense), as to automatically expect the desired results from it (neo-­ Keynesian hypothesis in the wider). Indeed, according to the theory, any organization today lives in an environment characterized by the regular emergence of new standards to which it should, at first sight, conform. Also, the management of an organization finds itself in a situation of permanent potential infringement, as soon as it does not respect such and such a standard, and is therefore forced to manage the risks inherent in these non-conformities. The publicized examples of breaches committed by the French bank BNP-Paribas on the American embargo rules for

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

25

transactions in dollars with Cuba, Sudan and Iran, or by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen on the anti-pollution standards for car engines, are a good illustration of this. The theory of tetranormalization thus appears as complementary to the current of micro-­foundations of neo-­ institutionalism which is quite popular in the field of management sciences (Cappelletti & Dufour, 2020). This current, in fact, observes, at the infra-organizational level, the phenomena of isomorphism and homogenization affecting organizations in order to comply with standards, in order to reduce their transaction costs and increase their legitimacy. Even more, through its hypotheses, tetranormalization dialogues with the aspects of institutional logics and practices of this current. Indeed, by observing intra-organizational management devices, tetranormalization leads to analyzing the mechanisms by which these devices direct institutional logics and practices toward the integration of the norm (Savall, Zardet, Bonnet, Péron, 2008).

 e Assumptions of Tetranormalization to Better Manage Th Standards and Norms For tetranormalization and therefore for SEAM theory, the management of standards and norms is a crucial point to better manage human potential. It does not reside in a vertical approach, which would itself be normalized or standardized, but in the implementation of an endogenous framework of institutionalization allowing actors to exercise their responsibilities. The prescription of tetranormalization is therefore not a disembodied technical solution but, on the contrary, a solution negotiated between the actors involved. The theory shows that organizations can manage the integration of standards and norms effectively by implementing human mechanisms, with the appropriate methods and tools, organized according to four main principles defining an endogenous institutionalization framework: –– Orchestration: managers should take up the issue of integrating standards to make it a general management activity from upstream, to

26 

L. Cappelletti et al.

manage normative strategic watch, downstream, to manage implementation standards to be integrated; –– Arbitration: within organizations, leaders should establish normative arbitration committees to help their managers and employees resolve normative conflicts and questions about the application of the standard; –– Negotiation: the integration of standards in an organization, both public and private, requires mechanisms for negotiation with the staff and stakeholders who will apply them. In broad outline: what do the personnel who make the integration effort gain in return for the resources spent on it? –– The dissemination of ethical behavior in the organization to encourage and promote compliance with integrated standards, or the revelation of a normative violation to sanction it and study the cause. Through these four principles of Orchestration, Arbitration, Negotiation and Ethics, known under the acronym O.A.N.E, tetranormalization and consequently SEAM theory offers, in doing so, a grid for analyzing the intra-organizational devices for integrating a standard or a norm, and the mechanisms by which they converge organizational logic and practices toward its effective integration (Savall & Zardet, 2013; Cappelletti & Dufour, 2020).

 e Harmful Effects of Normative Inflation for Managers Th and How to Reduce Them Tetranormalization analyzes the dysfunctions caused by standardization in companies and the role of managers in regulating them. Standardization obliges leaders and managers to trigger substantial investments in time and resources to comply with a multitude of sometimes contradictory standards, regulations, laws and best practices. In addition to the traditional financial and operational objectives derived from the strategy, the manager must also respect an increasing number of compliance objectives. For example, a significant portion of the time of managers in the catering sector—Paul Bocuse brasseries, Paul bakeries, McDonald’s fast

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

27

food, etc.—is now devoted to implementing, applying and monitoring standards in the teams in the four areas of tetranormalization, in particular hygiene and safety, particularly in the period of health risk linked to Covid 19 that we have experienced. All this is done instead of directly productive operational activities and therefore causes contradictions for managers and this in all sectors: on the one hand they are asked to create value and short-term profitability. On the other hand, they must comply with unavoidable and changing standards to the detriment of the immediate results of their business unit. Tetranormalization thus causes hidden costs of several thousand euros per person and per year due to over time, overconsumption and nonproduction caused by the integration of new standards within teams, not to mention the risks in the event of non-­compliance. Admittedly, standardization does not only have negative effects because it is a factor of corporate ethics. Indeed, how to bring a standard to life, which indicates the “right” path to follow in an organization, and justify its compliance vis-à-vis the stakeholders without developing audit, control and training functions? Even Walmart, the largest private company in the world by size (nearly 1.5 million employees), located in the retail sector, has understood this well. It has made heavy investments to develop a network of social auditors to ensure, and ensure, that its suppliers, particularly in Asia, do not employ child workers. Moreover, the causes of normative inflation show that it is undoubtedly a lasting phenomenon. Four enduring fundamental causes indeed explain the “natural” proliferation of standards and norms: –– business struggles: standards constitute entry barriers for new competitors; –– the globalization of trade: standards make it possible to trade beyond socio-economic differences; –– risk management: standards are the expression of public regulation to reduce the risks weighing on society; –– a structural cause: the production of standards is a raison d’être of bureaucracies, as explained by Michel Crozier (1963) in “The bureaucratic phenomenon”.

28 

L. Cappelletti et al.

This is why the question for managers is not to seek to reduce standards and norms, even less to avoid them under penalty of sanctions, but to learn how to manage them to make this quality a new discriminating skill. And this is particularly true in France, which is breaking records in terms of normative inflation. The World Economic Forum thus regularly ranks France among the top in the world for the weight of its regulatory constraints. In concrete terms, according to the theory of tetranormalization, the treatment of normative inflation involves more appropriate management of standards among those who are subjected to them (endogenous solution), than illusory attempts to dry up the source (exogenous solution). Such managerial know-how in standardization is very well mastered by growing organizations and companies in sectors that are nevertheless highly regulated, such as Brioche Pasquier or the Le Duff group in the food industry, SEB in household appliances, or German companies like Haribo. In these companies, standards and norms management has become a strategic process driven by management and decentralized to managers. This is based on the four key principles of standards and norms management identified by the theory: orchestration, negotiation, arbitration and ethical behavior (O.A.N.E). These four levers of standards management can very well serve as the first model to navigate tetranormalization being applied by successful companies today. Beyond, therefore, the effects of announcement, if we refer both to current research and to the cases of pioneering companies in the field, it is necessary to disseminate to companies, small or large, the principles of management adapted to normative bombardment rather than waiting for a hypothetical armistice in this area. The examples that we have observed through SEAM intervention-researches show that it is possible, despite the intensity of the normative flow, to make standards and norms management a new managerial skill or even a discriminating competitive advantage in line with SRC (Savall & Zardet, 2013; Cappelletti & Dufour, 2020).

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

29

 EAM: An Incarnation of SRC in Management S Based on the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory With TFW virus and tetranormalization, the hidden costs and performances theory is a pillar of SRC and therefore SEAM. Bad management of human potential engenders social dissatisfaction at work that leads to dysfunctions such as absenteeism, work accidents, high staff turnover, losses of productivity or lack of quality. The dysfunctions lead to significant costs mainly hidden by traditional accounting systems. Whereas a good level of investments in human potential such as integrated trainings, appropriate working conditions, or well-suited work organization, allows to convert such costs into sustainable performances. The financial impact of these improvements is usually not identified in the accounts either, hence the term “hidden performance”. One can see that the origin of the SEAM model lies in a gap left unfilled by the traditional analysis of the process of economic value creation that could not partly be explained by econometric models leading to assume that variables were missing (macro hidden costs). To identify these missing variables, the hidden costs and performances methodology seeking to measure value creation and “unmeasured” variables (micro hidden costs and performance) was developed combining qualitative, quantitative and financial (i.e. qualimetric) data regarding performance. The core principle of the SEAM model is that organizations do not solely exist to “make money”, but also to contribute to the society and to the well-being of employees thanks to the socio-economic management of its human potential. Although by being based on the hidden costs and performances theory it appears as an original model in the field of management sciences where existing models merely combine qualitative, quantitative and financial data regarding performances. As hidden costs may be used to evaluate CSR defects whereas hidden performances (= reduction of hidden costs) may be used to evaluate CSR progress, the SEAM model appears to be clearly an incarnation of SRC in management (Lindsay et al., 2015, 2016).

30 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 he Meaning of History in an Organization, If It Is T Managed Badly, It’s Entropy Entropy is a well-known concept in physics which means the “natural” and on-going degradation of things over time. In the humanities and social sciences, it means the “natural” degradation of organized systems over time that affects the functioning of businesses and organizations. “Naturally”, if nothing is done in terms of sustainable management, organizations evolve toward disorder, work becomes impoverished and people lose motivation. Hidden costs are a way of measuring in financial terms the cost of organizational entropy, which corresponds to the level of social dissatisfaction, lack of sustainable management and poor attractiveness of jobs (Savall, 1974). This phenomenon had been emphasized by French sociologists such as Georges Friedmann, Jean-Daniel Reynaud, Philippe Bernoux, Jean Ruffier and was the basis of many experiments through the socio-technical approach in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly in Europe. This question of the attractiveness of work has become salient in developed countries over the past ten years, as explained by Graeber (2018) and Babeau (2022). The case of France is in this respect very interesting to observe to illustrate the capacity of hidden costs to measure this phenomenon (Cappelletti & Savall, 2023a, 2023b). The loss of attractiveness of work over the past 30 years for the French, especially junior and senior workers, is confirmed by all the surveys carried out on the question. Dissatisfaction at work, the spectrum of which is wide, ranging from suffering to lack of consideration, is measured concretely through social indicators such as absenteeism at work, accidents at work and occupational diseases, high staff turnover (difficulties in recruiting and retaining employees), lack of quality products and services and direct productivity losses caused by disengagement. These indicators are particularly degraded in France in most companies, whatever their size, as well as public organizations, while they are better in many European countries such as Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. In the end, the lack of attractiveness of work is quantified in France in the colossal losses of added value that it causes and which are most often hidden by accounting information systems. The hidden costs of the lack of attractiveness of

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

31

work, which are the same as those of quality defects in the management of human potential or social dissatisfaction at work, can reach 20,000 to 70,000 euros per person and per year, of which 35% to 55% are recoverable through regained job satisfaction. Aggregated at the macroeconomic level, this would represent an improvement of 4 to 8 points of French annual GDP. Thus the extrapolation of our data shows that the hidden costs of absenteeism at work in France, a large part of which lies in human potential management defects, exceed 100 billion euros per year (Cappelletti & Savall, 2018). Or that the hidden costs of lack of professional training would be around 90 billion euros per year (Tison, 2022). Hence through the reduction of hidden costs there is plenty to self-­ finance investments in quality of life at work and salary increases. Faced with this shared observation, two societal choices are available to us, the bad and the good. The first consists, if it is true that the work would be “a prison” or “a box of bullshit jobs”, in seeking to shrink it. The big problem is that work remains the only active factor in creating value to finance social protection systems and meet human needs in health, education, housing, security, ecology and strategic sovereignty (agriculture, industry, energy transition, etc.). A complementary argument is that the income received by humans in return for their work will feed the market demand for goods and services owed by companies and thus maintain prosperity and economic dynamics. On the other hand, the machine or technology does not provide the market with the income from its activity, i.e. its “purchasing power”! The second consists in effect in provoking a shock of attractiveness of work in order to powerfully enrich it everywhere and to attract young people as well as seniors in the long term. SEAM is a way to do so and its hidden costs methodology a tool to measure its effects (Savall et al., 2014; Savall & Zardet, 2011b).

The Hidden Costs and Performances Method The hidden costs method is the incarnation of the hidden costs theory to measure the creation of organizational value that makes sustainable performances (Savall, 1974; Savall & Zardet, 1987). This method is based

32 

L. Cappelletti et al.

on a study of corporate dysfunctions. It proposes socio-­economic measurement of corporate management and operations quality. If it is assumed that the creation of organizational value corresponds to an improvement in the quality of corporate management and operations, socio-economic theory and the evaluation of the quality of corporate management and operations is a good method for measuring the creation of organizational value.

A Dysfunctions Evaluation Model The hidden costs method is based on the concept of benchmarked expected or correct operation used as the datum point in the calculation. A company can be analyzed by comparison with this reference point which makes it possible to achieve the organizational objectives while taking account of social constraints. The direct variables in this analysis are the dysfunctions. Dysfunction indicators are performance shortfalls vs. expected or correct operation, as noted and revealed by the company persons. The indirect variable indicates the social efficiency of the organization and/or the quality of its management. The method measures the cost of dysfunctions by the socio-economic calculation of hidden costs. The origin of this method of calculation consisted in a critical study of traditional accounting systems and their difficulty in being anything more than a report, because the elements explaining the level of economic activity observed only transcend the observations with difficulty. By level of activity, we mean the level of costs ascribable to the structures-­ behaviors complex system. This complex system, an analytical model of a company’s or organization’s activity seen as the interaction of structures and human behaviors, is the theoretical background to dysfunctions (Savall, 1974).

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

33

 easuring the Quality of Corporate Management M and Operations The hidden costs method is based on a socio-economic diagnosis. The model measures the quality of management and corporate operation (i.e. the social efficiency of the organization) in economic terms. It also makes it possible to measure this quality by the evaluation of hidden cost-­ performance. This evaluation is first and foremost an integrated, social and economic company-specific diagnosis method as hidden costs are simultaneously an indicator of total inefficiency and of the potential plasticity of the structures-behaviors system. Their evaluation by diagnosis is an evaluation of the scale of the room for maneuvering by the participants in the corporate activity. As it has been introduced in section “Hyper-Financial Capitalism Versus Entrepreneurial Capitalism” of this chapter, hidden costs are the monetary translation of dysfunction regulation activities (Savall, 1974; Buono & Savall, 2007). (1) Dysfunctions revealed by participants are classified in six fields which model corporate management and operations and which make up the organizational diagnosis module: working conditions, work organization, time management, communication-­ coordination-­cooperation, integrated training and the implementation of the strategy. (2) To make an initially quantitative assessment, basic dysfunctions are grouped together in five indicators composing the social module of the socio-economic diagnosis: absenteeism, work accidents and work-related illness, staff turnover, lack of quality, direct productivity losses. To compensate for dysfunctions, the company adopts time-­ consuming rectification procedures and dedicates materials, products or services that are nonproductive. The cost of all the measures taken to regulate dysfunctions is equal to the sum of the historical cost of time and matter over-runs and opportunity costs (loss of earnings due to nonproduction). These losses are a potential for gains and the improvement of overall economic performance but are poorly revealed by traditional accounting information systems as they are unlabeled, unmeasured and uncontrolled. (3) Hidden costs are impacted in six components which make up the financial diagnosis module: excess salary, over time,

34 

L. Cappelletti et al.

overconsumption, nonproduction, noncreation of potential and risks. The diagnosis method consists in listening to the company persons through interviews, in an activity to identify the dysfunctions which disturb them. Each dysfunction perceived by the participants and expressed, i.e. each performance failure between an operation observed and an operation desired, is allocated to one of the fields in the corporate operations model. The economic impacts of these dysfunctions, evaluated through what it costs to correct them, are allocated to the six cost components in the diagnosis model financial module. Evaluation of these hidden costs over time period t makes it possible to assess the losses of value generated by organizational inefficiency—which can also be viewed as the improvement potential. A second evaluation at t+1 makes it possible to measure the variation in hidden costs between t and t+1. If hidden costs fall, organizational value rises signifying a creation of sustainable performances over the period of time. If hidden costs rise, organizational value falls signifying a destruction of sustainable performances. The model of calculation of hidden costs is illustrated in Table  2.3 applied to the case of a hospitality and catering school of 50 people. The model of the evaluation of the variation of hidden costs over a period of time which signifies the creation or destruction of organizational value is presented in Table 2.4, applied to the case of a law firm of 18 people. Actions taken in place to create organizational value and improve sustainable performance in the law firm taken in example are presented in Table 2.5. One can see on one hand that the hidden costs method is therefore different from traditional value creation measurement methods generally founded on the static capital cost concept of financial capitalism, such as Economic Value Added (EVA) or Market Value Added (MVA). The method is based on the more dynamic concept of the cost of dysfunctions. On the other hand, the difference between the hidden costs method and the transaction costs method developed by Oliver Williamson or the agency costs method developed by Michael Jensen and William Meckling is that it focuses on hidden costs and not on the visible costs shown in accounting information systems.

€969,200 €215,800

€93,900

N.E. N.E. €300 €99,100 €116,400

€8700 N.E. €47,900 €264,600 €648,000

N.E. N.E. N.E. N.E. N.E. N.E.

€3100 N.E. €53,600 €87,600 €144,000 €288,300

Noncreation of Overconsumption Nonproductions potential

€33,800 €5100 N.E. €5600 €49,400

Over time

Hidden costs: €31,000 per person and per year N.E.: Not evaluated due to the limited time devoted to the study © ISEOR 1974–2023

Absenteeism Work accident Staff turnover Lack of quality Direct productivity losses Total

Excess salary

Table 2.3  Hidden costs in a hospitality and catering school

N.E.

N.E. N.E. N.E. N.E. N.E.

€1,567,200

€45,600 €5100 €101,800 €456,900 €957,800

Risks Total

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

35

36 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Table 2.4  Measurement of the creation of organizational value in a law firm

DYSFUNCTIONS

Recycling of hidden costs into value-­ Hidden costs added creation in year Y in year Y + 1

Working conditions

€4300

−€1900

€24,000

–

€12,000 €60,500

−€12,000 −€30,100

€2500

−€700

Not evaluated

–

€103,300 €3600

−€44,700 −€1000

€89,200

−€29,700

€82,900

–

€67,800

–

€3200

−€1600

€246,700 €350,000

−€32,300 −€77,000

Bad working conditions Obsolescent office equipment Filing system failures Lack of small equipment: cells… Data-processing problems Lack of car parking for customers and personnel Total Work organization and Bad connections communication-­ between HQ and the coordination-­ site cooperation Bad follow-up of customers and files Absence of communications on “customer quality” expected Bad time and deadline management Lack of meeting and information transmission facilities Total Grand total Source: ISEOR, 2004–2023

Indeed, in the framework of the socio-economic rationality inherent in the theory of hidden performance costs, the decision should not be made on the sole criterion of the visible cost (or price) but by taking into account the integral cost composed of the visible cost plus the related hidden cost. Thus, an object that is not very expensive because of its visible

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

37

Table 2.5  Actions contributing to the creation of organizational value in a law firm • Organization of an internal investigation with the personnel to evaluate equipment needs (desks, computers…) • Revision of the way telephone calls are managed: purchase of mobile telephones for each service • Organization by branch of activity (book-keeping, gifts, rentals, recruitment…): a manager was allocated to each sector, responsible for making an annual sector diagnosis and proposing and implementing improvements • Restoration of a conference room for internal and external use, in particular to host groups • Formalization of a file chain: definition of the tasks to be achieved when the file is opened and the functions related • Organization of quarterly meeting between the associates and delegates of the personnel • Definition and implementation of a priority action plan mainly centered on file chain procedures and the development of family law services. Source: ISEOR, 2004–2023

price may turn out to be much more expensive because of the maintenance or repair costs incurred after the purchase decision.

 Key Metric of the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory: A The Hourly Contribution to Value-Added on Variable Costs (HCVAVC) Hidden costs measure the destruction of added value due to dysfunctions. In-depth observation during intervention-research processes has shown that dysfunction results from interactions between at least two, several or even many people. So there is no solitary culprit of dysfunction. The hidden costs per capita ratio expresses the reserve of average global economic productivity per person, to self-finance the improvement and the development of the firm actions. Our researches have made it possible to experiment with a synthetic financial indicator making it possible to monitor the evolution of the creation of value by a company or an organization: the hourly contribution to value-added on variable costs (HCVAVC). The calculation is

38 

L. Cappelletti et al.

simple: we deduct from the turnover or the revenue budget, the variable costs and we obtain the value-added on variable costs (VAVC). By dividing this value by the number of hours worked by all the people participating in the activity of the company, we obtain the average value produced by one hour of activity. This ratio therefore represents the average socio-­ economic productivity of the company or organization. A very in-depth SEAM analysis of 101 cases of companies and organizations, presented at the 4th Transatlantic Congress of accounting, auditing, management control and cost management, allowed the interpretation summary of financial indicators for strategic analysis (Savall et al., 2017): • a low value-added on variable costs (VACV), correlated with a low HCVACV signals a problem of strategic weakness, due to low external efficiency vis-à-vis the private or public competitive environment, as well as internal efficiency or insufficient overall economic productivity. • a high VACV, associated with a weak HCVACV indicates a good external strategic positioning of the company but a faulty internal management which does not allow to generate a sufficient level of sustainable socio-economic productivity, necessary to consolidate the capacity for survival-development of this organization. This sample of 101 cases, all sectors combined, shows an average value of €73,000 of VACV per head, with a standard deviation of 17,900 and a range of extreme values of €18,000 to €178,000. The average value of the HCVACV is €40, the standard deviation €11 and the range from €10 to €110. Such a dispersion corroborates a great variety or even a disparity of strategic situations, depending on the sectors on the one hand, but also within the same sector of activity. For two centuries, investment has become the engine of prosperity and economic progress. Industrial and material investment has dominated until recent decades. The calculation of profitability and return on investment have been mainly applied to material and technological investment. The investment choice models mainly highlight the calculation of the forecast profitability of the material elements. Our work has shown that intangible investment in qualitative development of human potential (IIQDHP) has a very high rate of return and that it constitutes a very

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

39

interesting adjuvant to material investment since it also makes it possible to increase the return on investment of the couple [material investment + intangible investment]. Any theory tends to become, over time, a more or less dogmatic ideology and ends up being diverted from its substance and its primary purpose. Thus the production function Y= f (K*T) could be interpreted, initially, as the representation of the complementarity of capital and labor factors (Carré et al., 1972). However, another use based on another interpretation ended up prevailing in the history of this theory. It was the substitution of the capital factor for the labor factor that won the ideological battle.

