Philippe Lorino | ESSEC - Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (original) (raw)
Papers by Philippe Lorino
Controlling, Jan 14, 1997
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 19, 2012
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 4, 2012
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2014
Revue française du marketing, 1984
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Jun 1, 1989
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Sep 1, 1989
Pratiques de travail et dynamiques organisationnelles
This research examines the organizational effects of applying monological theories of activity to... more This research examines the organizational effects of applying monological theories of activity to organizational processes that prove inherently dialogical. It uses a theoretical framework drawing simultaneously from communicational approaches (Cooren & al., 2011; Kuhn, 2008; Taylor & Cooren, 1997) and dialogical approaches inspired by Bakhtin (Clot, 2009; Jabril, 2016; Lorino & Tricard, 2012; Lorino, Tricard & Clot, 2011; Shotter, 2008; Tsoukas, 2009), stressing the convergences and complementarity between these two frameworks, their potential divergences, and their implications for organizational theory and for research methodology.
Projectics / Proyéctica / Projectique, 2019
L'enseignement de la gestion en France, 2021
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 9, 2021
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 4, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
Pragmatist inquiry involves a group of inquirers who face a break in their experience and pursue ... more Pragmatist inquiry involves a group of inquirers who face a break in their experience and pursue existential motives. They must continuously build reciprocal intelligibility. The felicitous outcome requires reciprocal trust, transforming the group of inquirers into a temporary community. The community dimension of inquiry is illustrated through a case study: the implementation of an integrated management information system in an electricity company. It identifies the roles of two types of communities: communities of practice, characterized by common practice, and communities of inquiry, characterized by the diversity of practices but an agreed general concern. The concept of community of inquiry was initially sketched by classic pragmatist authors and later developed by organization scholars, particularly in the field of public management. It is related to Follett’s view of “group organization” as the basis of democratic life and Latour’s concept of “matter of concern.”
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
Mainstream organization studies have long conceptualized organizations as structures imposing ord... more Mainstream organization studies have long conceptualized organizations as structures imposing order on individual and collective practices. Many organization scholars see organizing as an ongoing process, given the ceaseless adaptative experience of organizations. After an account of the “process turn” in organization studies, this chapter identifies six key questions about the characteristics of organizing processes and analyzes the process orientation of pragmatism and the specific contribution of the main pragmatist thinkers to process thought. It clarifies the pragmatist responses to the six key issues: (1) Organizing is an intrinsic dimension of ordinary activity rather than a specific process reflexively examining activity; (2) organizing is a relational/trans-actional rather than (inter-)subjective process; (3) organizing is a teleological rather than self-contained and autopoietic process; (4) organizing operates segmentation and unification, spatializing and temporalizing at the same time; (5) organizing is both experience-based and creative, it entangles cognition and intuition; (6) organizing is ediated by signs.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Dec 18, 2020
In this chapter, we explore a methodology for “process as withness” (Fachin and Langley, 2018). T... more In this chapter, we explore a methodology for “process as withness” (Fachin and Langley, 2018). The goal is to study the experience of “living forward” by creating “narratives of prospect” (Weick, 1999). The chapter builds on Shotter’s work (2006; 2009) on a withness approach, which helps in understanding the struggles of living forward experienced by practitioners and researchers alike. Withness until now has remained philosophical with a few vignettes by Shotter (2006; 2009). We operationalize withness through embedding it within pragmatist inquiry (Farjoun, Ansell, and Boin, 2015; Lorino et al., 2011; Martela, 2015). For this, we propose to build on the existing links between a withness approach and pragmatist inquiry in the work of James, Dewey, and Mead, but to extend these to fuse a withness approach and pragmatist inquiry into “pragmatist withness inquiry.” We end with a call for other researchers to learn from, criticize, and build on our attempts to develop “pragmatist withness inquiry.” The challenges are dialogue, access to doubtful situations, and creating “narratives of prospect.”