L earning Curve and Effectiveness of Intangible Investment Our intervention-researches have also shown that professional and personal life appears as a learning process. Hence this concept of learning process as a lever for reducing hidden costs through time has become important for SEAM theory (Savall, 2018; Savall, Péron, Zardet, Bonnet, 2018). Learning is a progressive process of acquiring the knowledge necessary to carry out any action. He is very effective and very efficient when he admits and recognizes that the memorization of the knowledge necessary for a person or a team to carry out an activity can only be done very gradually, in order to allow everyone to connect their memory with the needs of the activity to be carried out. The explanation is ergonomic. Indeed, the mental load that inhabits the mind of any person, at any time, prevents him from fully focusing on the “new” activity to be carried out. Learning is individual, but it is even more effective and efficient when a group of people must learn to synchronize in order to carry out an operation, since experience proves that an individual cannot completely carry out an action without the help of other individuals. It follows that the word productivity, also connoted and sometimes reviled, due to a semantic confusion skillfully maintained by some, should not be confused with the volume of physical quantities of goods or services produced. Economic productivity takes into account the value of the goods and services produced, compared to the value of the goods and services

40 

L. Cappelletti et al.

integrated into production. As for socio-economic productivity, it designates the economic productivity compatible with an acceptable level of social performance or even improvement. Remember that social performance is made up of the level of quality of the six areas that structure life at work: working conditions, work organization, communication-­ coordination-­cooperation, time management, integrated training, implementation of the strategy.

 ualimetrics, or the Problem of Measurement in Space Q and Time Similarly, profitability, according to socio-economic theory, designates the return on investment, i.e. the results and advantages obtained from an expenditure of resources of a “qualimetric” nature, including certainly a financial component but also resources of time, skill, expenditure of energy or effort. These elements are part of the cost price of the operation. Socio-economic rationality consists in ensuring that, apart from certain exceptional circumstances, the resources used to carry out the operation do not exceed the resources obtained in terms of results. Our experiments have always been evaluated in “qualimetrics”, i.e. qualitative, quantitative and financial terms since the primary reason for our research program was to demonstrate that there is not necessarily an incompatibility between social performance and economic performance and that under certain conditions, there is a compatibility solution that had to be found, demonstrated and repeated a large number of times to illustrate the fact that each of the 2200 business cases was not a particular case. This research program also aimed to show that there is an effective, efficient and sustainable management method regardless of the size of the company, sector of activity, country, or even time. Indeed, the oldest cases date from the 1970s and the most recent from the 2020s. Management sciences, half a century ago, were not sensitive to the question of the validity of theories as raised by epistemology. In the field of economics, epistemology led to a critical analysis of the scientific validity of theories, brought by Marxist analysis, as a critique of the neoclassical school of economics that had spread in the faculties of economy, starting

2  Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC): The Paradigm of SEAM 

41

with the events of 1968. SEAM research at ISEOR was therefore constructed by linking two poles which seemed to be opposed: on the one hand, the social utility of research for actors in the economic and social sphere and, on the other hand, the epistemological foundations proposed theories and results. Then qualimetrics appears as being another key concept of SEAM theory (Savall & Zardet, 2011a; Boje, 2011). It expresses the principle of a continuum between qualitative-quantitative-financial indicators having complementary forms of measurement of all kinds of phenomena of organizational life, in particular, the evaluation of economic and social performance, at the service of the same “battle” for the quality of life and sustainable prosperity. Qualimetrics is a response to the unnatural separatism which has led, since the first years of education, to separate students who are good in literature from those who are good in mathematics, whereas the human being is a qualimetrics being which brings together and combines these two essential qualities. Thus: “A word needs numbers to make sense and a number needs words to make sense”. Improving business results that increase the purchasing power of all stakeholders does not correspond to the traditional narrow definition of profit. According to socio-economic theory, the income that irrigates stakeholders with purchasing power is the value-added on variable costs generated by the company. Thanks to qualimetrics, the hidden costs method may also be used to measure the costs of negative externalities for the environment (Savall, 1979). As a matter of fact, it is worth noting the increasing recourse by researchers in the field to the principles of the SEAM approach of hidden costs (Cohanier et al., 2023). The hidden costs of the negative externalities of one organization for the environment are approached by measuring the costs of human activities and the consumption of resources triggered by their social regulations. Such a measure breaks with the classic accounting principles of accuracy and exhaustiveness to favor those of authenticity and consensus: the hidden cost of a dysfunction will generally be undervalued in order to settle on the minimum amount of the cost of its regulations which are agreed upon by the stakeholders. However, while certain regulations are indisputable, for example a one-­ month absence from work is replaced on the month resulting in a

42 

L. Cappelletti et al.

one-month extra salary, others are less so: what is the direct productivity gap between a staff unmotivated working on an administrative activity and this same staff if it was at the expected level of motivation? If we place ourselves in this position, it then becomes possible on the one hand to estimate ex ante then to measure ex post the hidden performances that would be caused by the reduction of negative externalities via the reduction of their hidden cost, and on the other hand, to consider more incentive systems to encourage environmental performance because they are self-financed by hidden gains. Rather than taxing bad behavior, this approach would reward virtuous behavior. The example of the study of the hidden costs of the use of pesticides by French agriculture according to the principles of the SEAM method is a very good one to illustrate that purpose (Cohanier et al., 2023). This example shows that expressed in terms of costs of repairing health damage, deleterious effects on the environment in the broad sense, additional public subsidies and regulatory management costs for the products concerned, the hidden costs would amount to at least 370 million euros per year, which could reach 8 billion if we included in this calculation additional hidden costs on which there is less consensus.

3 The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably

Abstract  The SEAM consulting model is based on a sober methodology of intervention made with three axes: (1) A “political and strategical decisions” axis mobilized to encourage the commitment of an organization’s management and staff over the two other axis. (2) A “management tools” axis which incorporates six socio-economic management tools that help to implement the innovative solutions to convert or recycle the hidden costs of dysfunctions into sustainable performances. (3) An “improvement process” axis: diagnosis, innovation project, implementation of solutions, evaluation and follow-up, that stimulates the identification of dysfunctions and the findings of innovative solutions to reduce them. These three axes, which are therefore linked together in a SEAM intervention, contribute to creating a progressive spiral of sustainable performance improvement in the intervened company or organization. Keywords  Hidden costs • Intangible investment • Dysfunction • Sustainable performance

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2_3

43

44 

L. Cappelletti et al.

The SEAM consulting model is based on a sober methodology of intervention made with three axes: a “political and strategical decisions” axis (A) mobilized to encourage the commitment of an organization’s management and staff over the two other axes, a “management tools” axis (B) which incorporates six socio-economic management tools that help to implement the innovative solutions to convert or recycle hidden costs into sustainable performances, and an “improvement process” axis (C): diagnosis, innovation project, implementation of solutions, evaluation and follow-up, that stimulates the identification of dysfunctions and the findings of innovative solutions to reduce dysfunctions. These three axes, which are therefore linked together in a SEAM intervention, contribute to creating a progressive spiral of sustainable performance improvement in the intervened company or the intervention organization (Fig. 3.1). On a managerial level, SEAM is framed as a consulting process usable by consultants, managers and academics who aim at doing intervention-­ research. On a theoretical level, SEAM is imbued with the principles of the socio-economic theory presented in Chap. 2. On a scientific level SEAM is based on specific scientific devices presented in Chap. 4. Basically, a SEAM consultant is an intervener-researcher who uses consulting as a research technology. This is why we use the terms consultant and intervener-researcher indiscriminately in the book and especially in this chapter. Nevertheless, it is important to note that these theoretical

Improvement process axis Human potential

Management tools axis

Political and strategical desisions axis

Fig. 3.1  The three axes of SEAM consulting model

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

45

principles and scientific devices of SEAM remain invisible to the eyes of the company or organization intervened, unless the consultant decides to talk about them. Only the managerial dimension to create sustainable performance is visible to the company or organization studied because that is what interests it. This is why it is important for a consultant, a manager or an academic who applies SEAM to know and master the three dimensions of SEAM—theoretical, managerial and scientific—but remaining cautious about revealing the theoretical and scientific dimensions of his method to the company or organization studied. What interests the latter is above all the managerial dimension based on the three axes A, B, C which are presented in this chapter. The three axes A, B, C, make the common characteristics of the model that are shared by all interventions. There are also specific characteristics in the SEAM framework that are particular to the intervention in a given company. The specificities are always negotiated between the interveners and the top management, with the two-fold goal of adapting the intervention to the organizational structure and culture, while maintaining coherency between these arrangements and the core of the model. The process for introducing and carrying out a SEAM intervention is referred to as Horivert (HORIzontal and VERTical) because the intervention within a company begins with two simultaneous actions: horizontal action within the executive management team and vertical action in at least two company units and then with the time being in every unit of the intervened company. For small and medium size enterprises (SME) with less than 200 employees, a specific miniaturized Horivert process has been shaped to implement SEAM in six to nine months, while an intervention in a larger company lasts twelve to fifteen months (Buono & Savall, 2015; Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021).

46 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 he Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) T Process of SEAM SEAM aims to generalize socio-economic innovations within the enterprise: its goal is to create an overall process of energizing the enterprise. It became apparent that, to achieve this, an intervention method of in-­ depth, progressive transformation had to be designed. One can roughly distinguish two characteristics in the SEAM intervention framework applied on its various sites: –– common characteristics, shared by all interventions, such as for example negotiating the intervention with the Board of Directors. These common characteristics constitute the “core” of the intervention method, which we present in detail in this section; –– specific characteristics, particular to the intervention in a given enterprise. The specificities are always negotiated between the researchers and the Board of the enterprise, with the two-fold goal of adapting to the specificities of the activity, the organizational chart, the mental structures of the enterprise, while maintaining coherency between these arrangements and the core of the intervention method. Before any socio-economic intervention in an enterprise, the SEAM consultants always conduct a veritable negotiation on the methodology to be applied and adapted, in order to customize tools and concepts to the enterprise, considered as a unique space. Intervention negotiation between the SEAM consultants and the director of the partner enterprise defines the research theme and objectives, but above all, the intervention methodology. It could be said, at the risk of slightly over-simplifying, that the “core” of the intervention method is non-negotiable: it is the sine qua non condition for carrying out the intervention. However, this core includes devices and modalities that are to be adapted to the enterprise and defined within the negotiation framework between the two parties. This framework of intervention is named Horivert because the intervention in the enterprise begins with two simultaneous actions: one within the executive management team: horizontal action; another within

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

47

the company units: vertical action. It is a progressive process, i.a. spanning a period of several years in the overall energizing of the enterprise. We shall see, however, that this progressiveness takes on relatively different forms in the two different processes. It is also a structured process, owing to its designer’s preference for a certain organization of the intervention, for a strategy of change. This organization is particularly evident in the sequencing of phases [diagnostic—project—implementation— evaluation] of the improvement process axis. And it is a participatory process: –– the heuristic search for effective rhythms of intervention: one can affirm today, when the time period between the beginning of the diagnostic and the end of the project exceeds a year, that entropy effects are hindering the energizing objective; –– the composition of participation devices for company actors taking part in the intervention: the socio-economic intervention method strongly involves all categories of company actors—from shopfloor personnel all the way up to the CEO—yet in carefully studied order and groups. During the diagnosis, for example, the results are first presented to a hierarchical group composed of the head of the unit in which the diagnosis was carried out and his/her hierarchical superiors up to the CEO. –– Finally, it is a method evaluated with company actors: all results provided by SEAM consultants are presented for discussion and confrontation with the enterprise. Thus, all hidden cost results calculated over the past 50 years have been reviewed, verified, discussed, even modified with the enterprise directly concerned. The general monitoring of the Horivert process is made through the steering group of the political and strategical axis of SEAM during the whole intervention within a company or an organization. This axis aims to stimulate the political and strategic decisions of the management of the intervened company. For this, a steering group meets periodically involving representatives of the company’s management and the consultant. The decisions of the steering group give meaning to the use of tools

48 

L. Cappelletti et al.

and a framework for the actions implemented to reduce hidden costs and recycle them into performance.

 he Objectives of the Political and Strategical T Decision Axis As a matter of fact, the success of an Horivert process is favored by its supervision by a steering group, made up of two to three members representing the top management of the company within which the change is taking place, with the assistance of the consultant leader (Cappelletti, 2007, 2012). Many change projects fail because of a lack of political support and commitment from company management. The steering group defines the specifications of the project sent to the project manager: allocated budget, expected content… During the implementation of the change project, the steering group validates the strategic relevance of the solutions reported by the project manager. He also supervises the directivity of the project manager: is the change going fast enough? Isn’t it too slow? The steering group also assesses the style of the project manager, to redirect him if necessary. Finally, the steering group can intervene to help the project manager overcome excessive resistance. The management of a change project therefore requires the commitment of the company’s top management, in particular to stimulate the implementation of critical solutions (restructuring, elimination of benefits such as company cars, bonuses, etc.). The steering group can also intervene to modulate the change management style of the designated change pilot. Indeed, the change manager has the choice between four main change management styles to achieve his goals, which correspond to four behavioral strategies (Savall & Zardet, 1987; Boje & Rosile, 2003a, 2003b). –– an authoritarian strategy where the pilot seeks to impose his solutions for change without seeking the support of his interlocutors; –– a strategy of persuasion where he seeks to impose his solutions, but by adopting a speech of adhesion to convince his interlocutors;

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

49

–– a participatory strategy where the change leader listens to the suggestions of his interlocutors and seeks to germinate solutions from the field; –– a negotiation strategy where the solutions are defined following confrontations, exchanges and debates between the change manager and his interlocutors. When change management is done using a rigorous methodology, the change leader is naturally led to adopt a negotiation strategy which is, as a general rule, the most effective for implementing lasting change. Nevertheless, at certain times of a project, depending on the situations and the interlocutors, the change manager can also play on more authoritarian, persuasive or participative registers.

Guiding Principle of the Horivert Process The first intervention method, called the “ripple-through process” was implemented from 1978 to 1983 in nine enterprises;1 these experiments made it evident that, while having been conceived as a “pincer movement” process, the ripple-through process was, in reality, a bottom-up procedure (Savall, 1974). This set limits with respect to the overall energizing objective. Therefore, starting in 1983, transformations in the conception of the intervention method led to the “Horivert” process (Savall, 1979). The Horivert process was conceived by keeping the progressive and structured characteristics of the “ripple-through” process. However, it was based on a new and crucial guiding principle consisting in situating the horizontal action much earlier in the process: from the very start of the experimentation phase, while it occurred only during the generalization phase in the “ripple-through” process. This double horizontal/vertical action—hence the contraction “Horivert”—has three objectives. First, to ensure better articulation of the socio-economic intervention with company strategy. This is facilitated by the horizontal action, which,  Six enterprises in the industrial sectors: glassworks, mechanics, foundry, metallurgy, chemicals, electronics, and two service enterprises: consumer credit and banking, and finally a public service establishment: hospital. 1

50 

L. Cappelletti et al.

as we shall see further on, notably entails defining, activating and energizing the implementation of company strategy. Secondly, this double action permits identifying and resolving so-called “basic” or “operational” dysfunctions and strategic dysfunctions. Our aim is to re-articulate the problematics that classic literature in management has separated and to demonstrate the interactive effects of strategic and operational problems, which are inseparable. Finally, the double action envelops middle-­ management with a sort of pincer movement representing the two actions. Indeed, certain managers are directly involved in the two actions: one or more members of the executive management team who are hierarchically responsible for units involved in the vertical action. This double involvement in the presence of one another, together with intervener-­ researchers, fosters coherency between the two actions and limits the practice of double discourse, often encountered in the “ripple-through” process. It is important to note that for SME, the Horivert process is miniaturized considering then the intervened enterprise as a sole unit. In that case, horizontal and vertical phases are integrated in one unique phase (Buono & Savall, 2007; Worley et al., 2015).

 romoting the Internal Dissemination P of the Intervention The internal dissemination of the intervention is promoted through training and management analysis tools. The objective here is to avoid subjecting company actors to energy brought from outside the enterprise by the interveners. This is done as early as possible and as swiftly as possible. In order to foster the enterprise’s autonomy toward interveners, we have chosen to progressively reduce the tasks externalized to SEAM consultants by helping the management team do the tasks themselves. For example, internal dissemination can entail breaking down certain intervention modules, such as the socio-economic diagnosis and the search for solutions, after training managers in the methodology and periodically assisting them in carrying out the diagnosis and then the project. This intervention scheme has several advantages:

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

51

–– it increases management competency in socio-economic management; –– it reduces delay in the intervention’s progress, thanks to the multiplication of “internal interveners”; –– finally, and most importantly, it significantly reduces the rupture that occurs between the intense moments of the intervention when interveners are present in the enterprise (diagnosis, project day) and daily operations. In other words, the evolution of management’s mindsets is more rapid and profound: one can rightly speak of evolution of the management “culture” (Conbere & Heorhiadi, 2011, 2018). Furthermore, management’s taking charge contributes to articulating the intervention to company strategy, since this is one of the axes of strategic implementation.

Details of the Horizontal Action Three types of action directly involve the Board and top executive management over the course of the first year: –– Collaborative-training action. Collective sessions are taught by intervener-­researchers to directors, managers and supervisors involved in the vertical action. Groups of from 12 to 15 persons are constituted into “clusters” following the actual architecture (organization chart) of management teams, each group including a director and his/her direct collaborators. Every group follows exactly the same training program, which is made up of ten half-day sessions every other month, plus six one or two-hour sessions of personal assistance for each participant in the training program. This “same” training program is aimed to share a common language in the change management process. These customized sessions, placed at the intervals between collective collaborative-­ training sessions, are intended to assist managers in transposing and adapting tools introduced during the collective session to his/her own specific case. These five personal assistance sessions address the 6 SEAM management tools (see details section “The Six SEAM Management Tools” of this chapter): time management tool, piloting logbook, competency grid, priority action plan and external and inter-

52 

L. Cappelletti et al.

nal strategic actions plan, periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC). –– Horizontal diagnosis of general dysfunctions in the enterprise, which feeds into the collaborative-training program as real cases in the enterprise. This diagnosis draws up an inventory of dysfunctions in the form of key-ideas. This is done through in-depth, semi-structured interviews of members of the Board and executive management. The diagnosis is presented to each collaborative-training group and concludes with the intervener-researchers’ “expert opinion” presented several weeks later (cf. section “The SEAM Improvement Process Axis” of the chapter). –– The horizontal project is developed and implemented over the course of the first year: it represents a group of general, overall solutions susceptible to allowing the enterprise to significantly reduce the dysfunctions revealed by the diagnosis.

Details of the Vertical Action In the two first units chosen for the vertical action (experimentation phase of SEAM intervention), and then in every unit of the intervened enterprise (extension phase of SEAM intervention) the following actions are carried out: First an in-depth socio-economic diagnosis (cf. section “The SEAM Improvement Process Axis” of the chapter) based on semi-structure interviews with all categories of actors in the units, a qualitative diagnosis of dysfunctions is carried out; this includes drawing up competency grids for the entire personnel of the studied units and estimating the units’ hidden costs. These results are orally presented three times: first, to the head of the unit with his/her hierarchical superior, then to the same unit head and his/her personnel, and finally to the entire personnel interviewed. Three or four weeks later, the “expert opinion” is presented firstly to the head of the unit and then to the management team and the members of the focus group.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

53

Then the socio-economic innovation project: a group of solutions that aim to reduce dysfunctions identified during the diagnosis. This innovation project is then broken-down into the unit’s priority action plan, and serves for the preparation of the PNACs of the unit’s personnel.

 orizontal and Vertical Actions Are H Carefully Synchronized The management tools implemented during the vertical action, which aim to pilot the introduced change, are duplicated by management tools implemented in all zones of the enterprise during the horizontal action. This second action enables more rapid mental evolution inside the enterprise thanks to the diffusion role played by the members of the Board of Directors in the enterprise’s everyday operation. Director and manager populations are thus directly involved from the beginning of the experimentation stage. They will remain involved during the extension and generalization stages, but work issues will evolve progressively toward coherency between company strategy and internal operations, notably thanks to the SEAM management tools. This progression is attained, for example, in the following manner: –– during the experimentation phase, piloting logbooks are constructed and periodically negotiable activity contracts are adapted to the enterprise; –– during the extension phase, a diagnosis of strategic implementation is carried out inside the executive management team. It leads to solutions for improving the implementation of company strategy, sometimes even to modifying the strategy itself. At the end of the extension phase, the periodically negotiable activity contracts are clearly articulated to strategic implementation; –– during the extension phase, the Board develops its program of internal-­ external strategic actions (IESP), i.e. it defines, prioritizes and schedules actions in the environment and inside the enterprise that will enable it to attain the strategic objectives the enterprise defined for

54 

L. Cappelletti et al.

itself. Internal actions represent the implementation of company strategy, which are defined by the actions on its external environment. This program entails progressively equipping the executive management team with management tools it will utilize to accomplish its function. Thus, the permanent socio-economic management regime, once the intervener-researchers have left the enterprise, is prepared and equipped with the six interlinked management tools of SEAM.

Why Maintain Vertical Action in the Horivert Process? A hasty analysis of the evolution of SEAM intervention processes could lead to the conclusion that top-down procedures are increasingly preferred to the detriment of bottom-up procedures. Indeed, horizontal action, conceived in the Horivert process, entails treating the Board of Directors’ dysfunctions. However, this analysis at the summit of the hierarchy has opted for inserting dysfunctions that affect the base of the company, because 50 years of socio-economic diagnosis in all kinds of enterprises have shown us that the Board of Directors always has a distorted vision of the base within SME (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). With that in mind, it seemed to us a fragile stance, in methodological terms, to be subjugated to the company’s discourse on its own operations. Maintaining the vertical action thus appeared indispensable. Furthermore, the two actions feed one another: –– horizontal action is fed by the results of vertical action. Members of the executive management team are thus successively presented with the results of the diagnosis carried out in the units: the opinions expressed by the personnel and hidden costs, then the content of the project; and periodically the evaluation results following implementation; –– vertical action is fed by horizontal action. Vertical input is clearly evident at the project stage where hierarchical superiors, members of the

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

55

small-group, are ready to fix precise strategic objectives at the plenary focus-group meeting, objectives which had been previously discussed within the executive management team (horizontal action). Finally, in a more subtle, on-going way, the units involved in the vertical action appear to be more actively supported by the Board of Directors and executive management, both toward their colleagues as well as toward their own subordinates. Ultimately, the question of how to choose the first two units that will be involved in the vertical action to start the experimentation phase of the Horivert process must be posed. It seems indispensable to us to launch the vertical action in two units. This offers two advantages: first, two members of the Board of Directors, heads of the chosen units, are thus engaged in the vertical action, which can increase their influence during the horizontal action; second, the results of the vertical action escape arguments of the “isolated case”. Conversely, we have observed that when only one unit was selected, dysfunctions exposed by the diagnostic provoked a mental shock among the unit’s personnel, which was misinterpreted by other units not involved. This often led to remarks such as, “That department is the worst”. When two units are involved, especially if they are very different from one another, this perverse effect is radically reduced.

Four Huge Effects of the Horivert Process The Horivert process has been applied by SEAM intervener-researchers since 1983  in over 2000 companies and organizations in 48 different countries in Europe, North America, Latin-America, Africa and Asia. This is why it appears possible to attempt an evaluation of the process’ application, notably evaluating recently-observed effects, in comparison with the “ripple-through” process. We have identified four principal effects (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021).

56 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 ddressing the Action Domain of “Strategic Implementation” A from the Very Beginning of the Process The domain of strategic implementation is addressed from the perspective of dysfunctions as well as in terms of solutions and SEAM management tools. This results from the positioning of the socio-­economic intervention, which is presented and negotiated with the Board of Directors as a method and process of strategic implementation in the entire company or organization in the case of a large corporate. To illustrate the preeminence of strategic implementation in the process, let us take four SEAM case studies (Savall & Zardet, 1987; Savall et al., 2008): –– In an agro-food group with 2600 employees, actions completed after 14 months included the following: Board of directors and the management team, made up of 220 persons, plus 150 supervisors were trained in the socio-economic approach, equipped with time management tools, strategic piloting logbooks, priority action plans and internal and external strategic action plan, periodically negotiable activity contracts and competency grids for their collaborators; 600 technicians, workers and staff members had periodically negotiable activity contracts; vertical diagnosis had been carried out in 9 units representing 700 employees: 550 had taken part in individual or collective interviews; a horizontal diagnosis, based on 150 interviews with the board of directors and management was followed by a horizontal project and individual and collective actions in time management improvement; a “network” of 10 internal consultants and assistants had been constituted and trained. –– In a City Hall employing 2500 persons, after six  months, priority action plans had been implemented for the first time in all departments and services, approximately 60 in all. They had been prepared by the head of every unit, and then negotiated with the board of directors. –– In a telecommunications service, the executive management team undertook to revise the company’s “project” (strategy) only one year

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

57

after the beginning of the intervention, with the methodological assistance of the SEAM consultants and in application of our dysfunction diagnosis method, followed by the search for solutions in focus groups. Let us remember that in the ripple-through process this type of horizontal action did not occur until the generalization phase, three to five years after the beginning of the intervention. –– In a public housing management firm, 20 managers were equipped with decentralized piloting logbooks adapted to their responsibilities after nine months of intervention. Six months later, the firm’s entire personnel, representing 360 employees, had periodically negotiable activity contracts, each one of which had been prepared and discussed between the employee concerned and his/her immediate hierarchical superior, in a pyramidal contract structure. By then the firm disposed of both collective and individual management tools designed to be closely articulated to the firm’s medium-term strategic plan, which the Board of Directors had developed over the course of the first year of intervention.

Greater Commitment on the Part of Executive Management Another impact of strategic implementation is greater commitment on the part of executive management from the very beginning of the process regarding decisions related to the unfolding process. This testifies to the important role it plays. It greatly reduces hesitation time on the part of executive management, with which we were sometimes confronted in the ripple-through process. Henceforth, the preliminary negotiation, before intervention begins, addresses the practical organization of the intervention process and the perspective of setting up periodically negotiable activity contracts. This means that launching an intervention is subordinated to executive management’s agreement on a collaborative training program for managers, aimed to test feasibility and prepare the implementation of the periodically negotiable activity contracts, a system of remuneration incentives for the personnel, financed by hidden cost reduction.

58 

L. Cappelletti et al.

 aster Dissemination of Socio-Economic Practice F and Philosophy The origin of this indubitable effect seems to be the horizontal action that begins with the collaborative training of the Board of Directors and top management in the socio-economic approach thanks to the collaborative clusters. At this point it should be stressed that the role of management has evolved several times: –– in 1979, during the first transformative research, no training device existed. Numerous problems, essentially a mental shock experienced by Management during the diagnostic and project, led us to create a management training phase in the socio-economic approach; –– from 1981 to 1983, managers thus received several days of training between the diagnosis and project phases. The main positive impact observed was conveying an overall vision of the socio-economic approach, which they had initially been compelled to piece together painstakingly like a puzzle. However, overt or covert blocking by certain actors, in addition to the slackening of the process, led to watering down the intervention method once again; –– since 1983, collaborative training of the board of directors and management has become the first stage of horizontal action. In any case, training usually takes place before presentation of the diagnosis results in view of vertical action, in order to reduce the mental shock created by revealing dysfunctions through knowledge of the phases that are to follow the diagnosis. This mental effect is further facilitated when top management implements a “communication policy” about the intervention taking place in the enterprise. Indeed, having experienced the damaging effects incurred by insufficient information about the intervention has led us to incite executive management to organize the content, forms and scheduling of messages communicated to the different social groups of the enterprise: Senior Management, Middle Management, shopfloor personnel, personnel representative bodies (labor-management committees, personnel

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

59

representatives, trade union representatives), and in some enterprises even to stockholders, the Board of Directors and the Board of Trustees in certain public establishments.

Management Taking Charge of Innovation Actions Impact on management is not limited to the transformation of mental structures through a mental change process: it becomes concrete reality when management takes charge of operations and acts that formerly were simply delegated to the intervener-researchers. Taking charge constitutes an act of appropriation of the method since managers thus become internal interveners. This is made possible by earlier, more rapid, more economical introduction of SEAM management tools, as well as through a lighter intervention process, less time-consuming for managers. It was observed that this appropriation was what the company actually wanted. In some instances, executive management considered this endorsement as a way to activate managers through integrated training. Let us take two examples of SEAM case studies to illustrate: –– In the public housing management firm, during the design of socio-­ economic logbooks for managers, methodological assistance to each manager was delivered partly by SEAM intervener-researchers and partly by the head of personnel and the assistant managing director. This configuration served a threefold objective: enabling these two company-members to play the role of internal reference, thus fostering progressive autonomy of the firm vis-à-vis the research center; in-­ depth methodological training of these two company members in piloting logbook design and utilization; and finally, ensuring solid coherency between the company’s strategic objectives, of which both were keenly aware, and the logbook indicators that were under construction; –– In a telecommunication service firm, following two vertical actions of socio-economic innovation conducted by SEAM consultants (diagnosis-­ project-implementation), executive management wanted the other department heads to conduct their diagnosis and their proj-

60 

L. Cappelletti et al.

ect themselves. Once again, a twofold objective was served: to ensure the integrated training of managers in socio-economic methods of analysis and management, since managers alternated in-depth training session with “practical application”; to incite managers to directly take charge themselves of dysfunctions in their departments, in order to find solutions. Nevertheless these two case studies should not hide the effort, the difficulty and the deviation we have sometimes experienced during this appropriation process: abandonment by certain management members, delays… But it seems to us that the Horivert evolution is important to pursue and develop, because it is very positive at the end for the sustainable performances of companies and organizations.

More Rapid Intervention Rhythms This concerns one of the priority objectives assigned to the Horivert method and which seems to be attained. –– In a socio-educational establishment with 50 employees, the diagnosis and project process concerning the entire establishment was carried out in just one year, despite very weak adhesion, even reticence at the beginning, on the part of the personnel and executive management regarding the process. –– In a telecommunications service firm, experimentation involving horizontal action and two vertical actions was completed in six months. At the end of that period, executive management decided to carry out the generalization phase over the course of the following year. The entire intervention lasted approximately 15 months. –– In an agro-food company employing 2600 persons, all tools, including the periodically negotiable activity contract, were generalized in less than two years. This tonic rhythm has important effects on the energy of internal actors who sense executive management’s determination and are all the

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

61

more stimulated to play an active role. Finally, the remark could be made that this effect on intervention rhythms is the consequence of the three principal effects previously analyzed.

The Six SEAM Management Tools The management tools axis of SEAM is used by all managers in the company thanks to the training sessions studied section “The Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) Process of SEAM” of the chapter provided by the consultants. There are six management tools to drive six areas considered crucial for sustainable performance and to create intra-­organizational managerial coherence (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021; Cappelletti, 2012): 1. Time management tool is a coherent set of time management instruments to improve planning and programming activities; 2. The competency grid tool is used to evaluate the skills available in a team. This makes it possible to identify the sensitive operations of a team (i.e. those carried out by insufficiently competent people, or in insufficient quantity or quality); 3. The internal and external strategic action plan (IESAP) tool formalizes the strategy and steers external targets (the product-market pair, customers, suppliers) and internal ones (tangible and intangible investments, training-employment matching). It is updated every year for a strategic projection of three to five years; 4. The priority action plan (PAP) tool is an inventory of the priority actions to be carried out by the teams to achieve the strategic objectives. It also serves to guide the improvement actions defined in the focus group, which can be included in the priority action plans of the teams concerned. It is updated every six months; 5. The strategic piloting logbook tool gathers the qualitative, quantitative, and financial (i.e. qualimetric) indicators used by managers to steer people and activities in line with the objectives defined in the strategic action plan and the priority action plans;

62 

L. Cappelletti et al.

6. The periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC) tool involves all the people of the organization by deciding the priority action plans at individual level. It formalizes the individualized objectives and the means made available to achieve them. Implementation is done through a biannual face-to-face meeting between each actor and h ­ is/ her superior. The tool provides for an individualized financial reward (bonus) in case of achievement of objectives. This implementation is done through collaborative-training action at the various hierarchical levels representing all company units (services, agencies, workshops). The executive directors/chief managers make up the executive team, the executive team/department or agency heads, department heads/supervisory staff, supervisors/workers. These sessions bring together two or three consecutive levels, facilitating creation of a common language. At the general level of a SEAM intervention the six management tools aim at fostering the effectiveness of an enterprise that depends on three fundamental factors: its HISOFIS, its synchronization and its cleaning-up practices (Savall, 1979, 2003; Savall & Zardet, 2021). –– The HISOFIS (Humanly integrated and stimulating operational & functional information system) concept, which is a condensed version of the entire theory, is the federating agent, the synchronizer of actions, the primordial source of effectiveness and performance. It designates the capacity of a company or organization to stimulate effective behavior among its members, in order to attain its collective objectives. This is an innovative concept in that it places psychological and sociological considerations at the very core of the information system, whose quality and effectiveness are consequently measured in terms of its real impact on the actual behavior of the organization’s actors or agents. –– This concept is a good illustration of the integration principle and of the synchronization principle, because it represents a scale model of the entire socio-economic theory, which explains the mechanisms and sources of economic and social performance in organizations. In socio-­ economic theory, theoretical elements do not obey traditional man-

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

63

agement segmentation criteria founded, grosso modo, on the clear differentiation among company functions (sales, production, financial, administrative…) and among their respective employees: individuals or groups of individuals. This theory cuts across the traditional domains of management and is therefore holistic and multidimensional. After having identified the essential factor for performance, as far as explicative theory goes (or in terms of the diagnosis), one should then proceed, as with therapeutic remedies, in constructing a technology capable of curing the diagnosed malady. In other words, making it possible for enterprises to sustainably increase their performance by decreasing their reducible dysfunctions. By and large, the SEAM management tool is a simple, operational method that enables a company to simultaneously (synchronization principle) manage different problems and attain different objectives, both economic and social, in a coordinated way –– Cleaning-up constitutes a secondary source of effectiveness and performance. It designates the periodical examination and revision of objectives, priority actions, procedures and company organization. Depending on the needs and the nature of problems, cleaning-up should be performed at regular intervals ranging from a week to a semester. This is indispensable because every enterprise is affected by “pollution” phenomena due to entropy: loss of human responsiveness, disturbances in the environment, changes in company strategy… The observation of 2200 companies and organizations has showed over the last 50 years that the root causes of the dysfunctions and then the hidden costs that they engender resided fundamentally in defects in HISOFIS, synchronization and cleaning-up practices. Hence the six SEAM management tools aim to gradually correct the practices in these three areas of root causes of dysfunctions. In addition, the three areas serve as a guide to the solutions invented in the focus groups of SEAM intervention (see section “The SEAM Improvement Process Axis” of the chapter).

64 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Time Management Tool Time management tools are introduced in the socio-economic intervention process by the self-analysis of a time grid. The method consists in entrust0069ng every member of the management and supervision team with the responsibility of observing his/her workday over a period of three to five days and writing it down him/herself on a grid designed for self-analysis of time usage (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). This act is clearly based on a certain relationship of trust between the Board of Directors and the management team, as well as between the intervener-researcher team and members of the Board and executive management. Everyone involved thus endorses that this self-collection of data permits obtaining authentic information to be reused, under the supervision of the person him/herself, during the action. Nevertheless, as intervener-researcher, we are aware that data thus collected can be erroneous, imprecise, even voluntarily manipulated in much rarer instances. The essential objective is much less perfect “reliability” (one could even question whether data collection protocols exist that permit guaranteeing such a notion) than rapid access to a field and its time management, customarily considered by management populations as their private domain, since it touches their professional intimacy. This data collection method simultaneously attains three objectives: –– obtaining a preliminary series of concrete, anonymous data on actual time management practices, thus permitting to start the first stage of time management improvement research; –– acquiring the management team’s confidence toward the intervention process, materialized by the interveners, with regard to an eminently sensitive and traditionally delicate subject; –– reassuring company actors (starting with management) against time-­ schedule “disturbances” that their participation in the different stages of the process could provoke. The time management tool constitutes the first lever in the dynamic change process, for it permits freeing time for the intervention, without over-loading actors’ responsibilities and schedules.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

65

Competency Grid The competency grid makes possible the analysis of training-job adjustment in a unit. It is a tool intended to be both descriptive and explicative of certain dysfunctions. Regarding the causes of dysfunctions, training-­ job adjustment is a cross-sectional analysis of technological, organizational, demographic and, in certain cases, mental structures. Training-job adjustment analysis aims to explain certain dysfunctions according to the following logic (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). –– A job is defined by its capacity to absorb, mobilize and develop the professional competency of individuals. Training is defined as the set of competencies acquired during initial training, on-going professional training (retraining and updating) and finally through the individual’s professional experience. Professional experience includes all professional situations in an individual’s history that create knowledge, techniques and methods of work. Thus, professional experience contributes to modifying the mental structures of individuals. –– The job sphere (J) designates jobs that have been codified by the enterprise or unit. Jobs require a certain number of competencies necessary to perform the tasks confided to individuals. –– The training sphere (T) represents the set of combined competencies possessed by all individuals in the unit. It seems reasonable to associate individuals’ potential competencies with their current competencies, i.e. those competencies that could become real through without having to invest too much energy (Fig. 3.2).

B Training sphere (T)

Fig. 3.2  Training-job adjustment schema

A

C Job sphere (J)

66 

L. Cappelletti et al.

In training-job adjustment analysis, three zones are identified: Zone A, zone of training-job adjustment that represents the competencies required and available. Zone A is a source of efficiency that nourishes orthofunctioning (i.e. expected functioning which is the contrary of dysfunctioning). Zone B, first zone of inadequate adjustment or discrepancy that represents those competencies possessed by individuals, but not utilized or mobilized by the jobs. Zone B is often a source of frustration and demotivation; it thus potentially breeds dysfunctions. Zone C, second zone of inadequate adjustment that represents those competencies required for the full achievement of the job, but not possessed by individuals. Zone C is fundamental, for it is a source of the enterprise’s inefficiency and under-quality. It plays a crucial role in explaining poorly assumed tasks: an individual is asked to implement competencies that he/she has been provided neither through initial training nor on-going training, nor through his/her professional experience. In order to measure training-job matching, we have created a visualization grid for competencies available in the unit: the competency grid. This table, which is drawn up and filled out by the immediate supervisor, or with his/her aid, includes: –– according to a four-level scale: 1.

symbolizes an employee with good theoretical knowledge and efficient, regular practice of the operation. 2. symbolizes an employee with good theoretical knowledge and occasional practice of the operation. Personnel with regular practice of the operation, but whose theoretical knowledge is limited to basic principles are included at this level. 3. symbolizes an employee with basic knowledge of theoretical principles, but with no practice of the operation. 4. (empty) symbolizes an employee with no theoretical knowledge and no practice of the operation.

67

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

–– across line, the individuals that make up the studied unit; –– down columns, the operations carried out by the unit classified into two zones: –– current job content: technical operations, management operations and relationship operations; –– evolution of jobs: new operations to be accomplished. This zone is largely open (columns without headings) to permit inscribing evolutions of jobs, driven by either technological innovations, product innovations or socio-organizational innovations. The goal is to assess the competency level of each person with respect to the operations identified. This scale reflects our conception of the term competency: competency for an operation is said to be available when the employee has theoretical knowledge of the operation and has actually practiced it. This theoretical knowledge can be acquired through initial or on-going training. Combining these factors seemed useful to us, insomuch as we have observed that theoretical knowledge degenerates in the absence of practice and, conversely, exclusively practical knowledge is vulnerable to unanticipated changes in processes, procedures, task scheduling, modification of product lines and models, etc. The competency grid, once

Negotiate missions

Write mission agreements

Prepare training sessions

Use time management software

Carry out the management of a mission

Supervise a new consultant

۰

͡

۰

͡

͡

͢

Merry

͡

͡

͡

͡

͡

͢

Blandine

۰

͡

͡

͡

͡

-

Estelle

۰

͡

۰

͢

͢

-

Employee

Daniel

© ISEOR 1974-2023

Fig. 3.3  Abstract of a competency grid: a team of consultants in a consulting and training firm

68 

L. Cappelletti et al.

filled-out, visually displays the state of competencies that are available in a given unit by degrees of blackened squares (cf. Fig. 3.3.). It is a descriptive tool: –– reading across the lines permits measuring the degree of individual multitasking capacity for each individual, which reveals his/her training-­job adjustment; –– reading down the columns permits measuring the degree of vulnerability of the group to unanticipated events: absences, work overload. The abstract of competency grid chosen here shows the vulnerability of certain tasks such as “negotiate missions” or “supervise a new consultant”. This grid also shows that optimal evolution of jobs would imply prior training actions, due to the current lack of competencies. Failure to do so could trigger dysfunctions and then hidden costs. The competency grid has proven itself to be an extremely useful tool, while remaining very simple to employ for a multitude of applications: competency diagnosis, training program design, competency growth assessments, strategic potential diagnosis in the event of changes in products, technologies, markets and company organization. The competency grid is apparently a simple instrument, both in terms of drawing up the grid, as well as its application to management decision-­ making. In reality, its use in real-life situations has repeatedly demonstrated that caution is indispensable to its utilization and that a minimum climate of trust is necessary a priori. Drawing up a competency grid requires courage, rigor and confidence on the part of intermediary supervisory staff. This is why implementing a tool such as the competency grid via the help of a consultant who is a third person in the relationship between the manager and his team is a good thing. –– courage to carry out estimates of the personnel’s real competencies as close as possible to observed reality, without convenience. For example, accepting to recognize, and therefore spell out with symbols on the competency grid, the fact that one employee is more competent than another, even though the latter has a 20% higher salary!

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

69

–– rigor in measuring personnel competencies in a very detailed manner, proceeding analytically, operation by operation, and not by approximate, subjective overall assessment. Rigor, declared and practiced, is a factor in restoring confidence; –– confidence on the part of the personnel assessed by this tool toward their intermediary hierarchy that the assessment will be done rigorously and fairly, that the results will not be utilized for destructive purposes (such as choosing which employees to dismiss), but for constructive purposes such as developing personal competencies and reducing the unit’s vulnerability; confidence in the capacity of individuals to evolve, in the possibility for each one to find a personal advancement track, usually inside the enterprise, or to better negotiate outside the enterprise when his/her projects lead there or circumstances compel him/her to do so.

Internal and External Strategic Action Plan (IESAP) and Priority Action Plan (PAP) The priority objectives of a work unit come from its priority action plan (PAP). The PAP is an inventory of actions to be accomplished within a given period, generally a semester, in order to attain the priority objectives (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021; Cappelletti, 2012). An action is distinguished from an objective by three characteristics: it is understandable to all actors of the unit, it is concrete and it is planned (estimation of time necessary to accomplish it). Two sources make it possible to construct a PAP: first, the firm’s strategy stemming from the horizontal diagnosis, and then, the dysfunction vertical diagnostic of the unit. The firm’s strategy, in socio-economic management, is made up of two sorts of objectives: –– strategic objectives of actions on the firm’s external environment, which are the expression of the firm’s will to act upon its market. These objectives constitute what we call superstructure actions. They are visible, relatively organized and planned by the firm;

70 

L. Cappelletti et al.

–– strategic objectives of actions on the firm’s internal environment, notably, actions to reduce major dysfunctions: these are infrastructure actions which can be broken down into six socio-economic domains: working conditions, work organization, communication-­coordination-­ cooperation, time management, integrated training and ­implementation of the strategy. The infrastructure usually represents the hidden, non-planned, poorly organized part of the strategy.

The IESAP Tool Socio-economic strategy can find its expression in an Internal/External Strategic Action Plan (IESAP) for the medium-term (pluriannual). The IESAP is a socio-economic tool that translates strategic objectives into clusters of actions. Indeed, the Strategic Plan produces an “image” of the firm’s desired strategic situation over a three to five-year time-span. The IESAP is the instrument that will serve to point out which actions must be undertaken to attain the Strategic Plan’s objectives. The IESAP is two-fold since it: –– reduces dysfunctions in the organization (which constitute a strategic brake); –– formulates improvement actions (a strategic motor for the firm). –– The IESAP thus describes actions on the firm’s internal and external environments. It takes into account the Qualitative, Quantitative, Financial (QQFi  =  Qualimetrics, see Chap. 2.) valorization of the selected objectives. The IESAP includes three supports: –– a tri-annual table for planning strategic objectives that makes it possible to visualize the time-span for the completion of every objective; –– synoptic tables of strategic objective breakdown; –– the breakdown cards of priority actions.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

71

Indeed, as an implementation of the decentralization principle of socio-economic management, the IESAP is broken down into different PAPs: by company, then by unit. These PAPs will then be prolonged by each individual’s PNAC. The IESAP time-span is commonly three to five years in large companies, one to three years in SME, but with yearly updating in both cases to respond to new constraints and opportunities generated by the firm’s internal and external environment.

The Construction of a PAP Shifting from an internal/external strategic plan to priority action plans requires several stages: –– Objectives are first broken down into actions. –– Actions are then cut into bi-annual segments. –– Time necessary to accomplish actions for the first semester is then planned (time volume estimated) and then programmed (dates scheduled) This planning is instrumented with a synoptic table that illustrates the four fundamental principles of socio-economic management: –– Simulating principle, i.e. translating strategic objectives into actions; –– Decentralizing principle, i.e. breaking down into PAPs and then into PNACs; –– Synchronizing principle, i.e. by distributing over time the actions to be implemented; –– Vigilance principle, i.e. identifying the points to be kept under monitoring. This last phase constitutes a test of the PAP’s feasibility in terms of time management. This is an essential phase, for a PAP is only valid when it is feasible in terms of time, which constitutes the principal resource necessary. The other eventual resources pertain to budgetary procedure, which is usually better structured.

72 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Strategic Piloting Logbook The strategic piloting logbook is a tool intended for all managers of the intervened company to manage the objectives of reducing dysfunctions and hidden costs within their unit. It therefore brings together the key indicators of the sustainable performance of their unit (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021; Cappelletti, 2012). The indicators of the logbook are renewed periodically and they relate essentially to the actions to be achieved by the PAPs. They must be QQFi in nature. As a matter of fact the complexity of sustainable performance assessment has logically led to the complexity of its measurement and therefore a questioning of traditional performance piloting. This must now help to pilot economic and financial performance as in the past, but also social and environmental performance, which is essentially intangible performance. The measurement of sustainable performance through an appropriate logbook requires the construction of relevant indicators of a qualimetric nature, that is to say useful information for decision-making of management, on its three economic, social and environmental dimensions. On the one hand, the indicators for piloting sustainable performance must relate to its three economic, social and environmental dimensions. The choice of indicators must be made according to the strategy of the company on its three dimensions. For example, if the company has not set strategic objectives for reducing absenteeism or improving working conditions, there is no point in building indicators on these themes. On the other hand, the indicators of sustainable performance must take into account the complexity of the performance of an organization which is a phenomenon endowed with actuality and potential. To be sustainably efficient in (T) is to obtain results in (T) but also to carry out actions to create potential in (T) which prepare for the future and which will produce results in (T+1), such as employee training or research and development actions. Consequently, building indicators for measuring and piloting sustainable performance requires, beforehand, the definition of a strategy and then its breakdown into economic, social and environmental indicators of two different types:

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

73

–– Either the indicators evaluate actions that have an immediate impact on the company’s results and that of the unit taken in consideration. These are then immediate result indicators such as hidden costs indicators; social indicators measuring employee satisfaction at work such as absenteeism, high staff turnover, work accidents and work-related ­illness; and environmental indicators measuring, for example, penalties and fines paid for non-compliance with health, safety or pollution regulations. –– Either the indicators assess actions that have a longer-term impact on the company’s results and that of the unit taken in consideration. These are then potential creation indicators such as: social indicators measuring the quality of working conditions and human resources management; and environmental and societal indicators focused on the company’s brand image or environmental risks. Potential creation indicators measure phenomena and identify risks that will have, or could have, an impact on the company’s future value creation. In summary, the indicators of the strategic piloting logbook for measuring sustainable performance are of three different natures (economic, social and environmental) and of two distinct temporalities (immediate results and creation of potential). They can also take three forms: qualitative, quantitative and financial (QQFi, i.e. qualimetric). Each manager of the intervened company has to shape the strategic piloting logbook of his unit using indicators useful to pilot the priority actions of the unit stemming from the external and internal strategic action plan. Examples of indicators feeding the strategic piloting logbook of an insurance agency are shown in Table 3.1.

Periodically Negotiable Activity Contract Savall created in 1977 the concept of the periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC), a concept that was perfected through extensive experimentation carried out by SEAM interveners-researchers (Savall, 1979, Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). It is a simple, operational method that enables a firm to simultaneously (synchronization principle) manage

74 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Table 3.1  Example of priority objectives and indicators toward priority actions (case of an insurance agency) Priority objectives and indicators

Priority actions

1. Obtain greater commitment from personnel in the attainment of production objectives.

– Starting in January, set up monthly themes: set monthly objectives and monitor accomplishments in every source of production (agencies, customer counters, mail …). – Visit all units with more than 50 employees not yet visited since their opening; gather information about the agency and display information. – Continue until the end of year Y the internal-partner training plan started in year Y-1. – Draw up and display a monthly calendar of occasional tasks (3 days per month minimum: cf. competency grid) – Distribute the outstanding accounts among the following persons. – 10 per day for Ms. X – 15 per week to the other counter staff.

2. Increase the traffic at Agency Y: go from 12 to 20% average (agency open half a day per week). 3. Attain complete staff versatility at customer counters and a 70% capacity to manage property damage.

4. Reduce the number of outstanding accounts for production: go from 250 to 100 (intermediate objective for the 1st trimester = 150). 5. Reduce payment delays and increase the rate of closures on claim files.