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
This chapter narrates the efforts of a hospital cardiology department to create its country’s fir... more This chapter narrates the efforts of a hospital cardiology department to create its country’s first chronic heart failure (CHF) multidisciplinary unit. With an average treatment cost that was too high, threatening their required funding, the department’s actors strove to reduce it. They analyzed collective activity, made exploratory hypotheses about cost drivers, and developed new performance measurements to verify their hypotheses. This is an example of the social process of inquiry. The chapter presents the pragmatist definition of inquiry, a non-dualist and relational framework, recursively articulated with the concept of habit. It integrates action and thought, narrative and logical thought. The respective roles of the three types of inference identified by Peirce are analyzed: abduction, deduction, and induction. The chapter highlights the mediated and mediating nature of inquiry, illustrated in the hospital case by the reengineering of management indicators, and closes with the major differences between inquiry and the mainstream problem-solving framework.
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Mar 1, 1989
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 7, 2016
The paradigm of organizational control supposes that human activity is simple and transparent eno... more The paradigm of organizational control supposes that human activity is simple and transparent enough to be represented from the outside, in a stabilized and standardized form. The "control" approach, epitomized by Taylorism, thus implies some denial of the complexity of activity and favors the representation of activity – as a set of standardized and measurable operations, in the Taylorian case – rather than activity itself, as the primary object of management. The quality management movement, forerunner of "lean management" (Womack et al. 1990), was first inspired by a pragmatist philosophy in the 1930s in the US. It redefined activity as the focal point of management and stressed the exploratory nature of collective learning, which is embedded in practical experience and incompatible with variance-based control. As such, it appeared at the time as an anti-Taylorian managerial reaction. Strangely enough, using the labels "lean management" and "total quality control", a Taylorian revival, completely reverting the messages of the pioneers of lean management, has occurred in recent years, discarding the central role of activity and erasing its original pragmatist inspiration. The paper will first present a case study about work organization and management in the call centers of a large European utility company, supposedly based on the principles of lean management. The paper then describes the history of the quality and lean movement and shows that the principles applied in the case of those call centers are in direct contradiction with the historical pragmatist inspiration of lean management. To conclude, the paper analyzes the implications of the "control" versus "inquiring" debate for the design and use of mediating artefacts, as illustrated by the development of a role-playing module at the company where the case study took place.
Dunod eBooks, Jan 4, 2017
Controlling, Jan 14, 1997
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 19, 2012
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 4, 2012
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2014
Revue française du marketing, 1984
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Jun 1, 1989
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Sep 1, 1989
Pratiques de travail et dynamiques organisationnelles
This research examines the organizational effects of applying monological theories of activity to... more This research examines the organizational effects of applying monological theories of activity to organizational processes that prove inherently dialogical. It uses a theoretical framework drawing simultaneously from communicational approaches (Cooren & al., 2011; Kuhn, 2008; Taylor & Cooren, 1997) and dialogical approaches inspired by Bakhtin (Clot, 2009; Jabril, 2016; Lorino & Tricard, 2012; Lorino, Tricard & Clot, 2011; Shotter, 2008; Tsoukas, 2009), stressing the convergences and complementarity between these two frameworks, their potential divergences, and their implications for organizational theory and for research methodology.
Projectics / Proyéctica / Projectique, 2019
L'enseignement de la gestion en France, 2021
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 9, 2021
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 4, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
Pragmatist inquiry involves a group of inquirers who face a break in their experience and pursue ... more Pragmatist inquiry involves a group of inquirers who face a break in their experience and pursue existential motives. They must continuously build reciprocal intelligibility. The felicitous outcome requires reciprocal trust, transforming the group of inquirers into a temporary community. The community dimension of inquiry is illustrated through a case study: the implementation of an integrated management information system in an electricity company. It identifies the roles of two types of communities: communities of practice, characterized by common practice, and communities of inquiry, characterized by the diversity of practices but an agreed general concern. The concept of community of inquiry was initially sketched by classic pragmatist authors and later developed by organization scholars, particularly in the field of public management. It is related to Follett’s view of “group organization” as the basis of democratic life and Latour’s concept of “matter of concern.”