– Assign 10 claim files per day and per staff member for revision. – Debrief each staff members every week.

different problems and attain different objectives, both economic and social, in a coordinated way. Within a company, the PNAC is a “game” with explicit rules designed to regulate professional relationships over a given period (one semester, in general) between each individual in the enterprise and his/her hierarchical superior, in view of stimulating short-term and long-term productivity improvements through direct dialogue (called negotiation) between two consecutive hierarchical levels. Additional wage incentive is granted in function of each individual’s attained results negotiated within the PNAC.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

75

A Sustainable Incentive for Staff The PNAC is composed of a selection of several individual and collective priority activity objectives (less than ten) for a limited period (six months) in application of the company’s dysfunction diagnosis (sources of hidden costs) and of the company’s pluriannual strategic plan. The PNACs of a same unit (service, department, workshop) are coordinated in a decentralized piloting logbook, enabling management to co-pilot all activities within that unit. This logbook is in turn coordinated into executive management’s piloting logbook. The PNAC has proved itself an excellent incentive for personnel, because it clearly stipulates in advance (at the beginning of the period) the improvement objectives for performance and operating quality, the carefully studied means allotted, the rules for evaluating the results at the end of the period as well as the levels of additional wage incentive granted in function of each individual’s attained results. This synchronization a priori of the elements that usually disconnected in the firm’s observed operations produces stimuli on productive behavior and triggers enhanced performance in the forms of lower overhead and higher production. At the end of the period, the evaluation of past results coincides with the preparation of the next period’s PNAC. With each new period, the rules of the PNAC game (objectives, means, evaluation, fringe benefits) are slightly different for they are adapted every time in function of the environment’s evolution (through strategic analysis), overall company results, each unit’s results (service, agency, workshop) as well as in function of the learning curb of actors who progressively learn to “play” better and consequently are more susceptible to inflecting PNAC content. The PNAC is at once a tool of strategic implementation, operations control and personnel management. It enables performing multiple synchronizations of company activities, which contributes to better achieving objectives and performance growth, as our experimentation in firms has demonstrated. Multiple synchronizations concern the objectives and means, the different levels of hierarchical responsibility and the different units in the enterprise.

76 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Synchronization is performed both during the PNAC implementation method (intervention phase) as well as during the permanent operating procedure phase. It first deals with better coordinating the various company actors (synchronization of space and of human groups).

A Tool That Requires Confidence The periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC) is a customized objectives-and-means system (group, team and individual) with wage incentives coupled with a device for biannual dialogue, discussion and resolution. Operating PNAC (like PAP) requires confidence from the start, first in self-evaluation, and then in bilateral, hierarchical and transversal relations. The face-to-face interview affords the occasion to really listen to one another, making it possible to address delicate, often taboo subjects: daring to talk about behavior that has caused dysfunctions, their personnel, with SEAM methodological assistance. These cases of application have been addressed in separate publications that endeavored to point out the specificities of each PNAC application, in function of each firm’s general policy and personnel policy (Buono & Savall, 2007, 2015). Indeed, general PNAC principles leave room for a wide diversity of concrete application in firms, as we shall study in detail further on. The PNAC is not a substitute for work contracts, collective agreements or labor laws; the PNAC is a complement to them. Indeed, the objectives fixed by the PNAC constitute an additional effectiveness requested of an individual in the context of his/her job responsibilities; effectiveness that requires, in principle, an effort or supplemental commitment. In other words, the objectives fixed for an individual prior to the implementation of the PNAC (in his/her work contract for example) are not mentioned in the PNAC. The only objectives mentioned are those about which the hierarchy is requesting additional effort and increased results from the employee in his/her usual activity.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

77

The Principles of PNAC Tool The PNAC is said to be periodical because it is established for a limited duration a priori determined by the executive management during the implementation of PNACs in the firm. This period, specific for every firm, or at least for every given category of employees, would seem to us to be best defined by the firm in function of two objectives: –– the duration of PNACs should correspond to segments of the firm’s strategic plan, since the objectives fixed in PNACs are inferred from the firm’s strategic objectives; –– the duration should furthermore represent a relevant and stimulating horizon for the employee who concludes a PNAC regarding work periods relative to his/her job. The duration of a PNAC, if it should be several months, in order to correspond to strategic implementation horizons, should not exceed a year. Indeed, if we refer to the notion of relevant horizon for employees, PNACs of six months could be envisaged for blue-collar and white-collar workers whose work horizons rarely exceed a week. A PNAC is said to be negotiable in the sense that it foresees and organizes adjustment procedures between the individual and his/her immediate hierarchical superior, before the terms of the PNAC have been agreed upon. However, the adjustment does not concern all terms of the PNAC. Indeed, in all cases, the amount of additional wage incentive is unilaterally fixed across the entire firm by executive directors. In the same way, other conditions could be relevant to policy decisions made by executive directors, such as the weighting principle for objectives, for example. The document drawn up by the executive directors that summarizes all of these terms and conditions is called the PNAC chart. “Negotiation” between the individual and his/her hierarchical superior should be understood in a different sense than joint consultation: the hierarchical superior presents and comments the objectives and the corresponding means he/she proposes; then a discussion is engaged between the two actors concerning the coherency and feasibility of the objectives

78 

L. Cappelletti et al.

and means. At the end of this discussion, either an agreement is reached about the objectives and means, or a disagreement subsists, in which case the PNAC becomes a unilateral proposal made by the hierarchical superior to his/her subordinate. So, the objectives fixed then become the conditions to be fulfilled by the end of the period by the subordinate to obtain a bonus. In the second case, the PNAC is no longer a reciprocal contract, it is a conditional fringe benefit unilaterally proposed by management in an overall framework defined by the executive directors. The amounts and forms of an additional wage incentive linked to PNACs are determined by the firm’s executive directors prior to the implementation of PNACs. Indeed, one of the fundamental principles of PNACs is announcing in advance both the objectives proposed to employees and the amounts and forms of supplemental salaries that will be attributed if objectives are attained. To determine a general idea of the sum of incentives to be linked to PNACs, it appears to us indispensable to determine the amount that would be significant in relation to current salaries, in order to make them a real incentive. Most of our experiments have shown this amount to be approximately 5% of the salary, otherwise stated, one-half of a monthly salary per year. Be that as it may, the PNAC is a tool without financial risk for the leaders and CEO since the additional remunerations it generates are self-financed by the reduction of the recycling of hidden costs into creation of value-added that the achievement of its objectives generates. Used according to the socio-economic principles described, the PNAC proves to be basically the engine of the socio-economic approach and a key condition for its sustainability in the intervened company and organization after the departure of the consultants.

The SEAM Improvement Process Axis The SEAM improvement process axis follows four chronological phases: diagnosis; focus group; implementation of solution; evaluation of performance, which present differences according to whether they are located in the vertical action or in the horizontal action of the Horivert process.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

79

 eneral Overview of the SEAM Improvement G Process Axis The four phases of the SEAM improvement process axis are preceded by a long period of negotiation with the Board (for four to six months or more), which is concluded with the signing of an agreement stipulating precise intervention modes. As regarding the horizontal action of SEAM, the phases are qualitative and imply the management of the intervened company. The objective of the horizontal diagnosis is to identify through interviews of the management the strategical dysfunctions of the intervened company and then during the focus group phase to build the external and internal strategic action plan which will orientate the vertical action of the Horivert process (see section “The Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) Process of SEAM” of the chapter). The vertical action starts within two units and then aims at being disseminated within all the units of the intervened company. It means that in every unit of the intervened company the four phases of the SEAM improvement process axis will be led following the vertical mode: socio-­ economic diagnosis, socio-economic focus group, implementation of socio-economic solutions, evaluation of socio-economic performance. The data used in the vertical mode are QQFi (i.e. qualimetric) thanks to the calculation of the hidden costs. –– intervener-researchers carry out interviews not only with the management of the studied unit but also with its entire staff. These personnel interviews (workers, supervisors, engineers, department heads, executive management, personnel representatives, support service heads) focus on their professional work-life conditions and dysfunctions perceived, from the standpoint of social and economic performances of their unit; –– the socio-economic diagnosis is qualitative to identify the operational dysfunctions that disturb the sustainable performance of the studied unit, but also quantitative and financial. As a matter of fact the hidden costs engendered by the dysfunctions are evaluated using the five hid-

80 

L. Cappelletti et al.

den costs indicators: absenteeism, work accidents and work-related illness, staff turnover, lack of quality and direct productivity losses; –– the results of the socio-economic diagnostic are written up in a synthetic report presented to the Board of Directors during a meeting designed to produce a “mirror-effect”, and then to all interviewed personnel (by groups of 15 to 30 at the most) in order to open the debate. Following the review of this report, the executive managers, in agreement with the head of the unit, launch the next phase: socio-economic focus group phase which aims at finding out innovative solutions to reduce the dysfunctions of the unit and converting them into sustainable performance. –– To do so, intervener-researchers lead various focus-group meetings (four to six at the most) inside unit management teams. Between focus-group meetings, specialized task-forces made up of managers and supervisors, sometimes including workers, technicians and office employees, hold meetings, to make progress in certain connected areas of work. Socio-economic focus-group phase includes several consecutive sequences: inventory of the various suggestions emerging from the personnel with respect to dysfunctions identified during the diagnostic, classification of these suggestions into domains of action, analysis of these action domains in order to constitute a project with the following three characteristics: –– internal coherency –– social performance improvement –– economic performance improvement; –– financial assessment of the material investments, and intangible investments most often, necessary to carry out the project. The results of the focus group’s work are written up in a report to the Board of Directors which makes the decision to implement the different solutions proposed. A synthetic report is also presented to representatives of the personnel. The defined solutions will feed the PAP tool of the studied unit and become the priority objectives that will be declined in the

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

81

PNACs of its members. During the phase of the implementation of socio-economic solutions within units, intervener-researchers assist the enterprise by acting as leaders of piloting meetings and steering groups (see section “The Horivert (Horizontal and Vertical) Process of SEAM” of the chapter), which makes it possible to regularly check progress on implementation. This entails drawing up a comparative balance sheet of the social and economic performances generated by the actions. This phase of socio-economic evaluation follows the main lines of the diagnosis methodology: it reexamines the interviews of the different partners concerned as well as quantitative and financial analyses of the evolution of the five hidden cost indicators: absenteeism, work accidents and work-­ related illness, staff turnover, lack of quality and direct productivity losses. The piloting of the different phases has the particular characteristic of being rigorously scheduled and assessed. Furthermore, it directly involves all categories of the personnel concerned in various ways.

 pecific Comments on SEAM Improvement S Process Axis Thanks to its four stages: socio-economic diagnosis, focus group, implementation of solution and evaluation, the improvement process axis confers a problem-solving dynamic to the SEAM intervention (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). The socio-economic diagnosis focuses on the dysfunctions that disturb the actors of a company or organization. It is made up of three main modules: qualitative, financial and presentation of results aimed at producing a “mirror-effect” with the people interviewed. Its results then serve as a working platform for the focus group responsible for defining improvement solutions.

 oints to Watch Out for When Carrying Out P the Socio-Economic Diagnosis In the first stage of the diagnosis dysfunctions are identified through qualitative interviews with management and at least 30% of the staff of

82 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Table 3.2  Extract from socio-economic diagnosis carried out in an accounting firm Domains of dysfunction Working conditions Work organization

Communication-­ Coordination-­ Cooperation Time management

Integrated training

Implementation of the strategy

Dysfunctions The new computer network is subject to frequent outages that lead to work interruptions The heads of missions who supervise the teams of accountants put too much pressure on their teams, resulting in stress and depression phenomena (burn-out) The partners of the firm do not communicate enough information on the request of the customers to the heads of mission which leads to errors in the accounting files and loss of customers Poor time management in the practice leads to periods of over-activity which, through the fatigue they generate, cause absenteeism among staff The lack of training of the heads of missions in consulting will not allow the firm to develop its consulting activities in the long term The poor reception of new recruits leads to frequent resignations in the year following their recruitment

the organization in which the consultant intervenes (100% in very small enterprises). Dysfunctions are classified into six themes that are explanatory variables as well as potential solutions for the identified dysfunctions: (1) working conditions, (2) work organization, (3) communication-coordination-cooperation, (4) time management, (5) integrated training, (6) implementation of the strategy. To calculate the hidden costs engendered by dysfunctions, a new set of interviews is conducted with the management of the organization to identify the causes and consequences of dysfunctions through five indicators: (1) absenteeism, (2) work accidents and work-related illness, (3) staff turnover, (4) lack of quality and (5) direct productivity losses. The valuation is made using six components: (1) excess salary; (2) over time; (3) overconsumption; (4) nonproduction that occurs when there is a loss of activity or

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

83

production due to dysfunctions; (5) noncreation of potential and (6) risks that correspond to future protocols to solve present dysfunctions. The regulation of dysfunctions is costly and leads to huge losses in valueadded because they are human activities, overconsumption of goods, materials or services.

Qualitative Results of the Socio-Economic Diagnosis The results of a socio-economic diagnosis are specific to the context of the company or organization studied. Nevertheless, the dysfunctions identified, although different from one organization to another, can always be impacted in one of the six domains of dysfunction of SEAM. To illustrate, extracts from socio-economic diagnosis carried out in an accounting firm and in an industrial company manufacturing corrugated cardboard are presented in Tables 3.2 and 3.3. Fifty years of socio-economic intervention-research on 2200 cases of companies and organizations have made it possible to identify more than 5000 generic dysfunctions. And the question that we are often asked by managers is why not make the diagnosis of dysfunctions routine with ready-made lists of dysfunctions that the interviewees would choose? The answer is that making the diagnosis is part of the therapy to improve sustainable performance. It is “vital” for this that the members of the company studied be able to express themselves on the dysfunctions in order to co-construct the diagnosis and thus appropriate its results. Our observations show that the reasons for the failures of sustainable performance improvement approaches, whether internal or external, often lie in the lack of time spent to build a consensual diagnosis of the situation to be improved with the actors concerned. The other reason for these failures is the absence or insufficiency of political and strategic support from the management of the company in question and of appropriate management tools. This is why the three axes of SEAM framework are crucial to develop sustainable performance.

84 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Table 3.3  Extract from socio-economic diagnosis carried out in an industrial company manufacturing corrugated cardboard Domains of dysfunction Working conditions

Work organization

Communication-­ Coordination-­ Cooperation

Time management

Integrated training Implementation of the strategy

Dysfunctions The incompatibility of software between them multiplies manual entries and errors. In addition, internal and intersite communications are degraded by the poor quality of the telephone system There are no procedures to make the management of spare parts more reliable. The new “check lists” of customer needs or quality procedures are considered too cumbersome, while those standardizing the transfer of orders between sites, security, maintenance interventions or shipments are not respected. Staff also note that certain production procedures, concerning breaks for example, affect team cohesion Information too often flows through parallel channels and with delays. Missing operational information, relating to test orders, safety, history or renewal of machines. The information transmitted lacks reliability and precision, such as the specifications transmitted by the sales representatives to the design office or the requests for intervention made by production to maintenance Delay issues are identified internally and externally. Interventions by maintenance and the design office are considered too long, while the management of paper orders is not anticipated enough. Externally, lengths are noted at the level of the delivery of quotes to customers The assumption of a new function and the entry of a new recruit are not accompanied by training The information system is considered ineffective: the management highlights a strong deficiency in terms of management indicators and the inadequacy of the computer system

Quantitative and Financial Results of the Socio-Economic Diagnosis Compared to the presentation of the theory of hidden costs and its principles exposed in the section “SEAM: An Incarnation of SRC in Management Based on the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory” of Chap. 2, the following clarifications must be made when using the method of hidden costs to carry out a socio-economic diagnosis.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

85

First of all, all the calculations are made using the general calculation model presented in Table 3.4. The hidden costs are assessed through the cost of the consequences of the dysfunctions called “acts of regulation”. So when we talk about the hidden costs of dysfunctions, it is a shortcut in language. Strictly speaking, we should speak of the hidden costs of the acts of regulating dysfunctions when they occur. The evaluation is done using six components: overconsumption, which corresponds to goods or services consumed in excess; excess salary which is used when an activity is carried out by a person holding a position that is better paid than the person who should perform it, or when salaries are paid to absent persons; over time, which corresponds to regulatory activities that take additional time; nonproduction that occurs in the event of absence of activity or work stoppage; noncreation of potential and risks which correspond to future (noncreation of potential) or probable (risk) regulations. The regulations of dysfunctions are costly and generate losses of added value because they are of two types: human activities and overconsumption of goods, materials or services. Overconsumption of goods or services is assessed on the basis of the actual cost of goods and services (purchase cost). The human time spent regulating dysfunctions is valued at the Hourly Contribution to the Value-Added on Variable Cost (HCVAVC) which is equal to the ratio of the margin on variable costs (or value-added on variable costs, VAVC) to the number of hours of work expected. In the case of public organizations where there is no turnover and profit, the VAVC is equal to the structural loads, which also makes it possible to calculate easily the HCVAVC.  The example of the calculation of the HCVAVC of an accounting firm is presented to illustrate in Table 3.5. HCVAVC is a crucial metric for calculating hidden costs because it represents the expected average hourly value-added. Thus when time is lost to regulate a dysfunction, the cost of this regulation corresponds to the expected value-added that would have been created if the dysfunction had not occurred. Similarly, when the consequence of a dysfunction is a lack of activity (in the case of a breakdown, for example, or a strike), the cost of this lack of activity corresponds to the expected value-added that would have been created during the corresponding period of time. Many companies minimize the cost of their dysfunctions because they value the

© ISEOR 1979

Absenteeism Work accident and work-­ related illness Staff turnover Lack of quality Direct productivity losses Total

Excess salary

Over time

Table 3.4  Hidden costs general calculation model Noncreation of Overconsumption Nonproductions potential

Risks Total

86  L. Cappelletti et al.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

87

Table 3.5  HCVACV of an accounting firm Accounting and social data (year 2022) Montant Turnover Variable costs

Value-added on variable costs (VAVC)

Number of hours of work expected HCVACV

Nature

€1, 500,000 Sales of consulting, payroll and accounting missions €290, 000 Mainly: paper consumption, transport costs, small equipment. Variable costs represent approximately 20% of the firm’s turnover. €1, 210,000 VAVC is used to finance the firm’s fixed charges and to generate the result for the financial year once these charges have been deducted mainly: salaries, rent, insurance and depreciation. VAVC represents approximately 80% of the firm’s turnover (1 − variable margin rate) 26, Total expected working hours for the entire firm: 103 hours partners, managers and employees (some of whom are not full-time employees) €46,3

One hour properly worked (= orthofunction) in the firm generates on average, regardless of its author, €46.3 of value-added. An hour spent regulating a dysfunction therefore costs €46.3 in lost value-added

hour of work lost at the hourly wage cost. This is a frequent error of reasoning because the cost of a lost hour is much higher than that of an hour’s salary. It corresponds to the added value lost during this hour and which would have been created in the absence of dysfunction. In the same way, the recovery of one hour of work by a better organization of work yields much more than the value of the hour of wages. It brings the expected added value. Once carried out, the socio-economic diagnosis is presented to the people interviewed in a session called “mirror-effect” to validate collectively, by consensus, the dysfunctions and the hidden costs identified (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021; Cappelletti, 2012). The mirror-­effect session is extremely important for the interviewees to take ownership of the results of the diagnosis. Our observations show that a successful improvement and change process requires first and foremost a consensus on the things that need to be changed, and therefore a shared diagnosis of the

88 

L. Cappelletti et al.

situation. Concerning the hidden cost calculations, they must therefore be presented very clearly to the interviewees so that they do not have the impression that the figures are exaggerated and do not correspond to what they may have expressed during interviews. To illustrate this necessary clarity in the presentation of calculations to interviewees, extracts from calculations of hidden costs presented during a mirror session in an accounting firm are presented in Table 3.6.

 oints to Watch Out for When Carrying Out P the Focus-Group Phase Once validated, the diagnosis serves as a working platform for the socio-­ economic focus group. Its role is to suggest solutions to reduce identified dysfunctions and recycle related hidden costs into performance. Once implemented, solutions are evaluated to measure the actual reduction of dysfunctions, the related hidden costs, the resulting performance and the creation of value. The role of a focus group is then to invent innovative solutions to reduce the dysfunctions identified on the targeted change issue, without causing new ones. The focus group is a solutions research group led by a project manager who is the hierarchical manager of the intervened unit. For example, the director of a site if the SEAM improvement process concerns the site as a whole. In detail, a SEAM focus group consists of two bodies, one restricted and the other plenary. The plenary group is a body that seeks solutions for change and studies the implications of these solutions. The restricted group is a body that inquires about the progress of the work of the plenary group and ensures the consistency of the solutions in relation to the company’s strategy. The plenary group includes the project manager assisted by the change managers, members of his team and managers of other surrounding units if necessary. A plenary group should not exceed 12 to 15 participants to maintain its effectiveness. The restricted group includes the project manager assisted by the change manager and his line manager. On average, four focus-group sessions are needed to define actions for change. Under the control and leadership of the project manager, assisted by the change manager, each

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

89

Table 3.6  Abstracts from calculations of hidden costs in an accounting firm Indicators Absenteeism

Work accidents and work-­ related illness

Staff turnover

Lack of quality

Direct productivity losses

Calculations of hidden costs presented during the mirror-­ effect session Staff fatigue linked to periods of over-activity resulted in a total of 50 hours of absence. These are short-term absences not covered by the firm in salary terms. The work of absentees is left in abeyance, i.e. nonproductions of 50 hours x €46.3 (HCVACV) = €2315 There were two employee depressions related to working conditions which resulted in 300 hours of sick leave for the employees concerned. On the one hand, the salaries of absentees were paid in full by the company, i.e. excess salary of 300 hours x €20 (hourly rate charged for the employees concerned) = €6000. On the other hand, the work of depressed people with occupational disease was left on hold pending their return, i.e. nonproductions of 300 hours x €46.3 (HCVACV) = €13,890 When new hires resign because of poor onboarding conditions, there is the risk that they will then spread a bad image of the firm. This risk can result in the departure of current clients, who are very sensitive to the image of their firm. This risk was assessed by the partners on the probable loss of two current clients of the firm representing a budget of €20,000. This is a risk of €20,000 × 80% (1 − margin rate) = €16,000 Frequent breakdowns of the computer network lead to work interruptions which result in annual nonproduction of 200 hours, i.e. a hidden cost of 200 hours x €46.3 (HCVACV) = €9260 Errors in the accounting files lead on the one hand to additional time for reworking the files to correct them, evaluated at 100 hours per year, i.e. over time of 100 hours × €46.3 = €4630. On the other hand, ten clients who were unhappy with the excessively long processing times for their file due to the errors made left the firm. These ten customers represented a total turnover of €15,000, i.e. nonproduction of €15,000 × 80% (1 − variable margin rate) = €12,000 The shortfall linked to consultancy missions which cannot be sold in the long term due to lack of training for the heads of missions has been assessed by the firm’s partners at a minimum of €50,000 per year. This is a noncreation of potential of €50,000 × 80% (1 − margin rate) = €40,000

90 

L. Cappelletti et al.

member of the focus group is assigned to deal with dysfunctions. The time between each focus-group session is used to brainstorm solutions. The solutions are presented in plenary session and are the subject of a collective discussion. They are then validated by the restricted group and implemented after the decision made by the General Manager or the CEO of the company or organization.

 oints to Watch Out for When Implementing Improvement P Solutions and Evaluating Them The proper implementation of improvement solutions in each of the units of the company intervened is favored by the use of the six socio-­ economic management tools by managers. Time management tool allows better planning and scheduling of these solutions. The competency grid makes it possible to better identify the pilots and collaborators to implement these solutions. The solutions become priority actions of the PAPs and are connected to the company’s strategy to give them meaning. The implementation of actions is managed using the strategic piloting logbook. Finally, the solutions are broken down into individualized objectives in the PNACs and their success is thus the subject of a financial incentive. The set of six socio-economic management tools thus secures the implementation of the solutions invented and proposed by the focus group. In particular, the results of the process, both in terms of evolution of personnel competencies (technical, economic and management, group work methods) and in terms of quality of productive behavior (absenteeism, staff turnover, work accidents and work-related illness, quality of goods and services, direct productivity) are constantly monitored, so that concerned actors stay informed and can thus modify their activity to attain the results aimed for. This piloting is accomplished thanks to strategic piloting logbooks. Stimulated interest for the work and increased responsibility for the different categories of personnel are renewed thanks to the periodically negotiable activity contract. This contract is concluded between the personnel of a given department and the department head, in connection with executive management. It defines the objectives to be

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

91

attained by the personnel (including the department head) with regard to the department’s specific area of activity, reduction of dysfunctions and evolution of competency, thanks to the means allotted by executive management for the improvement of both company operations and work-life conditions. The “contract” also specifies the expected positive repercussions for the personnel if objectives are attained, both in economic terms (wage incentive or bonus) and in social terms (improved professional-life quality). The periodically negotiable activity contract and the strategic piloting logbook make it possible to pilot the results of the change process. Regarding the evaluation of solutions, an additional tool is commonly used by SEAM consultants: the economic balance consists of comparing the costs incurred by a solution with the gains it provides. The economic balance is a tool that can be used on a forecast basis in a focus group to check the economic relevance of a solution. A solution will be economically relevant if the costs it incurs (operating costs plus investment costs) are lower than the gains it is likely to provide (increase in revenue plus integral cost reduction (hidden + visible)). Ideally, each solution studied in the focused group should be subject to an economic balance. The economic balance will also be used downstream of the change, when evaluating the solutions implemented. The evaluation will make it possible to formalize actual economic balances which will be compared with the forecast economic balances constructed during the project group.

Three Main Difficulties to Overcome During the Implementation of the Solutions The main generic knowledge produced by the replication of the SEAM model within 2200 companies and organizations since 1974 shows that organizations may have a huge endogenous efficiency reserve of between €20,000 and €70,000 of hidden costs per person per year, of which a proportion between one-third and one-half can be recycled into sustainable performance in one. On the other hand, a proportion of between one-half and one-third of the hidden cost pool seems difficult to recycle into value-added creation within the first year of implementing SEAM

92 

L. Cappelletti et al.

(Savall & Zardet, 2021). The accumulated observations show that the hidden costs conversion into performance cannot be constructed in terms of an episodic event but needs to be viewed as an on-going activity. The key elements for building such a change into the organization’s management strategy are (Lindsay et al., 2015, 2016): • A well-suited managerial and sober methodology such as SEAM. • Everyone in the organization must be involved with change: top management, managers, staff; • Changes to be done need a social construction to be implemented. But some problems may subsist during this phase that the SEAM consultant has to cope with. Firstly, as regarding the transfer of the methodology toward internal interveners in large enterprises, as a means of multiplying intervention and training capacity, while reducing the integral costs (visible and hidden). Following training, cooperation with the internal team of interveners is aimed at rooting and guaranteeing permanent socio-economic tools within the enterprise. However, the energy of these interveners diminishes over time while creating dysfunctions linked to competition between internal and external interveners. The rules of the game must therefore be clearly defined as well as the means of productive combination of both internal energy, which is very directly utilizable, and external energy, which has the advantage of not being subject to depletion. Secondly, another problem concerns the case of enterprises that have waited too long to undertake change actions and who find themselves faced with short-term financial difficulties. These enterprises must simultaneously reduce their costs and begin in-depth change actions, if they are to recover economic health and experience new development after restructuring. This difficulty incites to demonstrate that certain hidden costs and performance can be mobilized in the short term. A third difficulty stems from unequal awareness levels among executive management teams concerning change management. Certain teams are more advanced and achieve remarkable deployment in their enterprise. Others do not put stock in the effort, for lack of training or for lack of the

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

93

opportunity to work with competent consultants. They adopt classic strategies that encounter implementation obstacles which result in lost opportunity. In certain cases, managers indulge in fashionable, temporary experiments, but without in-depth change action inscribed in the long term. They end up discouraged and sometimes harbor ill feelings toward change management, owing to the low level of success obtained through their amateurish actions.

 articipative Aspect of the Improvement Process Axis P to Create Sustainable Performance All concerned categories of personnel participate in various ways in drawing up the socio-economic diagnosis of the situation, elaborating the transformation project, implementing solutions and assessing their results. –– Solutions are constructed bottom-up, i.e. starting with the analysis of problems as perceived at grassroots level, moving upward toward the different hierarchical levels, with middle management and top management playing a very active role in conducting the project-­ development process and in implementing the improvement project. –– Personnel representatives are informed about objectives and methods starting at the diagnosis phase. They carry out their usual functions within the enterprise, in application of regulations (consulted on the project and on integrated training plans) and in keeping with the current state of social relations between the enterprise’s Board and the trade unions. Thus, “traditional” social partners (the Board and the unions) maintain all of their prerogatives in this process, which requires very close collaboration on the part of the personnel directly concerned by the unit transformation project: workers, staff, supervisors, managers. –– The implementation of these decentralized procedures and the monitoring of the evolution of the organization according to the socio-­ economic approach are carried out within the existing legal and institutional framework of the company or organization, and under

94 

L. Cappelletti et al.

the strategic guidance of the Management Committee, supervised by the Board of Directors. These two bodies jointly ensure, under the vigilant observation of the unions, a quality control of this structured process of participative and controlled change. Moreover, during the 1980s, the SEAM consultants progressively developed their research work toward the modelization of change management on a participative although structured manner (Savall & Zardet, 2021). It was no longer a question of simply assisting the enterprise in conducting change actions, but of teaching the enterprise how to manage change itself thanks to a management engineering transfer process. This evolution was notably characterized by setting up permanent tools in organizations to reactivate the improvement process axis, such as Priority Action Plan and Periodically Negotiable Activity Contracts. Just as medical enquiry does not stop at the description of the disease, but pursues its work by searching for remedies, so the proposed method is not limited to the description of change-resistance phenomena that lead enterprises into haphazard evolutions. The explicit goal of SEAM intervention is to manipulate frozen energy inside the enterprise and transform it partly into change energy, so as to attain a new state, one that is preferable for all actors involved. Even if all “diseases” in the enterprise are far from being treated, we think current results are encouraging in a wide range of domains, nearly 50 years after the ISEOR’s first experimental research. Among the change management difficulties largely resolved, four important results deserve being mentioned: –– The increased awareness of the necessity for change, on the part of all actors involved, is obtained thanks to the mirror-effect of the socio-­ economic diagnostic, which demonstrates to the different personnel categories the link connecting all dysfunctions they deal with constantly, and the waste of economic resources that they induce. As experimental research progressed, it became clear that the socio-­ economic diagnosis was an indispensable stage for creating an “appetite” for change.

3  The Framework of SEAM: Managing People Sustainably 

95

–– The method makes it possible to strike a balance between actor participation, so that change will be accepted, and necessary directiveness for the efficient synchronization of actions. This is what a socio-economic project can notably produce. –– The methodology of periodically negotiable activity contracts has shown the importance of negotiating change at the collective level as well as at the team level and with individual employees. These PNACs permit rewarding efforts and make objectives more attainable by tapping the hidden resources that exist in all organizations. –– Finally, the socio-economic tools permitted developing the managerial role of directors and managers, making them actors of change. During socio-economic interventions, managers become leaders, trainers and negotiators while increasing their competency. They evolve toward a more demanding role, for they are increasingly called upon to devote themselves to development actions. Simultaneously, this is an easier role to assume in certain ways, for they handle fewer shifts of responsibility and dysfunction regulation on a daily basis

4 Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM

Abstract  Intervention-research is the scientific “vehicle” of SEAM, which therefore shares its theoretical and consulting principles. SEAM intervention-research process takes place in the paradigm of evidence-­ based management which brings together field approaches aimed at theorizing professional practices. At a second level, as transformative collaborative research, SEAM is in line with the engaged scholarship approach particularly in terms of the three main epistemological devices it mobilizes: cognitive interactivity, contradictory intersubjectivity and generic contingency. As SEAM is not a classic consulting mission without scientific intentions, the way to sell it to companies and public organizations deserves a specific method also presented in the chapter. Keywords  Cognitive interactivity • Contradictory intersubjectivity • Generic contingency • Theorizing practices Intervention-research is, in a way, the scientific “vehicle” of SEAM, which therefore shares its theoretical and consulting principles. Remember that from the intervened company or organization point of view, only the consulting face of SEAM (see Chap. 3) is visible. Its theoretical principles

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2_4

97

98 

L. Cappelletti et al.

(see Chap. 2) and scientific devices (see this chapter) that will be described in this chapter remain hidden for the studied field although mastered by the intervener-researcher. SEAM intervention-research process takes place in the paradigm of evidence-based management defined by Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) which brings together field approaches aimed at theorizing professional practices. At a second level, as transformative collaborative research, SEAM is in line with the engaged scholarship of Van de Ven (2007), particularly in terms of the epistemological devices it mobilizes. Thanks to its theoretical principles, consulting framework and scientific devices, SEAM thus appears as a scientific-based consulting process to create knowledge with a view to foster sustainable performances in management (see Fig. 4.1). Consultants and reflective managers who read the book, like academics, will perhaps be surprised to find in this chapter, section “Negotiating a Scientific Consulting Process Through SEAM”, developments on the sale of a research mission in management consulting. Many may think that from the moment it is research, it should not be sold, or be financed by the public authorities. Others think that as long as something sells, it can’t be research. This is a profound error in reasoning. On the one hand, in the case of scientific base consulting the financial transaction engages the company or organization observed in the research process much more

Scientific Based Knowledge to Sustainability

SEAM Theoretical Principles

SEAM Scientific Devices

SEAM Consulting Framework

Fig. 4.1  The creation of scientific-based knowledge to sustainability

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

99

than if it were free or sold off. In this sense, our observations show that in the case of a SEAM intervention-researcher, the financial transaction between the enterprise and the consultant is a guarantee of the solidity of both the data collected and results. On the other hand, if the research creates value for the company or organization, then its price, if it represents an acceptable fraction of the value created, is legitimate. The advantage of SEAM is that its tools and processes will make it possible to evaluate the value created for the company, in particular financial by the recycling of hidden costs into creation of value-added, and therefore demonstrate to the company or the organization observed that its price, if it is indeed the case, is only a fraction of the gains it will bring him. Nevertheless, as SEAM is also not a classic consulting mission without scientific intentions, the way to sell it is based on a specific method presented in the chapter.

 EAM: A Scientific Process to Produce S Knowledge on CSR SEAM may be used by researchers in management, academics or reflexive practitioners, as a process of intervention-research to create knowledge. At the scientific level, three principles characterize the epistemology underlying the SEAM model (Savall & Zardet, 1996), that will be studied in the section: cognitive interactivity, generic contingency and contradictory intersubjectivity. The three axes of the SEAM consulting model and the collection of data to measure hidden costs and evaluate their conversion or recycling into performance, mobilizes these three epistemological principles on an integrated manner. In addition to the authenticity and quality of measurements, this enables the use of hidden costs as scientific material for academic studies. The successive replications (i.e. using the same protocol) of intervention-researches and calculation of the hidden costs in specific situations, constitute an accumulation of layers of data for knowledge creation allowing the construction of generic knowledge transposable to other situations. By combining qualitative, quantitative and financial (QQFi) measurements, SEAM appears as a qualimetric

100 

L. Cappelletti et al.

(see section “SEAM: An Incarnation of SRC in Management Based on the Hidden Costs and Performances Theory”, Chap. 2) intervention-­ research model to produce CSR. Thus demonstrating that there is a logical and semantic continuum between ideas and numbers, so that each consolidates the other. Quantified and financial measurement (hidden costs) ensures that qualitative data (dysfunctions) is not excessively subjective, just as quantitative data becomes more meaningful when based on and linked with qualitative data.

Importance of Scientific Observation for SEAM Intervention-Research The research work of SEAM researchers is based on scientific observation. The progress of science has followed the evolution of progress made in the methods and instruments of rigorous and precise observation of the objects studied. The history of the life and natural sciences reflects the importance attached by researchers to scientific observation. It would seem that in the humanities and social sciences, to which economics and management consulting belong, the same importance has not been given to rigorous observation of the facts and phenomena studied. Indeed, interpretation, often based on intellectual speculation removed from observable phenomena, is hypertrophied in the most widespread practice of scientific work in these disciplines (Buono et al., 2018). SEAM intervention-research constitutes an epistemology and a research methodology based on the intensification of the work of scientific observation by the researcher. It aims to raise the level of “scientificity” of research in human and social sciences and management consulting. Scientific work in management thus consists in describing, explaining and prescribing or predicting, as the case may be, the phenomena studied. In that vein the raw material used SEAM intervention-research in its scientific work is: –– The documents written by the actors in the organizations: SEAM consultant still needs to be able to access them because they are not public.

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

101

–– What do the actors say, during their activity, which influences management practices (oral discourse): SEAM consultant still have to collect it, since it is volatile. –– What do the actors do during their activity (observable acts): SEAM consultant still have to get closer to observe them. If we accept that management sciences propose to study the practices of actors in relation to the performance of organizations, we can consider that the concept of practice covers all of these three observable objects: written documents, oral expression as well as deeds. This concept of practice corresponds to an object that is mainly intangible, which immediately poses a problem of method of observation for the researcher in management sciences. A rigorous research methodology therefore implies (a) that the researcher has close access to the actors-­ witnesses of management practices, (b) that these witnesses of the practices agree to express themselves in the presence of the researcher, (c) that the latter materializes with great rigor what he means when the actors express themselves, (d) that the researcher develops investigation techniques that make it possible to limit the biases of subjectivity introduced by the relationship, always specific, between the researcher and the actors. Research based exclusively on databases or on questionnaires ignores these fundamental and sensitive epistemological questions. Indeed, the use of databases, if we judge from the academic literature on management, is sometimes not subject to prior critical examination of the quality of the raw material used by the researcher, regarding the reliability of the data, their consistency, their authenticity and even their sincerity. Reading several thousand articles published in high-level academic journals shows that this question is rarely raised by the authors of these articles in a critical analysis of their own methodology, nor sanctioned by the reviewers. The practice of surveys by questionnaire may present the same limits and epistemological weaknesses (Savall et al., 2008). SEAM intervention-research strives to address these limitations, albeit with great modesty, because eradicating bias has proven impossible. However, the awareness of the intervener-researcher of these biases as well as the combination of different research protocols makes it possible to limit them and encourage him/her to be very cautious and modest in the

102 

L. Cappelletti et al.

analysis of the results and their interpretation. Intervention-research allows researchers to really get close to the actors, to make them talk, to collect in writing their expression on undocumented facts and phenomena in the company and to have them validate the written result of their expression. By means of his dialogue with the actors, the researcher collects “unpublished” documents that are not directly or easily accessible to most of the company’s actors or to third parties and, even less, to visiting or distant researchers. By his presence, even occasionally, but most often repeated within the organization, the SEAM researcher directly observes phenomena that no database or questionnaire accounts for (Savall & Zardet, 2011a).

 ow Do SEAM Intervener-Researchers H Create Databases? SEAM intervention-research, practiced cumulatively and in a team, makes it possible to create new databases, thanks to the interaction of the researcher with the actors of the organizations holding precious information, extremely useful for scientific research in management consulting (Ansoff, 1981; Savall et  al., 2018). The phenomena that interest the researcher are, to a large extent, buried in the memory of the actors of the organizations. They cannot be collected by processes other than the constructive interaction between the researcher and the actors, during a process of co-production of knowledge. The notion of data is downstream from intervention research, which makes it possible to extract information that is inaccessible by simple means of collecting “data”—which are never given!—but which the researcher must deserve and obtain, through its interactive scientific work. The information that interests the researcher is found in a “gaseous” state, that is to say very unstable and difficult to process, in the thoughts and memories of the actor-witnesses of the facts and phenomena to be studied. The taking of notes by the researcher gives materiality and visibility to this “hidden” information, it increases their degree of authenticity and significance and gives them stability, in the rest of the research process. The writing by the researcher of what the actors have not written anywhere, makes it possible to create research material

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

103

of great value. When databases are constructed from materials of such quality, they themselves acquire a higher level of quality than generally used databases. Arkhipoff (1985), famous mathematician and administrator of the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), showed the fragility of the so-called data processed by statisticians which lead to quantified results and are—imprudently? throughout society. He explained that the transition from company accounting to that of the nation is far from being as simple as one sometimes imagines. This transition implies both a warping of the meaning of the initial microeconomic data and the existence of a zone of indeterminacy, a source of imprecision. There is therefore a certain problem of accounting accuracy and a distinction to be made between accounting rigor and the accuracy of the figures recorded. These difficulties are not specific to national accounts, but already arise in the problem of the consolidation of group accounts.

 hree Pillars of the Epistemology of Socio-Economic T Intervention-Research The practice of intervention-research by SEAM researchers in 2200 organizations applied to a wide variety of research subjects, has brought out and allowed us to build three principles that characterize the epistemology of this type of research (Savall & Zardet, 1996, 2011a). –– Cognitive interactivity refers to the fact that the construction of collective knowledge results from a process of interaction between two or more actors, each carrying a piece of knowledge contributing, through successive iterations, to building shared knowledge by the actors of a team or an organization. This justifies the need for a partnership between the researcher and the field of scientific observation. –– Generic contingency refers to the fact that every situation is contingent but that a thorough analysis reveals a generic component that is found in other situations, just as we find the same atom in different molecules. The generic contingency principle that we have stated is also

104 

L. Cappelletti et al.

underlying the conditions of additivity of the terms of a sum: thus posing [1 + 1 = 2] presupposes that the two terms are homogeneous. –– Contradictory intersubjectivity designates the interactive process that allows two or more actors, starting from different subjective points of view, to build, by means of iterations over time, an acceptable common representation. Given the impossibility of objectivity, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, this conventional representation, if not “objective”, makes it possible to build a platform of knowledge of scientific intent, usable in a given space of actors and for a time. Our concept of generic constructivism encompasses these three principles. It allows, by successive replications of research-interventions in situations that are always specific, to identify generic knowledge that can be transposed to other situations. How do we know that knowledge is generic and not just local or specific? If users use it, it will be said to have some value. Knowledge is a convention until there is an innovation recognized by both communities, those of researchers and that of practitioners. Given the positivist, quantitative and logical-deductive mainstream, when we practice intervention-research, we happen to have the burden of proof of scientificity. However, the latter is robust, given the methodological traceability and the epistemological foundations which are assets of intervention-research (Savall & Zardet, 2021).

 epresentation of the Objects Studied R and Construction of Knowledge: Contributions of Qualimetrics Scientific research is an activity aimed at producing new knowledge on identified objects or creating knowledge on new or poorly studied issues. However, the word research lends itself to semantic confusion. In the world of researchers, publication is assimilated to research, whereas the latter is a process, one of the products of which may be an academic publication. Research therefore designates a production process which constitutes the learning of new knowledge by the researcher with scientific intent. Artificial intelligence offers three interesting concepts: the

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

105

knowledge base consisting of a base of facts and a base of rules. Indeed knowledge consists, most often, in establishing a link between different constituent elements of the material or intangible object studied by the researcher or mentioned by the actors. The simple statement “if A then B” is useful for representing a structure of scientific knowledge. Thus, the well-known rule: if pure water is brought to a temperature of 100°Celsius, and if the atmospheric pressure is 760 mm of mercury, then liquid water turns into gaseous vapor. Scientific work therefore consists in determining the elements of a knowledge structure as well as the links between these elements. Epistemological rigor invites us to go beyond an overly analytical approach to knowledge, that is, a structure of knowledge confined to a small number of elements and connections. Scientific progress now consists in extending this narrow field of knowledge in a more relevant holistic vision. The statement of knowledge consists in providing a representation of a fact or a phenomenon identified in a surrounding universe. A holistic representation of the object under study in management sciences then requires a continuum of qualitative (keywords), quantitative (key numbers) and financial (numbers in monetary units) information. We have qualified as qualimetric this conception of the representation of scientific intention. However, a deplorable tradition tends to separate: numbers and letters, gifted in mathematics and gifted in letters, qualitative research and quantitative research. Qualimetrics consists of bringing together these artificially separated elements, according to the principle that a keyword needs a number to make sense and that a number needs a keyword to make sense. Even a mathematical statement uses a combination of words, letters, signs and numbers. SEAM intervention-­ research systematically uses the qualimetric representation to formulate the information collected as well as the results obtained by the investigation process. The qualimetrics approach offers a very rich range of qualitative, quantitative and financial elements which makes it possible to better represent the objects observed as well as the theoretical statements produced by the research (Savall et al., 2008; Savall & Zardet, 2021). This qualimetric approach to SEAM intervention-research constitutes progress in the formulation of representations of scientific intent. It also facilitates dialogue between researchers from related disciplines as well as

106 

L. Cappelletti et al.

between the researcher and the actors during the intervention-research process. Indeed, some researchers or actors are more sensitive to the literary statement (dysfunctions, solutions…) or more comfortable in numerical measurement (hidden costs, recycling of hidden costs). The representation of an object by a combination of key ideas and key numbers makes it possible to take into account the nuances and subtleties imposed by an acceptable representation of the complexity of the facts and phenomena studied. It is worth pointing out the linguistic obstacle due to the polysemy of the words used by both researchers and actors. Indeed, both seize words like toys and use them in their lexical register and their own communication strategy. This calls for precautionary measures in communication between SEAM researchers and actors. Thus the word experimental designates, in the current world of economists or management modeling, an in vitro computer simulation without rigorous observation of the situations studied. While the experimental methodology evokes and refers to real situations studied in  vivo, in living organizations populated by actors in the flesh (Savall et al., 2012). The research results also depend on the way the researcher looks at the object studied, which can be relatively superficial, consisting of touching this object without wanting to affect it. In this case, the contemplative approach of the researcher is preferred. On the contrary, he can deepen the knowledge of the material or incorporeal object by penetrating it, by transforming it (subject to scientific ethics) to better understand its properties. These are revealed thanks to the intervention of the researcher. The positivist current exacerbates the neutrality of the researcher as a panacea synonymous with scientificity. SEAM intervention-research, on the contrary, deliberately transforms certain characteristics of the object studied to better reveal its properties. The life and natural sciences have not proceeded otherwise. The physicist has transformed the materials studied, just like the chemist or the biologist. These disciplines practice in a way what we call intervention-research (Savall & Fière, 2014). It is not acceptable, without discussion, that the human and social sciences are considered to be of a different nature from that of the life sciences and nature, especially if we consider human biology, that is to say medicine. This difference is begging the question, so it has never been demonstrated (Sorensen et al., 2012).

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

107

 he Quality of the Relationship Between SEAM T Researcher and the Scientific Observation Field The quality of the relationship between the SEAM researcher and the actors in the field of scientific observation (the studied company or organization) is a key factor in the quality of research. The generation of knowledge of scientific intent results from a back and forth between the field of scientific observation and the researcher’s laboratory, from an alternation between the sequences of in situ observation, and from distancing from the field, which allows a reflection phase with the necessary perspective. This process involves a periodic return of the researcher within the organization, in order to organize successive iterations which gradually improve the quality of the information they collect. SEAM intervention-research cannot be satisfied with a one-time stay of the researcher with the actors of an organization. It implies a certain longitudinality, necessary for the application of the three principles that underlie the epistemological quality of the information processed by the researcher with scientific intent: cognitive interactivity, contradictory intersubjectivity and generic contingency. The practice of intervention-research has revealed the importance of the legitimacy of the researcher, within the organization or organizations that constitute the field of research, which allows his proximity to the actors who co-produce knowledge. It is therefore important that the researcher-intervener concludes a contract with the host organization (Savall, 1979). This intervention-research contract determines the conditions of the researcher’s collaboration and presence within the organization. It can be either for consideration and produce remuneration for the researcher and/or his laboratory, or free of charge (see section “Negotiating a Scientific Consulting Process Through SEAM” of the chapter). In this case, the cost for the company is not zero, because the value of the time spent by the actors of the company to collaborate with the researcher is always borne by the company and is part of the production cost of research. The contract results from a discussion between equals, i.e. between the researcher and the leader of the organization. The relationship between the field of scientific observation and the researcher is

108 

L. Cappelletti et al.

situated within a framework of transparency. Its presence in the field of scientific observation is neither clandestine nor discreet, it has been contractualized (Savall & Zardet, 2011a).

 nalogy Between Intervention-Research A in Management Consulting Sciences and Research in Medical Sciences Many intervention-researches have been carried out in organizations in the health sector by SEAM researchers. It was in contact with health professionals that the analogy emerged from our cooperation with research in human biology. Advances in medical science are useful for explaining and justifying the scientific interest of intervention-research. In management sciences, there is not yet a consensus, whereas in biology the research protocols are well established, rigorous and practiced by a very large number of researchers. The transformative dimension of intervention-­ research consists in modifying the state of the object studied in order to make observations. The analysis of the variations of this state makes it possible to extract the knowledge of certain properties of the studied object. These properties are not accessible to the passing observer, to superficial modes of observation, which can be described as contemplative. The physicist, the chemist or the biologist know well that they will discover the essential characteristics of the object studied by manipulating it, by using elaborate observation instruments, by injecting reactive substances in order to go beyond banal knowledge and thus deserve the qualifier of scientific research bringing lasting progress for humanity. We thought that the notion of anthropocentric science allows a certain analogy between the human and social sciences (to which economics and management belong) and this other science respectful of the human being, medical science (Savall & Fière, 2014).