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
Mainstream organization studies have long conceptualized organizations as structures imposing ord... more Mainstream organization studies have long conceptualized organizations as structures imposing order on individual and collective practices. Many organization scholars see organizing as an ongoing process, given the ceaseless adaptative experience of organizations. After an account of the “process turn” in organization studies, this chapter identifies six key questions about the characteristics of organizing processes and analyzes the process orientation of pragmatism and the specific contribution of the main pragmatist thinkers to process thought. It clarifies the pragmatist responses to the six key issues: (1) Organizing is an intrinsic dimension of ordinary activity rather than a specific process reflexively examining activity; (2) organizing is a relational/trans-actional rather than (inter-)subjective process; (3) organizing is a teleological rather than self-contained and autopoietic process; (4) organizing operates segmentation and unification, spatializing and temporalizing at the same time; (5) organizing is both experience-based and creative, it entangles cognition and intuition; (6) organizing is ediated by signs.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Dec 18, 2020
In this chapter, we explore a methodology for “process as withness” (Fachin and Langley, 2018). T... more In this chapter, we explore a methodology for “process as withness” (Fachin and Langley, 2018). The goal is to study the experience of “living forward” by creating “narratives of prospect” (Weick, 1999). The chapter builds on Shotter’s work (2006; 2009) on a withness approach, which helps in understanding the struggles of living forward experienced by practitioners and researchers alike. Withness until now has remained philosophical with a few vignettes by Shotter (2006; 2009). We operationalize withness through embedding it within pragmatist inquiry (Farjoun, Ansell, and Boin, 2015; Lorino et al., 2011; Martela, 2015). For this, we propose to build on the existing links between a withness approach and pragmatist inquiry in the work of James, Dewey, and Mead, but to extend these to fuse a withness approach and pragmatist inquiry into “pragmatist withness inquiry.” We end with a call for other researchers to learn from, criticize, and build on our attempts to develop “pragmatist withness inquiry.” The challenges are dialogue, access to doubtful situations, and creating “narratives of prospect.”
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 22, 2018
This chapter narrates the efforts of a hospital cardiology department to create its country’s fir... more This chapter narrates the efforts of a hospital cardiology department to create its country’s first chronic heart failure (CHF) multidisciplinary unit. With an average treatment cost that was too high, threatening their required funding, the department’s actors strove to reduce it. They analyzed collective activity, made exploratory hypotheses about cost drivers, and developed new performance measurements to verify their hypotheses. This is an example of the social process of inquiry. The chapter presents the pragmatist definition of inquiry, a non-dualist and relational framework, recursively articulated with the concept of habit. It integrates action and thought, narrative and logical thought. The respective roles of the three types of inference identified by Peirce are analyzed: abduction, deduction, and induction. The chapter highlights the mediated and mediating nature of inquiry, illustrated in the hospital case by the reengineering of management indicators, and closes with the major differences between inquiry and the mainstream problem-solving framework.
[Revue française de gestion industrielle], Mar 1, 1989
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 7, 2016
The paradigm of organizational control supposes that human activity is simple and transparent eno... more The paradigm of organizational control supposes that human activity is simple and transparent enough to be represented from the outside, in a stabilized and standardized form. The "control" approach, epitomized by Taylorism, thus implies some denial of the complexity of activity and favors the representation of activity – as a set of standardized and measurable operations, in the Taylorian case – rather than activity itself, as the primary object of management. The quality management movement, forerunner of "lean management" (Womack et al. 1990), was first inspired by a pragmatist philosophy in the 1930s in the US. It redefined activity as the focal point of management and stressed the exploratory nature of collective learning, which is embedded in practical experience and incompatible with variance-based control. As such, it appeared at the time as an anti-Taylorian managerial reaction. Strangely enough, using the labels "lean management" and "total quality control", a Taylorian revival, completely reverting the messages of the pioneers of lean management, has occurred in recent years, discarding the central role of activity and erasing its original pragmatist inspiration. The paper will first present a case study about work organization and management in the call centers of a large European utility company, supposedly based on the principles of lean management. The paper then describes the history of the quality and lean movement and shows that the principles applied in the case of those call centers are in direct contradiction with the historical pragmatist inspiration of lean management. To conclude, the paper analyzes the implications of the "control" versus "inquiring" debate for the design and use of mediating artefacts, as illustrated by the development of a role-playing module at the company where the case study took place.
Dunod eBooks, Jan 4, 2017