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

109

Longevity Is a Common Thread Longevity is another common thread. Indeed, the frame of reference for research in human biology or medical science is the longevity of the patient, which makes it possible to define, from an ontological point of view, that the essential orientation of research in medical science consists in increasing the lifespan of the human being, in deontologically acceptable living conditions, in terms of autonomy and dignity. Thus, the marker of the relevance of research in human biology is the survival-­ development of the individual, that is to say his ability to extend his lifespan under ethically acceptable conditions, in terms of physiological autonomy and of social dignity. By analogy, the essential orientation of management sciences can be defined as extending the lifespan of organizations and their social (dignity) and economic (autonomy of resources) performance. The working hypothesis that inspired the work of SEAM interveners is that transformative and qualimetric intervention-research presents analogies with medical research. We therefore started from 30 research-­ interventions in the health sector and interviews with medical researchers. Transformative research consists in defining the conditions of existence and realization of a preferable state which will never be considered as an absolute “optimum” but as a kind of relative optimum achievable “here and now”, with the great modesty of a scientific researcher. The transformative approach of intervention-research therefore consists in creating new knowledge allowing companies and organizations, singular human communities, to be managed to move toward sustainable well-being. Like medical research, intervention-research in management sciences is practiced with a dual systematic purpose: to provide care to improve the state of health of the company or organization and, simultaneously, to discover new pathologies or variants of known pathologies. And then validate the effectiveness, efficiency and relevance of management methods, tools and practices, with regard to the sustainable performance expected by the actors of the organization, as well as by the researchers who support them (Buono et al., 2018).

110 

L. Cappelletti et al.

Fifty years of transformative intervention-research have made it possible to establish that it is in the back and forth between the laboratory and the field of scientific observation (FSO) that the creation of innovative knowledge takes place, which is sometimes exploratory, sometimes confirmatory, depending on the state of progress of knowledge of the scientific intent of the object studied. Interaction with the field of scientific observation (FSO) is essential because the actor is the holder and bearer, more or less aware, of information and knowledge useful to the researcher, hence the importance and effectiveness of cooperation between actors and researchers in the company or organization, considered as a field of scientific observation. From this perspective of epistemological rigor, the process of seeking scientific intent consists of active, conscious and deliberate cooperation, a system of co-construction of knowledge (Savall & Zardet, 2021). The advantage of the researcher in management sciences (or more generally in the humanities and social sciences) is that the object studied is alive, active and conscious, that it is in reality a “subject-object” whose cooperation is precious for the efficiency of scientific work. By contrast, the physicist and the chemist deal with more inert objects, and apparently unconscious ones, which probably explains the success of the positivist approach, growing in power during the second half of the nineteenth century, the period of major historical advances in the life sciences and nature. The fact of having decreed, without rigorous analysis, that the human and social sciences are of a different nature from the sciences of life and nature probably explains the relative backwardness of the social sciences (including the economics and management sciences), compared to the progress recognized in the other sciences. The sciences of human biology (medicine), also conditioned by the limits of experimentation, find themselves halfway between these two categories of sciences that history has overly differentiated. The risk for the social sciences is therefore to lose the scientific character whose first condition is observation, to resist theoretical innovation, to perpetrate the transfer of theories and concepts without sufficient critical spirit of the learner and the applicator, to give too much importance to the exegesis of existing theories of the “mainstream”, with the risk of degeneration of theories of scientific

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

111

intention toward ideology, for lack of having cultivated theoretical and conceptual innovation.

 e Validation of the Knowledge Developed Through SEAM Is Th Done by Experimentation Then Replication The postulate, of course not demonstrated, of the fundamental difference in nature between the social sciences and the life and natural sciences, authorizes academically recognized and maintained research methodologies, which are sometimes superficial and which, at the very least, do not develop the reflex and the effort of rigorous and thorough observation of the studied object. In the case of SEAM, the validation of the knowledge developed is done by experimentation (internal validation) then replication (external validation). In the SEAM research program (Savall, 1974, 1979; Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021), the identification of dysfunctions and hidden performance costs was carried out through rigorous, in-depth observation, longitudinal, of 2200 companies and organizations from 48 countries, 72 different sectors of activity and 110,000 people involved in organizational change actions, research partners. This program, carried out with approximately 700 researchers and scholars, has made it possible to identify that despite the differences in countries, sectors of activity, size and legal status of companies and organizations (profit-making, associative or public sector), they repeatedly reveal and suffer similar pathologies that permanently threaten their capacity for survival and development as well as the jobs of the actors concerned. An important key to the scientific-based consulting process of SEAM consists in determining three levels of hypotheses of different and complementary natures: descriptive, explanatory and prescriptive (Buono et al., 2018). –– the notion of descriptive hypothesis makes sense and shows the modesty of the researcher in the description of an object, because another researcher could provide another description.

112 

L. Cappelletti et al.

–– the explanatory hypothesis consists of stating explanations and interpretations of phenomena, which is generally appreciated in the research community. –– the prescriptive hypothesis constitutes the highest level in this epistemology, it includes recommendations to which the scientific work leads. According to some researchers, mainly in social sciences, paradoxically, this type of hypothesis would not be part of the research. The central hypothesis which sets out the essence of the demonstration that the SEAM researcher wishes to make will be broken down into a tree structure of descriptive, explanatory and prescriptive hypotheses. Thus the management researcher will prescribe how the observed situation could be modified in a change project. Then, in medical research: do the actor-patients agree to take the drug? How are we going to assess the effects? Research can stop at the diagnosis stage, or at the project without experimentation stage, or at the implementation stage, or even go as far as the qualitative, quantitative and financial evaluation of the results of the experimentation. What is required in this epistemology is to make a complete horizontal approach at the level of one or more of the four stages, going more or less far, depending on the time available and the organizational context. The ambition of the scientific project depends on the state of knowledge on the object studied. Thus, research on a little-studied object can be content to develop a scientific contribution only at the stage of what we call here the diagnosis. Thus in medicine the discovery of a new pathology or a very significant variant of an existing pathology can constitute an essential contribution by the simple descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the pathology. In this case, modestly, the explanatory analysis will be part of a new research program, moreover carried out by a large number of researchers. The spearhead of the explanatory analysis will also be constituted by the prescriptive analysis which will consist in defining a care protocol to improve the patient’s state of health. It is surprising that certain academics in management sciences, in France or in other countries, deny the scientific character of the prescription, essential to any experimentation, considering, without discussion, that a “true” research must stop at the explanatory analysis or interpretative. This point

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

113

of view, which we believe is outdated and harmful, constitutes a real obstacle to the progress of management sciences, while the needs of companies and organizations in terms of models, principles, concepts, methods and innovative practices are considerable and do not coincide with most academic research.

Replicating Applied Research Leads to Fundamental Research The analogy also bears on the question of the validity of theoretical statements. In the human and social, economic and management sciences, fundamental research is often confused with abstraction which is considered as the signal of fundamental knowledge. On the contrary, in medical sciences and in SEAM intervention-research, applied research most often follows an inductive approach based on concrete situations. In the epistemology of SEAM intervention-research, it is in the concrete versus abstraction connection that the robustness of generic knowledge is tested. Research and fundamental knowledge are then defined according to the large number and variety of applications they allow (Buono et al., 2018). An important aspect of the medical research analogy is that it involves making diagnosis, prescriptions, treatment and evaluation of effects. This is the same approach as in SEAM intervention-research. Research therefore consists in describing, explaining, predicting. Both researches have a common scientific approach, on the one hand on the human body by respecting its integrity, on the other the social body whose integrity is to be preserved or built. Scientific progress in medicine has been discontinuous: we have gone from Hippocrates, in antiquity, to Pasteur and Claude Bernard. A parenthesis of obscurantism occurred, especially in the Middle Ages, a long period during which medicine was taught by the exegesis of texts... Hippocrates had stated in antiquity that the patient must be made to speak in order to make a diagnosis, just as we make the actors speak in SEAM intervention-research. The experimental method was rediscovered in the nineteenth century. The treatment of pathologies is an integral part of medical science. Physiology is defined by pathologies. Good health is defined implicitly on the basis of pathologies. It is applied research that leads to fundamental research, following an

114 

L. Cappelletti et al.

inductive approach. Medical instrumentation and publication as a source of dialogue have allowed considerable progress. Research networks are dynamic and numerous. Their exchanges make it possible to create provisional consensus on theories and methods. The descriptive study is very important, we always start from a diagnosis, even to introduce a solution that has succeeded in a large number of cases, as in intervention-research applied to socio-economic theory (Savall & Fière, 2014).

 egotiating a Scientific Consulting Process N Through SEAM As a consulting process, the objective of SEAM is to transform organizations to develop their sustainable performance. As a scientific consulting process, this objective still remains valid but another one appears: collecting data of scientific quality. In this sense, since SEAM is intended to contribute to the sustainable value creation of an organization, ideally it needs to be sold, with the price of sale corresponding to a fraction of the value created for the organization. Furthermore, the sale of a scientific consulting project such as SEAM may motivate the researcher and his team, becoming a source of resources and established relations between the researcher and the organization. Nevertheless, to sell a scientific consulting process such SEAM requires a methodology of negotiation and sale adapted to the intangible products-services of which it is a particular form. The section presents the key tools and features of a scientific consulting process such as SEAM that is also a self-financing model of consulting.

 onvergences and Specificities Between Consulting C and Intervention-Research To successfully sell intervention-research, the researcher must be fully aware of the convergences and specificities between his methodology and that of a consultant who doesn’t make research.

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

115

SEAM Intervention-Research Is Scientific Consulting On the surface, SEAM intervention-research takes the form of a management consultancy mission to foster sustainable performance. But in addition, unlike a classic consultancy mission, its methodology must integrate epistemological data collection to create scientific knowledge. Should we reveal to the client these epistemological devices that may remain completely unknown to him? If the researcher wishes to quote the company observed in his scientific publications and therefore obtain his agreement for this, he/her is under an ethical obligation to reveal them at least summarily to his client. If the researcher produces publications that respect the anonymity of the organizations observed, which is the case of SEAM research teams, he is not obliged to reveal his epistemological “cuisine” to his client. Indeed what interests the client is the form of consultancy of intervention-research which will help him to develop his/her performance and less his/her scientific background to produce scientific knowledge and academic publications. In summary, we recommend that the researcher who wishes to sell his research remain discreet about its scientific aspects and highlight its managerial aspects in the eyes of the client (Buono et al., 2018; Savall, 1974). The convergence between a consulting mission and a SEAM intervention-­research lies in the fact that both will mobilize advisory tools to transform the organization and help it develop its performance, for example: surveys, analyses, diagnosis, focus groups, steering committees, training actions in management tools. This therefore presupposes that the intervener-researcher builds up, as in a consulting firm, a portfolio of salable methods and consulting services, that is to say that he will be able to produce for remuneration. The specificity between a consulting mission and an intervention-research is that the company treated is not only a client but also a field of scientific observation (FSO). Consequently, the methods and services of the SEAM intervener-researcher must also make it possible to mobilize epistemological devices guaranteeing the quality and validity of the observations made to produce communicable scientific knowledge, and not only practical knowledge reserved for his/ her sole client. This is why we qualify intervention-research as scientific

116 

L. Cappelletti et al.

consultancy, in other words a methodology that uses consultancy as a research technology. The non-research consultant who works in a firm is not concerned with the epistemological devices integrated into his methods and consulting services (Buono & Savall, 2007).

 e Epistemology of SEAM Intervention-Research Is Th Integrated Within Its Consulting Processes The integrated epistemology of SEAM intervention-research is based on three key epistemological principles that the methods and services it mobilizes must incorporate (see section “SEAM: A Scientific Process to Produce Knowledge on CSR”): cognitive interactivity, contradictory intersubjectivity and generic contingency. Cognitive interactivity implies that the collection of data and the observations made result from relational interactions between the researcher and the actors, for example through diagnosis through interviews or training-action sessions. Contradictory intersubjectivity means that the data collected will be the object within the observed organization of mirror-effect sessions between the researcher and the actors to validate them by consensus, for example through steering committees or interactive diagnosis presentation sessions. This epistemological principle provides that the researcher also gives his opinion—called “expert opinion”—on the validity of the data collected. Intervention-research is therefore not in the quest for an illusory objectivity that would arise from the separation between the researcher and the observed object, “objectivity” that it refutes in the human and social sciences whose congenitally aspect it recognizes subjective (that is to say, involving subjects). His quest is, if we accept the term, “to objectify” the subjective data collected by contradictory intersubjectivity. Generic contingency, finally, implies that: a) the data collected in the FSO by cognitive interactivity and validated by contradictory intersubjectivity b) will be the subject during the distancing phase of the FSO— with regard to the analysis of the existing literature on the object of the research and the results of previous research-interventions—of an assessment between those presenting a degree of regularity (generic character) and those with a degree of specificity (contingent character). The

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

117

scientific intention of SEAM intervention-research ultimately consists of a rigorous epistemology based on methods and consulting services to qualify the knowledge created according to its generic or contingent character (Savall & Zardet, 1987, 2021). Can clients be interested in this integrated epistemology or is it better for the researcher to reveal to them only the form of intervention-research advice? It has to do with him but, as we said before, we recommend being careful and discreet about revealing this epistemology. In some cases, the revelation of this integrated epistemology, which can nevertheless remain hidden, literally risks scaring the customer away with its complexity and therefore causing the sale to fail. In other cases, a client’s desire to purchase intervention-research may result, in addition to a desire to improve its performance through rigorous methodologies, from a desire to contribute to scientific research in management with a societal aim. It is then possible with tact and humility to address these scientific questions with him/her, a fortiori, the case can occur, or he him/herself wishes to become an intervener-researcher (Boje, 2011; Savall, 1974).

 owards a Structured and Rigorous Method of Selling T Intervention-Research Selling intervention-research means making the client company pay a fair price, i.e. a price that corresponds to a fraction of the value brought to the client and which allows the researcher to release the resources which he expects and which are acceptable to the client. To succeed in this challenge, it is necessary to adopt a relevant behavior that generates respect on the part of the client and “ethical ascendancy” over himself as well as a rigorous method.

Sell and Get Paid to Be Respected by the Client A first remark on the sale of an intervention-research is that it provokes joy which comes to brighten up the routine of the researcher. We are happy when we sell and this causes a ripple effect and cohesion in the

118 

L. Cappelletti et al.

research team. We often hear that commercial sense and the ability to sell are innate and many researchers doubt their quality as a salesperson or even despise the commercial dimension of their profession. However, already very young, aren’t we in a logic of charm and sale with our parents or our teachers at school to get what we want? So almost everyone would have a potential to sell which will be more or less stimulated over time, but no one is irremediably condemned not to sell. Another important remark is that to properly sell an essentially intangible object such as SEAM intervention-research, the researcher will have to adopt an appropriate attitude, beyond a sales method that we are going to study, throughout the sales process and then maintain this attitude during the production phase of the intervention-process (Buono et al., 2018): this attitude consists in making oneself respected by one’s client and maintaining an ascendancy over him while remaining modest. On the one hand, unlike the sale of a material object, such as a car or a house, which ends when it is delivered to the customer, the sale of an intangible object such as a SEAM intervention-research continues after its formal sale during its implementation phase. In the field of management consulting, nothing prevents a client from stopping the intervention-­ research mission along the way because it no longer suits him/her. To sell a SEAM intervention-research well and then produce it until its completion, the intervener-researcher must first of all, and this from the first contact with his client, be respected by him. In other words, make the client understand that he is not a service provider like the others but a “co-manufacturer” of high quality and high value-added product-­services. The intervener-researcher must therefore not accept everything and anything from his client and let him know with subtlety and firmness in certain cases. In summary on this point, the SEAM intervener-researcher must be pleasant without being complacent with his/her client. Secondly, the intervener-researcher must maintain from the first contact with his client, then during the negotiation and production phases of the SEAM intervention-research sold, an “ethical ascendancy” over his client regarding his/her techniques. It is the intervener-researcher who is the expert of the methodologies sold and not his/her client. For this, the SEAM researcher must be very clear about what he/she sells: he/she sells methods and services in the space of the organization and in time on

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

119

which he/she is an expert in response to a request from the client. The client company is master of this request but not of the consulting methods and services used to respond to it. This is why the sale after negotiation will be formalized in a specific agreement that it will be up to the researcher to protect at all times. Consequently, during the negotiation phase, if the researcher does not have the skills, i.e. mastery of the consulting methods and services, necessary to process the client’s request, he/ she must not seek to sell absolutely its intervention-research. Similarly, during the production phase of the intervention-research, he/she must, through regular meetings with his/her client—physically the decision-­ maker-­payer of the mission—explain to him/her and demonstrate how the methods and services he/she puts implemented make it possible to meet his/her demand over time. But the consultant should never accept that the client refutes his/her consulting methods and services or even seeks to restructure them in his/her own way. Can you imagine a patient explaining to a doctor how to make a medical diagnosis or a prescription? No, because it would be the professional death of the doctor by the loss of his “ethical ascendancy” over his/her patients (Buono et al., 2018).

 e Three Stages of the Sales Process for SEAM Th Intervention-Research In parallel with these essential soft skills for selling an intervention-­ research process—respect for the client and permanent ascendancy over it, all with modesty—the intervener-researcher should rely on a sales technique specific to intangible objects such as intervention-research. This technique is based on a three-step process (Buono et al., 2018): a first meeting to listen to the client, a second meeting to present the consulting methods and services offered to meet the demand, a third meeting to “sell the price” of the intervention-research. During these appointments, ideally, the intervener-researcher should act in pairs with a colleague to take exhaustive notes and capitalize on the information collected. Failing this, an intervention alone remains possible of course. The intervener-researcher is master of this three-step process and should

120 

L. Cappelletti et al.

skillfully “impose” it on his client, even if it means explaining the reasons for these three steps.

First Stage The first meeting is used to make an inventory of the client’s objectives. It will consist of 90% listening to the client on the part of the intervener-­ researcher: what does the client want and what are his objectives with regard to the improvement in performance he/she wants? At this point the question arises of who is the client physically? This is the decision-­ maker-­payer of the intervention-research mission. In most cases, the decision-­maker-payer is easy to detect: it is the CEO of the studied company, possibly accompanied by its CFO and CHRO. But in some cases, the decision-maker-payer is actually a more complex human group. For example, in a negotiation with a City Hall, the decision-maker-payer is the mayor with his general director of services and the financial director of the city hall. It is therefore these three people who will have to be brought together by the intervener-researcher in this first meeting and the following ones. During this meeting, the SEAM intervener-researcher only asks questions about the request and the objectives of the client, then is silent and takes exhaustive notes on the objectives expressed by the client. At the end of this first meeting, depending on the objectives expressed, the intervener-researcher is able to know if he/she is competent to respond to the request. If this is not the case, the researcher must end the negotiation. First of all it would be an ethical decision. Secondly it would indeed be professionally suicidal for him to seek to respond to a request that he is not competent to process. If this is the case, the researcher will schedule a second appointment with his/her client a few days or weeks after the first.

Second Stage In this second meeting, the intervener-researcher will present the methods and services that he/she offers to the client to process his/her request

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

121

using a tool called the OMSP: Objective-Method-Service-Product, a synthetic tool summing up objective-products, method-products, and service-­products that constitute the specification manual at the center of the intervention agreement (Buono & Savall, 2007, 2015). The matrix of this tool is presented in Fig. 4.2 with examples. The first column of the OMSP resumes in the client’s own words the objectives that he formulated during the first meeting. In a way this column “belongs” to the client. In the second column, the researcher presents the methods (carrying out a diagnosis, carrying out a focus group, etc.) which he/she details in terms of services in a third column (number of diagnosis interviews, people involved and duration, number of focus-­ group sessions, people involved and duration etc.). The OMSP materializes the intangible object sold: methods and services in response to a request. In addition to the OMSP, during this second meeting, the participant-­researcher also formalizes the representation in the space of the intervention-research through its architecture (which are the people and the departments of the company who will be affected by the research-­ intervention?) as well as its representation over time through its implementation schedule. The discussion then begins during this second appointment on the good understanding by the intervener-researcher of the objectives of the client formulated during the first appointment, and that by the client of OBJECTIVES-PRODUCTS Client requests

METHODS-PRODUCTS SEAM methods and tools used to treat client request

Examples

Examples

Examples “Strengthen team cohesion”

•

“Improve the quality of life at work” “ ”

Carry out a diagnosis of dysfuncons and the hidden costs they generate

•

Lead an improvement focus group

“

”

© ISEOR 1974-2023

Fig. 4.2  Matrix of a OMSP tool

SERVICES-PRODUCTS

•

Individual qualitave interviews with members of the Board of Directors and top management : 25 interviews, 1 hour per interview

•

Qualitave group interviews with 30% of core staff: 20 groups, 1.5 hours per interview

122 

L. Cappelletti et al.

the methods and services offered as well as the feasibility for the client of the proposed architecture and schedule. As long as there is no agreement from the client on this qualitative proposal from the intervener-researcher, there is no third appointment dedicated to the sale of the price of the intervention-researcher.

Third Stage The third meeting is in fact devoted solely to the sale of the price of the intervention because qualitative sale and financial sale are based on different springs. The third meeting is therefore financial and concerns the presentation of the sale price and its justification by the intervener-researcher.

 ow to Determine the Fair Price H of Intervention-Research? To determine his selling price, the researcher must first define the upper limit and the lower limit of his/her price and propose a price between these two limits. This price is that of the methods and services offered to meet the demand and especially not that of the days of production—in the field and in the laboratory—which they imply for the intervention-­ researcher, and his team possibly. Indeed, the key to selling the price of an intangible scientific-based mission such as SEAM is to offer a full price for this object and not a rate for the days required to produce it. In a way, the researcher sells “a car that runs” and not “the days needed to manufacture a car”. This on the one hand because its day rate must remain a trade secret which only concerns him/herself, except in the case of response to a call for tenders where the day rate would be formally requested. And on the other hand not to tempt the client to negotiate a lower price by seeking to reduce the number of production days. To determine their limits, the researcher must first define the maximum day rate they wish to apply.

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

123

This is based on an analysis of the prices charged by its competitors, consultants or other stakeholders-researchers. Thus, on the French management consulting market, average rates considered high are around 3000 to 2000 euros per day, average rates around 1500 to 1000 euros and very low rates less than 900 euros. Then the intervener-researcher must, through an internal analysis of his/her own consulting firm, define the full cost for him/her of a day of intervention-research production. This full cost constitutes the lower limit of its daily rate of intervention. Indeed, to achieve a margin and generate net own resources, which remains the economic objective of the sale of intervention-research, the researcher will have to sell his/her work beyond this lower limit. In the end, the daily rate is defined by the consultant between these two upper and lower limits according to his/her marketing and financial positioning strategy. This price is then used to draw up its internal intervention estimate, which is also never communicated to the client. This estimate makes it possible to define the price of the intervention which is communicated to the customer during the third appointment.

Selling the Price of Intervention-Research During the third meeting of the process of negotiation, if the client validates the price and accepts it, the agreement can be signed without problem. If the customer seeks to negotiate the price, it is necessary to argue to justify it not according to the days that the intervention-research claims but according to the value that it is likely to create for the client to meet his objectives and at his request. Commercial skill consists for the intervener-researcher, “without lying” of course for obvious ethical reasons, in demonstrating to the client that the selling price of his/her intervention will be largely self-financed by the gains it will generate. This demonstration assumes that the intervener-researcher has thought about this demonstration ex ante. This demonstration is done orally, on the basis of examples, and it never becomes a conventional element. Indeed, the SEAM intervener-researcher, like a doctor, has an obligation of means but not of results. He therefore commits to the agreement on methods, services, architecture, planning and a price that he will have to

124 

L. Cappelletti et al.

respect—these are the means—but not on the results even if he/she will put the means sold in work to achieve them. Indeed, in the humanities and social sciences, and perhaps even in the natural sciences (see section “SEAM: A Scientific Process to Produce Knowledge on CSR”), the results of an intervention will partly depend on factors that the intervener-researcher does not fully control, such as the behavior of the client during the intervention or impromptu variations in the socio-economic environment of the client organization. After argument, if the client still wants a drop in the price offered for budgetary reasons, this may be acceptable by reducing the methods and services offered and therefore the number of days required for their production. But in this case, the intervener-researcher must know how far to stop the narrowing of his/her intervention so that it does not threaten the processing of the client’s request and objectives. As a general rule, in the event of negotiation of the price by the customer, a reduction in the intervention is possible within a limit of 5 to 10% of its scope, but rarely more.

When Refusing to Sell Intervention-Research? As a last resort, the intervener-researcher should not hesitate to refuse to sell the intervention if the client wishes a reduction in prices that goes beyond the fixed limits of own resources and achievement of the objectives of the mission. It is better not to intervene at a bargain price which devalues the mission than to intervene in this case because the loss of ascendancy which will result from it will inevitably compromise the quality of the intervention-research and therefore its final, both managerial and scientific results. To caricature, in short, the appropriate state of mind of the intervention-researcher to sell the price of his scientific-based consulting process is that of making the company understand that it is not the company that is doing the researcher a favor by offering him/her a field of scientific observations (FSO), but that it is the company who is lucky enough to have met the intervener-researcher to reach a preferable state of the intervened organization. And this assumes that the researcher is convinced of this him/herself.

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

125

The Importance of an Account of Signature Once the sale price has been accepted by the client, all that remains is for the SEAM researcher to set out the payment schedule for this price. This is spread over the duration of the intervention with monthly payments and 20% of the sale price to be paid on account on signature. This deposit is important because it engages the client in the intervention and it is legitimate because there will be an investment in preparation for the intervention-research that should be financed (see Chap. 3). As long as we have not obtained the 20% deposit, of course, we do not start the intervention-research with the client (Buono et al., 2018). Beyond the situations of regular sales of SEAM intervention-research processes which, in our opinion, must remain the general case, the intervener-­researcher naturally may retain the possibility, for exceptional situations, of carrying out a mission “voluntarily” if he expects one recoverable in one way or another. But this must remain a derogatory case, as experience shows that the quality of the data collected is then mechanically degraded.

 e Sale of the Research-Intervention Continues During Th Its Realization At the end of the third negotiation meeting of a SEAM process, in the event of an agreement on the qualitative and financial proposal, the SEAM intervention-research can start subject to the effective payment of the deposit upon signature. But its sale does not stop there. In reality, it is permanent in other forms throughout the implementation phase of SEAM and its Horivert process (see Chap. 3) because an intervention-­ research, even signed, is a fragile process that can be easily suspended by the decision-maker-payer along the way, for example if he loses confidence. This is why it is imperative to sign a SEAM intervention agreement to secure at least the continuity of its production. In addition, the intervention agreement will be used by the researcher during the Horivert process to show the client that the methods and services implemented correspond to what was agreed and therefore that his/her request is indeed

126 

L. Cappelletti et al.

being processed. Let us not forget that as an intangible object, intervention-­ research without convention to materialize it, unlike a car or a house, would remain completely invisible. It must therefore be given maximum visibility to maintain the client’s trust and his active complicity in the production of the intervention (Savall, 1974; Buono & Savall, 2007).

 he Intervention-Research Agreement: A Tool T for Steering the SEAM Intervention The intervention agreement must take up and formalize the key elements discussed during the negotiation process in three meetings: the OMSP, the architecture, the schedule, the financial appendix and the payment schedule. To illustrate an agreement, we are going to take the case of the sale of a SEAM intervention-research carried out by a team of three intervener-­ researchers to a professional syndicate of recruitment consultants called SR. This syndicate bringing together several thousand recruitment consultants had the objective of providing its members with an argument to help them convince the CHROs (Chief Human Resources Officers) who are the clients of recruitment consultants that the full cost of recruitment was lower by going through a “good” external consultant rather than seeking to recruit internally. Given our work on the issue, SR., represented by its president and vice-president (SR.’s decision-maker-payers), decided to hear us. The first meeting made it possible to detect SR.’s objectives beyond his general request: to deepen and generalize the work carried out on the full cost of recruitment through a statistically representative survey of CHROs; offer CHROs a diagnostic tool for a recruitment process to better arbitrate between internalization and outsourcing of recruitment; develop the notoriety of SR. with the CHROs of SMEs through effective and value-creating communication. The second negotiation meeting with SR. consisted of explaining to him through a OMSP the methods and services offered to meet his objectives: to conduct a quantitative survey with CHRO to determine the full cost of recruitment; leading a project group to design a diagnostic tool

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

127

allowing CHROs to better arbitrate their recruitment decisions; leading a focus group with SR. to define appropriate communication to promote SR.’s image; carry out training courses with SR. managers on the hidden cost-performance method, an appropriate method for evaluating the full cost of recruitment. During this second meeting, SR. was also presented and explained the architecture of the proposed intervention-research and its planning. After discussion and understanding, SR. having validated this qualitative proposal, a third meeting was held to sell the price of the intervention. Once agreed on the price and the schedule, the OMSP, the architecture, the schedule, the financial appendix became the parts of the agreement signed with SR. The management of this agreement in terms of respect for the means put implemented (methods, services, planning, architecture, payment schedule) has become a permanent item on the agenda of the SEAM intervention-research steering committees between the SEAM intervener-researchers and the president and vice-­ president of SR.

 he Search for “Accomplices” During the Intervention T to Secure It Compliance by the intervener-researcher with the intervention agreement is a central element in maintaining the client’s respect for him/her and maintaining his/her technical and scientific ascendancy over him. Any attempt by the SEAM researcher to not respect the intervention agreement is therefore to be strictly prohibited. Just as any attempt by the client to deviate from the intervention agreement, for example by refusing certain agreed services during the mission or by not paying the invoices on the due dates, must be thwarted by the researcher through courteous but firm discussions which may require courage. This courage can go as far as the threat of stopping the intervention on his/her part if the client deviates too much from the convention, for example by not paying his bills or by flagrantly lacking an elementary courtesy. Rigorous management of the SEAM intervention agreement by the intervener-­ researcher must prevent such extremities which, on analysis, turn out to

128 

L. Cappelletti et al.

be extremely rare if the rigorous and structured method of selling intangibles has been respected. Scrupulous management of the intervention-­ research agreement also helps to maintain the active “complicity” of the decision-maker(s)-payer(s) and his/her/their direct collaborators. Indeed, especially in a large-scale intervention-research, it is important that the intervener-researcher has internal accomplices, that is to say people of importance in the organization intervened who are ready to support him/ her in the event of questioning and criticism. A SEAM intervention-­ research, and this is what gives it its charm, is in fact rarely “a long calm river” because, through the changes it provokes and therefore the questioning it induces, “resisters” to its implementation and opposition may arise. These oppositions and these resistances can sometimes come from internal “competitors” of the intervention-research mission, that is to say members of the organization treated who dreamed of carrying out the intervention-research sold themselves or even to whom we have refused in the past to carry out a similar project and who remain frustrated. We therefore invite the intervener-researcher once his/her mission has been sold, during its implementation to feed a specific dashboard of the intervention-­research which will include the intervention agreement as well as a gallery of the key figures of the intervention, in particular the “accomplices”, the “resisters”, the “internal competitors”, the decision-­ maker(s)-payer(s), etc. to make decisions and act accordingly. Because basically, it is only once the SEAM intervention-research has been completed and fully paid for that we can consider that its negotiation and sale have been fully successful (Buono & Savall, 2007, 2015).

 EAM: A Strong Contribution S to Evidence-Based Management The guiding principle of SEAM is grounded on evidence-based data collection established on a researcher’s commitment to the organization that the intervener-researcher is investigating. However, field work is controversial because intervener-researcher, whether academics or reflexive practitioner, when intervening may be influenced by technical training,

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

129

ideology and the organizational context. This issue of the gap between theory and management practice is related to Evidence-Based Management (EBM) by analogy with the concept of Evidence-Based Medicine. EBM implies the development of theoretical knowledge, based on a rigorous observation of the facts useful for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of managerial decisions (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). Since EBM assumes that a rigorous analysis of events makes it possible to distinguish the proven facts from contingent beliefs, it constitutes a reference paradigm for scientific consulting such as the SEAM model. As a matter of fact, methodological framework of EBM indicates five directions to follow which SEAM is aligned with: (1) put research questions rooted in reality, (2) design a research project according to a collaborative learning mode, (3) plan a project of long-term research, (4) mobilize varied theories and (5) regularly review the accumulated research hypotheses. The SEAM model, as part of this type of research stemming from research-action and socio-technical approach, aims to co-produce knowledge with the actors of the organization by interacting with them. In effect, the epistemological principles of SEAM converge with those of EBM giving to the SEAM model some postmodern aspects (Boje & Rosile, 2003a, 2003b) and a proximity with the engaged-scholarship concept of Van de Ven (2007) that are explained in this last section.

 wo Sources at the Level of Organizational Sciences: T Action-Research and Socio-Technical Approach Aware of the irrefutable limit of the methods of approximate and distant observation used in the macroscopic approach of economic theory and of the theoretical impasse in which we are confined by the production function—which privileges the quantities of capital and labor—Henri Savall, the founder of the socio-economic theory in 1973–1974 sought in a neighboring discipline, a methodology favoring close observation. The sociology of work offered perspectives, based on the critical approach of French postmodern sociologists such as Jean-Daniel Reynaud and Michel Crozier (1963) as well as their disciples from the Lyon school of sociology such as Philippe Bernoux or Jean Ruffier. These researchers went into the

130 

L. Cappelletti et al.

field of scientific observation, within organizations, then developed descriptive and explanatory theories of the situations observed (Savall & Zardet, 2014). In the same perspective, the socio-technical school had developed, since the Second World War, an interesting methodological approach, action-­ research, the object of which was the transformation of work situations. The experiments and publications were conducted according to an open systems approach (Emery & Trist, 1960) and mainly fed by the work of the Tavistock Institute in London as well as numerous experiments in Scandinavian countries. The ontological dimension of the research was clearly explained: the improvement of work situations. The socio-­ technical approach, however, had a considerable shortcoming, namely a caricatural conception of economic performance, considered as a constraint and not as one of the essential dimensions of the raison d’être of the work situations studied. This constituted a significant epistemological obstacle to the development of the socio-technical approach and action-­ research. On the usefulness of scientific research in management for practitioners, remarkable recent publications mark a new ontological trend (Van de Ven, 2007). Researchers from the action-research school find themselves, in a way, in the middle of the ford, having conveniently chosen close observation to study phenomena related to work situations. However, they still remain attached to the paradigm of the researcher’s neutrality, supposed to be a sine qua non of scientificity. From these two relevant approaches: action-research as methodology and the socio-­ technical approach as theory, Henri Savall decided to enrich them both to found the SEAM intervention-research model, by integrating two essential elements. On the one hand, the researcher’s choice of investigation methods and analytical instruments, as well as his/her rigor, constitutes an essential component of theoretical construction. On the other hand, the economic dimension is an essential element inherent in work situations and the functioning of organizations, constituting their existence and their performance in the short, medium and long term. Intervention-research was therefore born from action-research, by deepening the question of the impossible neutrality of the researcher, the latter fully assuming his non-­ neutrality and its consequences on the limits of scientificity of his/her

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

131

research. This methodology is therefore part of an approach that Henri Savall called generic constructivism (see section “SEAM: A Scientific Process to Produce Knowledge on CSR” of the chapter). This is situated between positivism and constructivism, trying to overcome the relative superficiality of the first and the particularity of the second which was born, in cognitive psychology from research on the construction of individual knowledge. Generic constructivism responds to the needs of research in management science, where the main scope for developing and transmitting knowledge is not the individual but the team or the organization (Savall, 1974; Savall & Zardet, 2011a).

 he Reference Paradigm of SEAM T Intervention-­Research: Evidence-Based Management Nowadays the literature on field research in management sciences is considerable. The guiding principle of this research is based on the collection of data based on the observation of professional practices based on the commitment of the researcher within the organization he/she is studying. But the models and theories proposed from field research are frequently criticized for their validity, and particularly in management sciences. Indeed, these works arouse controversy because the professional would practice an art and he would be influenced in his practices by his technical training, his ideology and the context of his company. However, this question of the gap between theory and practice in management fundamentally refers to evidence-based management (EBM), which means the development of theoretical knowledge, based on rigorous observation of facts, useful for managerial decisions (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). EBM is therefore a reference paradigm for SEAM intervention-research because it is based on the assumption that a rigorous analysis of events makes it possible to distinguish proven facts from beliefs, generic knowledge of those more contingent (Cappelletti et al., 2018). In connection with EBM, Van de Ven (2007) proposes an approach that analyzes the gap between theory and practice as a problem of knowledge production. He develops the concept of engaged scholarship, which can be translated as committed and collaborative research, and which is

132 

L. Cappelletti et al.

based on two principles: “the co-production of knowledge” between researchers and practitioners and “adversarial arbitration”, that is the validation of observations through non-complacent discussions between researchers and practitioners. The methodological framework of the engaged scholarship indicates five directions to follow which go in the direction of EBM: (a) pose research problems rooted in reality, (b) design a research project according to a mode of collaborative learning, (c) plan a long-term research, (d) mobilize various theories, (e) regularly revise the accumulated research hypotheses (dynamic and not static vision of the hypotheses). SEAM intervention-research falls clearly within this framework of committed research since it aims to co-produce knowledge with the actors of the organization by interacting with them. In detail, the epistemological principles of SEAM largely converge with those of engaged scholarship (Cappelletti et al., 2023; Cappelletti & Baker, 2010).

 he Epistemological Principles T of Intervention-­Research Are Integrated into Its Consulting Tools The practice of SEAM intervention-research applied to a wide variety of research objects has brought out three principles that characterize its epistemology. They are also in line with that of EBM and engaged scholarship with the particularity that those principles are integrated within the consulting tools and features of SEAM. Cognitive interactivity refers to the fact that the construction of collective knowledge results from a process of interaction between two or more actors. Each person carrying a piece of knowledge contributes, through successive iterations, to building knowledge shared by the actors of a team or an organization. This justifies the need for a partnership between the researcher and the field. Generic contingency refers to the fact that every situation is contingent but that a thorough analysis reveals a generic component that is found in other situations, just as we find the same atom in different molecules. Contradictory intersubjectivity designates the interactive process that allows two or more actors, starting from different subjective points of view, to build, by means of iterations over time, an acceptable common representation.

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

133

Given the impossible objectivity, in our view, in the human and social sciences, this conventional representation, if not “objective”, makes it possible to build a knowledge platform of scientific intent, usable in a given space of actors and for a while. The collection of data to measure the hidden costs, then to evaluate their conversion into performance, mobilizes these three epistemological principles through the diagnosis technique explained in Chap. 3 of the book. This allows, in addition to the authenticity and quality of the measurements, to use the hidden costs as scientific materials for academic publications. The general concept of generic constructivism encompasses these three principles. It allows, by successive replications of SEAM interventions-­ researches and calculation of hidden costs in always specific situations, to identify generic knowledge that can be transposed to other situations. As an illustration of the generic knowledge offered to the scientific community, let us cite for example the observation that the hidden costs are high everywhere, that the performance of management system is all the better when it is organized in a decentralized and synchronized way, and that a third to a half of a source of hidden costs is recoverable in value-added through appropriate management methods. How do we know that knowledge is generic and not just local or specific? If users use it and validate it, it will be said to have some value. Knowledge is a convention until there is an innovation recognized by both communities, those of researchers and that of practitioners. Given the positivist, quantitative and logical-­ deductive mainstream, when practicing SEAM intervention-research and the hidden cost method, it happens that we have the burden of proof of scientificity. However, the latter is robust given the methodological traceability and the epistemological foundations which are precisely the advantages of the scientific consulting process of SEAM (Buono et al., 2018).

 hy SEAM Is of High Interest to Management W Consulting Researchers? As a way of conclusion, we would like to stress that SEAM, due to its huge theoretical and scientifical background, consulting framework and paradigmatic inclusion, has much to offer both researchers and

134 

L. Cappelletti et al.

practitioners (managers and consultants) interested in management consulting. In what follows, we shed light on the main reasons that make this interest.

Enhancing the Balanced Scorecard Concept Probably the case that comes closest to SEAM’s sustainability knowledge creation process is that of Kaplan and Norton’s (2008) Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Kaplan, who is an academic, and Norton, who is a consultant, developed a tool called BSC in the 1980s and 1990s based on actions-­ researches carried out within companies and organizations. The tool is intended for the management of a company to develop strategy, implement it and measure it on the four axes which, according to them, are the basis of the sustainable performance of organizations: the customer axis, the organizational learning axis, the financial axis and the quality axis of internal processes. They relied on the observations made through the application of the tool to develop the theory of the BSC which has had some success in the academic spheres and professional associations of management control. We therefore find their work, which extends from the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s, the articulation of the three dimensions theoretical, managerial and scientific, in that vein similar with SEAM, but with a narrower field of observation centered on a single tool, the BSC. Thus SEAM results may be used to enhance the BSC concept (Lindsay et al., 2015, 2016). Thus one of the four dimensions underlying the BSC is the Learning and Growth perspective. The human resources subdimension of this perspective, emphasizing training, skills and employee satisfaction, is consistent with SEAM’s competency grid tool. However, SEAM’s much deeper focus on human potential and the reoccurring dysfunctions emanating from the on-going interactions between organizational work structures and human behaviors is only partially captured in this perspective. There is nothing in the theory of the BSC for diagnosing such dysfunctions and calculating the hidden costs they generate. Moreover, the BSC is based on a rather simple view of causality whereas SEAM takes a much more complex view based on causal mechanisms operating within social

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

135

structures, consistent with postmodern sociologists of work (Babeau, 2022). SEAM can thus be seen as providing a significant extension to this aspect of the BSC. Additionally, if one accepts SEAM’s fundamental idea that the key leverage point for sustainable economic performance is investing in human potential, for which supporting evidence has been presented in Chaps. 2 and 3, then the key financial indicator—HCVAVC—is missing. As previously discussed, HCVAVC reflects employees’ actual average hourly value creation contribution to the firm economic performance. This summary indicator takes into account not only the productivity or efficiency of the firm’s employees, but also company effectiveness in providing goods and services to its external customers which is revealed through quantities and prices. HCVAVC represents the ultimate socio-­ economic metric because it attaches a financial representation to human potential (consisting of energy, competencies and behaviors). A permanent increase in HCVAVC represents a company’s success in recycling hidden costs into value-added by reducing dysfunctions. Consequently, created in the 1970s to calculate hidden costs, the concepts of HCVAVC and dysfunctional regulation chain are close to the notion of a chain of cause-and-effect events by Kaplan and Norton (2008). Moreover, the HCVAVC provides the key financial indicator to measure the return on investment in human potential from the perspective of learning and growth of the company or organization.

Employee Empowerment It has become trite in today’s fast changing world to advocate for the need for increased employee empowerment in organizations and the abandonment of the traditional command and control structures. On that matter, Lindsay et al. (2016) recall that we have known for nearly half a century that self-managed teams are far more productive than any other form of organizing. In fact, productivity gains in truly self-managed work environments are at minimum 35% higher than in traditionally managed organizations. And in all forms of institutions, workers are asking for more local autonomy, insisting that they, at their own level, can do it

136 

L. Cappelletti et al.

better than the huge structures of organizations now in place. There is both a desire to participate more and strong evidence that such participation leads to the effectiveness and productivity we crave. With so much evidence supporting participation, why isn’t everyone working in a self-­ managed environment right now? SEAM provides considerable insight into understanding why so little progress has been made in moving toward radically decentralized organizations. The theory of SEAM is founded on the pivotal role of human potential in creating economic value and adopting a more complex, anthropological view of human needs (physical, psychological, social and financial) that change over time (human development creates new needs). This opens up the doors for a broader and more penetrating view of empowerment and the necessary conditions for its facilitation that provides a holistic treatment of the subject that is unmatched by any existing theory. In particular SEAM does not promote any particular model of work organization to develop empowerment. It shows that a work organization is good from the moment it is the subject of regular proximity negotiations to make it evolve according to the degree of social satisfaction of the human potential and the economic constraints which weigh on the company. And that it is based on principles of verticality articulated with principles of horizontality according to the Horivert concept (see Chap. 3). Moreover SEAM helps to mobilize the entire human potential, consisting of energy, competencies and behaviors, based on incorporating such ideas as diagnosing and putting dysfunctions right (many of which are created by the TFW virus, see Chap. 2), cognitive interactivity (every employee has their say in the decision-making or implementation process), negotiation (in recognition of employees’ informal powers), and reducing the size of business units in conjunction with the use of proximity management, whereby those closest to or impacted by a decision should help make it. The latter increases a person’s involvement, engagement and energy as well as their connection to firm performance by having work outcomes more readily seen and recognized. However, such devolvement needs to be stimulated (i.e. employees need to be energized), legitimate, sustainably effective and orchestrated with the activities of others, so SEAM has introduced a number of management tools

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

137

underlying the concept of “synchronized decentralization” to not only enhance employee empowerment but to ensure that it is practically viable. SEAM’s notion of synchronized decentralization (Savall, 1979) is consistent with Kaplan and Norton’s (2008) focus on “alignment” but goes much further in steering human potential and its development in organizations (Lindsay et al., 2016). Through this discussion we see the importance SEAM places on the quality and intensity of management’s steering ability consisting of (a) the provision of stimulating information to incite the receiver—individual or group—to engage in decisive action, (b) synchronization of activities and (c) periodically cleaning-up dysfunctions. This crucial function of management’s steering ability is often overlooked in theories of empowerment (Gephart, 2018; Lindsay et al., 2016).

The Postmodern Aspects of SEAM SEAM should be of special interest to management consulting researchers espousing postmodern points of view and, in particular, critical theory (Babeau, 2022; Savall, 2018). Within its framework of diagnosis based on the mirror-effect involving hidden costs, SEAM is based on deconstructing and reconstructing managerial discourse (Boje et al., 1996). But the consistencies with critical theory go well beyond this. According to Lindsay et al. (2015, 2016), both SEAM and critical theory look to challenging dominant ideologies of the whole system that go unexplored as the source of problems (e.g. SEAM challenges the notion of a stable organization, simplistic cause and effect relationships based on assuming an objective reality, and the ideologies stemming from the TFW virus). Finally, they are both related to learning (for SEAM this occurs in the diagnosis process involving reflexive learning based on the mirror-effect) and promoting democracy through dialogue. However, one point of departure is that SEAM brings us closer to an optimistic and constructive interpretation of postmodernism, as opposed to the pessimism that one so often reads in management and sociology of work publications based on critical theory. Moreover, SEAM is a prescriptive theory—providing practical management tools—and is not just an abstract model used to

138 

L. Cappelletti et al.

“explain” phenomena. This “positive” aspect of SEAM may provide a powerful vehicle for bringing more people to take the time to understand postmodernism and its contributions. Finally, SEAM assumes that organization is theater. Boje and Rosile (2003b) in a famous article show the ways that SEAM is commensurate with postmodern theatrics that provides an illuminating view of organizations.

Change Management and Strategic Adaptation The discipline of management control has often neglected the importance of strategic adaptation by focusing and defining management control exclusively in terms of the execution or implementation of strategy. However, with the benefit of viewing the advances being made in the disciplines of strategy and decision-making, the classical model in management control sciences can be seen to be incomplete and overly simplistic in describing the nature and type of changes in control that is involved for companies operating in dynamic environments. SEAM provides a useful redress to this situation (Lindsay et al., 2016). In particular, the SEAM model stimulates change and creates the energy for doing so as a result of cycling around the three SEAM axes of change that are illustrated in Chap. 3. This leads to change becoming an on-going organizational rhythm rather than an episodic event which is periodically initiated and scripted from the top, often in response to a crisis or perceived threat. Cycling around the three axes of change creates the means for establishing a dynamic tension between stability and change which is necessary to promote effectiveness and efficiency in the short run and adaptability in the long run that lies at the heart of achieving sustainable economic performance (Ansoff, 1981). Moreover, SEAM espouses the view that transformational change needs to be socially constructed by a diverse team composed of operationally focused personnel using an emergent process of discovery based on experimentation. This recommendation reflects the notion that putting an idea into action is more important than deriving the initial idea itself given the uncertainties involved in trying new things and the importance of converging progressively toward a common view. Finally, SEAM’s concept of human

4  Carrying Out Scientific Consulting Through SEAM 

139

potential and its development and the use of cognitive interactivity (where “truth” can speak to power) and contradictory intersubjectivity serve to help challenge the dominant mental models that often underlie maintaining the status quo (Savall & Zardet, 2017).

Methodological From a methodological perspective, SEAM makes at least four contributions that can assist management consulting researchers. The first is based on the growing chorus of voices, many of whom are highly respected and senior members of the management academy, calling for more attention to be paid to the relevance and usefulness of management consulting research for solving problems faced by practitioners given its applied nature (Cappelletti et  al., 2022). SEAM represents an approach to engaged scholarship where researchers and practitioners co-create knowledge that the management consulting community can learn from in responding to this concern. Second, SEAM is based on the view that organizational reality is complex and has developed its own methodology and methods, called qualimetrics, for observing it scientifically (Savall & Zardet, 2011a). Two such innovations have been discussed in the book. The first is the development of the mirror-effect, based on incorporating the concepts of cognitive interactivity and contradictory intersubjectivity in socially constructing knowledge, for constructing a more acceptable and relevant representation of organizational phenomena. The other reflects combining qualitative, quantitative and financial (QQfi) information as part of the socio-economic method that occurs in the SEAM diagnosis stage. Each component’s meaning is modified by the inclusion of the other components and, together, offer a more accurate representation. Third, based on an ontology that is consistent with postmodern theories in management, SEAM has posited causal mechanisms within the structures of complex organizational reality. In particular, based on the interaction of organizational work structures and behaviors, SEAM explains why dysfunctions reoccur within a natural process of organizational decay, leading to the view that organizations are not stable and

140 

L. Cappelletti et al.

should not be treated as such. This dynamic of organizations leads to the view that organizations need to be in a constant state of micro-­adaptation, a point of view that hitherto has not been considered in theories of management control. Finally, SEAM can serve as a beacon in the search for generalizations, in common with positivism, while recognizing complex reality and the idiosyncratic nature (context specificity) of findings, in common with interpretivism and constructivism. This has been accomplished by developing general recommendations and management tools that any organization can use to understand their own particular situation and to develop their own unique solutions in line with their particular circumstances. In other words, SEAM provides the general in terms of the method and the tools underlying it; it leaves it to each organization to use them in developing their own unique solutions (Lindsay et al., 2015, 2016).

Bibliography

Ansoff, H.  I. (1981). Preface to Savall’s Book Work and People; An Economic Evaluation of Job Enrichment. Oxford University Press; 2nd edition. IAP, 2010. Arkhipoff, O. (1985). Un, deux, trois, beaucoup ou comment l’imprécision vient aux comptables. Économies et sociétés, Sciences de gestion, XIX(6). Babeau, O. (2022). La tyrannie du divertissement. Buchet. Backer, G. S. (1964). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. University of Chicago Press. Boje, D. M. (2011). Qualimetrics Contribution to Research Methodology. In H.  Savall & V.  Zardet (Eds.), The Qualimetrics Approach; Observing the Complex Object (pp.  6–12). IAP; 1st version in French: 2004, Paris: Economica. Boje, D. M. (Ed.). (2015). Organizational Change and Global Standardization. Solutions to Standards and Norms Overwhelming Organizations. Routledge. Boje, D.  M., Gephart, R., & Thatchenkery, T.  J. (Eds.). (1996). Postmodern Management and Organization Theory. Sage Publications. Boje, D.  M., & Rosile, G.-A. (2003a). Comparison of Socio-Economic and Other Transorganizational Development Methods. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(1), 10–20. Boje, D.  M., & Rosile, G.-A. (2003b). Theatrics of SEAM. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(1), 21–32.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2

141

142 Bibliography

Buono, A., & Savall, H. (Eds.). (2007). Socio-Economic Intervention in Organizations: The Intervener-Researcher and the SEAM Approach to Organizational Analysis. IAP. Buono, A., & Savall, H. (Eds.). (2015). The Socio-Economic Approach to Management Revisited. The Evolving Nature of SEAM in the 21st Century. IAP. Buono, A., Savall, H., & Cappelletti, L. (Eds.). (2018). Intervention-Research: From Conceptualization to Publication. IAP.  Translated into French: La recherche-­intervention dans les entreprises et les organisations. IAP, 2018. Cappelletti, L. (2007). Designing and Processing a Socio-Economic Management Control. In K.  Mark Weaver (Ed.), Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings (A1-A6). Academy of Management. Cappelletti, L. (2012). Le contrôle de gestion de l’immatériel. Une nouvelle approche du capital humain. Dunod. Cappelletti, L. (Dir.) (2022). Dynamique économique et réindustrialisation durables des territoires. Quelles actions utiles des pouvoirs publics? Rapport pour le Haut-Commissariat au Plan, janvier; https://www.gouvernement.fr/ sites/default/files/contenu/piece-­j ointe/2022/01/rapport_cnam_hcp_ deride_2022-­1.pdf Cappelletti, L., & Baker, R. (2010). Measuring and Developing Human Capital Through a Pragmatic Action Research: A French Case Study. Action Research, 8(2), 211–232. Cappelletti, L., & Dufour, N. (2020). Gestion innovante des normes, préface de Jean-Nöel Barrot, postface de Pascal Perri. Géréso Éditions. Cappelletti, L., Noguera, F., Plane, J.  M., & Watel, M.  C. (2022). Public Managers’ Awareness: Towards a More Conscious Management. The Case of an Intervention-Research in a Social Security Organization. In Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Seattle; Benedictine University Best Paper Award on Ethical Issues, Management Consulting Division. Cappelletti, L., Plane, J.  M., & Noguera, F. (2023, August). Ethnographical Management Consulting within Small and Medium Size Enterprises. In Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston. Cappelletti, L., & Savall, H. (2018, November). Les coûts cachés de l’absentéisme au travail en France. 108 milliards d’euros par an, la facture du mauvais management. Rapport pour l’Institut Sapiens. https://www.institutsapiens.fr/wp-­ content/uploads/2018/11/Cout-­absenteisme.pdf Cappelletti, L., & Savall, H. (2022). Augmenter les salaires, c’est possible. Le Monde, 8–9 mai.

 Bibliography 

143

Cappelletti, L., & Savall, H. (2023a). Le manque d’attractivité du travail provoque des pertes de valeur ajoutée gigantesques. Le Monde, 10 février. Cappelletti, L., & Savall, H. (2023b). Travail : il faut un choc d’attractivité en France. Les Échos, 13 mars. Cappelletti, L., Savall, H., & Voyant, O. (2018). 40 ans après son invention: la méthode des coûts cachés. Audit Comptabilité Contrôle : Recherches Appliquées (ACCRA), 2(2), 71–91. Carré, J. J., Dubois, P., & Malinvaud, E. (1972). Analyse causale de la croissance française. Seuil. Cohanier, B., Baker, R. C., & Cappelletti, L. (2023). Sobriété et coûts cachés. In Congrès annuel de l’Association Francophone de Comptabilité, Lyon, mai-juin. Conbere, J., & Heorhiadi, A. (2011). Socio-Economic Approach to Management. Organization Development Practitioner, 43(1), 6–10. Conbere, J., & Heorhiadi, A. (2018). Socio-economic Approach to Management: The Steering Organizations into the Future. World Scientific Publishing. Crozier, M. (1963). Le Phénomène bureaucratique. Le Seuil, coll. Points et Essais. Emery, E. F., & Trist, E. L. (1960). Socio-Technical Systems. Penguin. Gephart, R. (2018). The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management. Palgrave McMillan. Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Job: A Theory. Simon & Schuster. Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2008, January). Mastering the Management System. Harvard Business Review, Special HBS Centennial Issue, 86, 63–77. Lindsay, M., Cappelletti, L., & Ennajem, C. (2015, August). Understanding SEAM as an Innovative Platform in Management Control for Change and Human Potential Development. In Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Vancouver. Lindsay, M., Savall, H., Zardet, V., & Cappelletti, L. (2016, January). The Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM): Introducing a “Positive” Postmodern Approach to Managing Radically Decentralized Organizations based on Calculating Hidden Costs and Performance. In Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting, Dallas. Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R.  I. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense Profiting from Evidence-Based Management. Strategy and Leadership, 34(2), 35–42. Savall, H. (1974). Enrichir le travail humain dans les entreprises et les organisations. Dunod. 3° édition Paris: Economica, 1989; Translated into English: Work and people; an economic evaluation of job enrichment, Oxford University

144 Bibliography

Press, 1981; 2nd edition, IAP, 2010; Translated into Spanish: Por un trabajo más humano, Editorial Tecniban. Savall, H. (1979). Reconstruire l’entreprise, analyse socio-économique des conditions de travail. Dunod. Préface de François Perroux. Savall, H. (2003). An Update Presentation of the Socio-Economic Management Model and International Dissemination of the Socio-Economic Model. Journal of Organizational Change Management, Emerald, 16(1), 33–48. Savall, H. (2018). Radical Origins to Economic Crises: Germán Bernácer a Visionary Precursor. Palgrave McMillan. Savall, H., & Fière, D. (2014). Étude comparative de méthodologies de recherche en médecine et en gestion. Cas de la recherche-intervention socio-­ économique d’ordre qualimétrique. Journal de gestion et d'économie médicale, 32(5), 354–370. Savall, H., Péron, M., Zardet, V., & Bonnet, M. (2018). Socially Responsible Capitalism and Management. Routledge. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (1987). Maîtriser les coûts et les performances cachés. Le contrat d’activité périodiquement négociable. Economica; 10th edition 2020; Translated into English: Mastering Hidden Costs and Socio-economic Performance, IAP, 2008. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (1996). La dimension cognitive de la recherche-­ intervention: la production de connaissances par interactivité cognitive. Revue Internationale de Systémique, 10(1-2), 157–189. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (2011a). The Qualimetrics Approach; Observing the Complex Object. IAP; 1st version in French, Paris: Economica, 2004. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (2011b). Linking Individual, Organizational and Macro-Economic Performance Levels: Hidden Costs Model. In Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Orlando. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (2013). The Dynamics and Challenges of Tetranormalization. IAP; 1st version in French, Paris: Economica, 2005. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (2014). Action Research and Intervention Research in the French Landscape of Organizational Research. The Case of ISEOR. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(4), 551–572. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (2017). The Difference Between Management Consultancy and Research-Intervention. A Report on a Method, and a Study of the Advantages and Drawbacks for Researchers and Companies. The Theory and Practice of Socio-Economic Management Journal, 1, 2. Savall, H., & Zardet, V. (Eds.). (2021). Traité du management socio-économique. Théorie et pratiques. préfacé par René Ricol, EMS; Translated into English:

 Bibliography 

145

Socio-Economic Approach to Management Treatise: Theory and Practices, preface by Herman Aguinis, postface by Murray Lindsay. Charlotte, NC, USA: Information Age Publishing, 2023; Translated into Spanish: Tratado de gestión socioeconómica: Teoría y prácticas. Prefacio de Ma Ángeles Rastrollo Horrilo, Posfacio de Margarita Fernández Ruvalcaba. Madrid: McGrawHill. Savall, H., Zardet, V., & Bonnet, M. (2008). Releasing the Untapped Potential of Enterprises Through Socio-Economic Management. OIT-BIT Editions. Savall, H., Zardet, V., & Bonnet, M. (2018). Connecting the Dots Between OD and Economic Performance. In D. Szabla (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Ed. Savall, H., Zardet, V., Bonnet, M., & Cappelletti, L. (2019). Valorisation de la recherche par l’expérimentation en entreprise. Cas du modèle de management socio-économique. Revue Française de Gestion, 7(284), 149–169. Savall, H., Zardet, V., Bonnet, M., & Péron, M. (2008). The Emergence of Implicit Criteria Actually Used by Reviewers of Qualitative Research Articles. Case of a European Journal. Organizational Research Methods, 11(3), 510–540. Savall, H., Zardet, V., Péron, M., & Bonnet, M. (2012). Possible Contributions of Qualimetrics Intervention-Research Methodology to Action Research. International Journal of Action Research, 8(1), 29. Savall, H., Zardet, V., Péron, M., & Bonnet, M. (2014). Potential Contribution of the Socio-Economic Approach to Management to a Better Integration of CSR Norms and Economic Standards: Case Study of a Pastry Company. Society and Business Review, 9(3), 232–242. Savall, H., Zardet, V., Voyant, O., & Ennajem, C. (2017, June). Mesure et analyse spectrale des réserves de productivité socio-économique : les coûts cachés. 101 cas. In Actes du 4e Congrès Transatlantique de comptabilité, audit, contrôle de gestion et gestion des coûts. ISEOR, Instituto Internacional de Costos & American Accounting Association. Sorensen, P. F., Yaeger, T. F., Savall, H., Zardet, V., Bonnet, M., & Péron, M. (2012). A Review of Two Major Global and International Approaches to Organizational Change: SEAM and Appreciative Inquiry. Organization Development Journal, 28(4), 31–39. Tison, E. (2022). Pour un choc de compétences dans les entreprises, rapport pour l’Institut Sapiens, Mars. https://www.institutsapiens.fr/wp-­content/ uploads/2022/03/Note-­credit-­formation.pdf Van de Ven, A. H. (2007). Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research. Oxford University Press. Worley, C., Zardet, V., Bonnet, M., & Savall, A. (2015). Becoming Agile. How the SEAM Approach to Management Builds Adaptability. John Wiley.

Index

A

Absenteeism, 9, 11, 18, 19, 29–31, 33, 72, 73, 80–82, 90 Academics, 2, 3, 44, 45, 98, 99, 101, 104, 112, 113, 115, 128, 133, 134 Applied research, 113–114 B

Behavior, 6, 14, 15, 17, 20–22, 26, 32, 42, 62, 75, 76, 90, 117, 124, 134–136, 139 C

Change management, 21–22, 48, 49, 51, 92–94, 138–139 Cleaning-up, 62, 63, 137 Client, 115, 117–127

Cognitive interactivity, 99, 103, 107, 116, 132, 136, 139 Collaborative training, 51, 52, 57, 58, 62 Commitment, 44, 48, 57, 76, 128, 131 Communication-coordination-­ cooperation, 7, 13, 33, 40, 70, 82 Competency grid, 51, 52, 56, 61, 65–69, 90, 134 Complexity, 22, 72, 106, 117 Conflict-cooperation, 21 Consultant, 3, 6, 44–48, 50, 57, 59, 61, 67, 68, 78, 82, 91–94, 98–101, 114, 116, 119, 123, 126, 134 Consulting, 2–4, 6, 44, 67, 97–140 Contradictory intersubjectivity, 99, 104, 107, 116, 132, 139

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. Cappelletti et al., Socio-Economic Approach to Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43875-2

147

148 Index

Conversion of hidden costs, see Recycling (hidden costs) Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 4, 29, 99–114 Creation of potential, 9, 73 CSR, see Corporate social responsibility Customized assistance, 51

Entropy, 30–31, 47, 63 Epistemology, 40, 99, 100, 103–104, 112, 113, 116–117, 132 Evaluation, 9, 11, 18, 32–34, 41, 44, 47, 54, 55, 75, 78, 79, 81, 85, 91, 112, 113 Excess salary, 11, 33, 82, 85 Experimental research, 94 Expert opinion, 52, 116 Externalities, 41, 42

D

Decentralization, 71, 137 Decision-maker-payer, 119, 120, 125, 126, 128 Depersonalization, 17 Diagnosis, 11, 12, 33, 34, 44, 47, 50–54, 56–60, 63, 68, 75, 78, 79, 81–89, 93, 94, 112–116, 119, 121, 137, 139 Direct productivity losses, 11, 30, 33, 80–82 Dysfunction, 11–13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 32–34, 37, 41, 44, 50, 52–58, 60, 63, 65, 66, 68–70, 72, 75, 76, 79–83, 85, 87, 88, 90–92, 94, 95, 100, 106, 111, 134–137, 139

F

Financial, 6–15, 19, 20, 24, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 40, 61–63, 72, 78–81, 84–90, 92, 98–100, 105, 112, 120, 122, 123, 125–127, 134–136 Financial indicator, 37, 38, 135 Focus group, 12, 52, 55, 57, 61, 63, 78–81, 88–91, 115, 121, 127 G

Generic constructivism, 104, 131, 133 Generic contingency, 99, 103, 107, 116, 132 Generic knowledge, 91, 99, 104, 113, 131, 133

E

Economic balance, 91 Economic performance, 2, 6, 8, 9, 14, 23, 33, 40, 79–81, 130, 135, 138 Effectiveness, 6, 9, 39–40, 62, 63, 76, 88, 109, 110, 129, 135, 136, 138 Efficiency, 9, 13, 32, 33, 38, 66, 91, 109, 110, 129, 135, 138

H

HCVACV, see Hourly contribution to value-added on variable costs Hidden cost and performance, 9, 11, 12, 29–42, 88, 92 Hidden costs, 10–13, 15–20, 22–39, 41, 42, 44, 47, 48, 52, 54, 57,

 Index 

149

63, 68, 72, 73, 75, 78–82, 84–89, 91, 92, 99, 100, 106, 133–135, 137 Hidden performance, 29, 36, 42, 111 HISOFIS, see Humanly Integrated and Stimulating Operational & Functional Information System HORIVERT, see Horizontal and Vertical Horizontal and Vertical (HORIVERT), 3, 45–61, 78, 79, 125, 136 Horizontal diagnosis, 52, 56, 69, 79 Hourly contribution to value-added on variable costs (HCVACV), 11, 37–39, 85, 87 Humanly Integrated and Stimulating Operational & Functional Information System (HISOFIS), 62, 63 Human potential, 3, 4, 6, 8–19, 22, 23, 25, 29, 31, 134–139 Hypothesis, 10, 14, 24, 25, 109, 111, 112, 129, 132

Indicator, 11, 30, 32, 33, 37, 38, 41, 59, 61, 72–74, 80–82, 135 Innovative solution, 44, 80, 88 Intangible investment, 14, 18–19, 38–40, 61, 80 Integral cost, 36, 91, 92 Integrated training, 7, 13, 29, 33, 40, 59, 60, 70, 82, 93 Interaction, 32, 37, 102, 103, 110, 116, 132, 134, 139 Interest at work, 15, 90 Internal and external strategic action plan (IESAP), 56, 61, 69–71 Internal consultant, 56 Internal environment, 70 Intervention process, 54, 57, 59, 64, 118 Intervention-research, 3, 98, 108, 115, 123, 125 Interview, 11, 34, 52, 56, 76, 79, 81, 82, 88, 109, 116, 121

I

L

IESAP, see Internal and external strategic action plan Immediate result, 9, 27, 73 Implementation, 19, 25, 26, 44, 47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56–57, 62, 71, 75–79, 81, 90–93, 112, 118, 121, 125, 128, 136, 138 Implementation of the strategy, 7, 13, 33, 40, 70, 82

Lack of quality, 11, 17, 29, 30, 33, 80–82 Learning process, 39

K

Know-how, 28, 124

M

Maintenance, 37 Management control, 38, 134, 138, 140

150 Index

Management sciences, 10, 25, 29, 40, 101, 105, 108–110, 112, 113, 131 Management tools, 44, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61–78, 83, 90, 115, 136, 137, 140 Measuring, 10–13, 30, 32–37, 41, 68, 69, 72, 73 Metamorphosis, 20 Method-products, 121 Mirror-effect, 11, 12, 80, 81, 87, 94, 116, 137, 139 N

Negotiation, 4, 6, 7, 14, 17, 26, 46, 49, 57, 74, 77, 79, 114, 118–120, 123–126, 128, 136 Noncreation of potential, 11, 34, 83, 85 Nonproduction, 9, 33 O

Objective-Method-Service Products (OMSP), 121, 126, 127 Objective-products, 121 Observation, 3, 6, 8–10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 31, 32, 37, 63, 83, 87, 92, 94, 99–103, 106–108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 129–134 OMSP, see Objective-Method-Service Products Organizational change, 111 Orthofunctioning, 66 Overconsumption, 11, 18, 27, 34, 82, 83, 85

Overtime, 11, 13, 17–19, 27, 30, 33, 34, 39, 71, 82, 85, 92, 104, 118, 119, 121, 132, 136 P

PAP, see Priority Action Plan Periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC), 52, 53, 56, 57, 60, 62, 71, 73–78, 81, 90, 91, 94, 95 Piloting, 51, 53, 57, 59, 72, 75, 81, 90 Plenary group, 88 PNAC, see Periodically negotiable activity contract (PNAC) Political and strategical decisions (axis), 44, 48–49 Postmodern theories, 139 Practitioner, 3, 6, 17, 104, 130, 132–134, 139 Priority Action Plan (PAP), 51, 53, 56, 61, 62, 69–72, 76, 80, 90, 94 Productivity, 7, 8, 11, 29, 30, 33, 37–40, 42, 74, 80–82, 90, 135, 136 Professional training, 9, 31, 65 Q

Qualimetrics, 29, 40–42, 61, 72, 73, 79, 99, 104–106, 109, 139 Qualitative indicator, 61 Quality, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11–19, 24, 28, 31–37, 40, 41, 61, 62, 73, 75, 90, 91, 94, 99, 101, 103, 107–108, 114, 115, 118, 124, 125, 133, 134, 137 Quantitative indicator, 61

 Index  R

Ratio, 11, 18, 37, 38, 85 Recycling (hidden costs), 13, 78, 92, 99, 106, 133, 135 Reduction of dysfunctions, 12, 88, 91 Reflexive practitioner, 99, 128 Regulation of dysfunction, 11, 83, 85 Risk, 11, 24, 27, 34, 46, 73, 78, 83, 85, 110, 117 Root cause, 63 S

Scientific, 2–4, 10, 40, 44, 45, 97–140 SEAM intervention, 6, 18, 44–46, 52, 54, 62, 63, 81, 94, 125–127 Self-analysis of time, 64 Self-financing, 114 Service-products, 121 Small and medium size enterprises (SME), 2, 17, 45, 50, 54, 71, 126 SME, see Small and medium size enterprises Socially responsible capitalism (SRC), 4, 6–42 Social performance, 6, 8, 9, 13, 21, 40, 41, 62, 80 Social satisfaction, 7–9, 13, 14, 136 Socio-economic diagnosis, 11, 12, 33, 50, 52, 54, 79, 81–89, 93, 94 Socio-economic strategy, 70

151

Socio-economic theory, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 32, 40, 41, 44, 62, 129 SRC, see Socially responsible capitalism Staff turnover, 11, 29, 30, 33, 73, 80–82, 90 Steering group or committee, 47, 48, 81, 115, 116, 127 Strategic piloting logbook, 56, 61, 72–74, 90, 91 Sustainability, 2, 3, 78, 98, 134 Sustainable, 3, 6–12, 14, 15, 17, 21, 29–31, 34, 38, 40, 41, 44, 45, 60, 61, 72, 73, 75–76, 79, 80, 83, 91, 93–95, 98, 109, 114, 115, 134, 135, 138 Synchronization, 62, 63, 73, 75, 76, 95, 137 T

Taylorism, Fayolism, Weberism (TFW)virus, 7, 16, 17, 21, 29, 136, 137 Tetranormalization, 22–29 Time management, 7, 13, 33, 40, 51, 56, 61, 64, 70, 71, 82, 90 Top management, 45, 48, 58, 92, 93 Training/job matching, 9, 17, 18, 20, 27, 50, 51, 58–61, 65–68, 72, 92, 127, 128, 131, 134 V

Value-added, 12–14, 18–19, 78, 83, 85, 91, 99, 118, 133, 135

152 Index

Value creation, 10, 14–19, 29, 34, 73, 114, 135 Vertical diagnosis, 56 Visible cost, 9, 34, 36 W

Witness, 101

Work accidents, 11, 29, 33, 73, 80–82, 90 Working conditions, 7, 9, 13, 19, 20, 29, 33, 40, 70, 72, 73, 82 Working life conditions, 79, 91 Work organization, 7, 13, 29, 33, 40, 70, 82, 136