Executive lives

Managers form a well -“social group” French », If we can express themselves thus, despite what the existence of apparently synonymous terms in other languages ​​might suggest. In a book that has become classic, Luc Boltanski had clearly shown the emergence of this category in the French professional world was not by chance, but was largely based on active work of distinction on the part of its members. 25 years have passed since the publication of this study, and the work interested in this particular fringe of wage workers have experienced a clear revival in recent years. There is no doubt that the deep transformations of the economic environment are not unrelated, and as such, executives are undoubtedly at the forefront to observe and report on the latter. Thus, as he explains in his latest essay, Richard Sennett chose, in his recent research, to take an interest in the executives of the large multinational groups which would be at the heart of the contradictory injunctions of the economic organization which has been set up for a few years. We are thus struck to see, when reading Executive liveshow much Eric Roussel’s observations echo the statements of the American sociologist.

Trainer in work sociology and organizations at Cnam (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts) and researcher at Lesma (Research laboratory in strategy and markets of agro-food products), center belonging to the Nantes management school Audencia, the author resolutely enrolled in the critical vein of Richard Sennett, while providing an original light on this issue. Original first by the approach, since if Eric Roussel has carried out a number of interviews with executives, he chose to focus his work on six life stories that he treats in a certain way as so many standard ideals of labor reports. Then, because his analysis is based a lot on philosophy, both by the method and in theoretical references, which may seem surprising given the subject treated, but also the way in which many technical sociologists seem to have wanted to distance themselves from this sister discipline during the recent period.

Eric Roussel thus places the question of identity at the center of his analysis, and even more specifically the dialectic of the same and the other, which, according to him, would be at the principle of the construction of this identity of a category that heterogeneity seems to question. A way for him to complete the dead angles and to prolong the abundant literature devoted to this particular category of employees since practically the beginning of the previous century. A theoretical production in which the author distinguishes three moments: the implementation of the “ Congenital ambiguity At the heart of the identity of this group, then the predominance of Marxist analyzes, and finally its integration into the field of professions of professions, even if some authors have pointed the erosion of this category of frames, even its “ divorce »With business. Rather than a prefiguration of the condition of all workers, the executives would embody in this last perspective, that in which Eric Roussel seems to register in certain respects, the executives would show on the contrary the contradictions which are at the heart of the current working relationship and would be in a way at the forefront of his questioning. It is therefore the question of identity, and thereby that of work apprehended as a set of time and spaces of socialization, which turns out to be central in the study of the frameworks and their life trajectories according to Eric Roussel.

In the first part of the work entitled “ Managers at work “, Eric Roussel describes the changes that have taken place since the early 1980s in the general organization of production. A set of phenomena which he describes as “ Recomposition of outdoor spaces »And which translates above all by a shock of the positions, in the spatial sense, but also hierarchical of the term. This integration of companies in “ ever more complex encompassing spaces (P. 57) logically had repercussions in the internal organization of its production.

This “ Internal recomposition of spaces “In the words of the author, if it obviously concerns all employees, particularly affected the identity of executives insofar as it has” trivialized their rarity (P. 68). This “ trivialization “It is to be understood from a quantitative point of view, with the swelling of the workforce of this category, but also symbolic, because of the technicalization of this” job “, As well as, according to the author, of his feminization. This was followed by a loss of some of the positive attributes which constituted the value of the executives, both in their own eyes to those of the rest of the members of society. If it can have deleterious effects on the motivation of some, this evolution of the status of executives, however, accompanies developments in the capitalist system, and is in particular adapted to its new “ organizational requirements ».

Practical requirements, which consist of a “ modification of distances to others in the company And rhetorical, namely the evacuation of terms referring to power.

In short, it is indeed a new figure of authority which has established itself due to a decrease in the legitimacy of rational-Légale domination, symbol of the model of bureaucracy well described by Max Weber Eric Roussel notes in passing that the ability to play multiple roles “ Without being the toy “Of which this new context has increased importance is unequally distributed among executives according to their social origin, which leads among them to a very broad spectrum of feelings, ranging from a” extreme anxiety (to) the enjoyment that can provide self -esteem on others (P. 106). This idea is supported by the careful examination of the daily life of current executives. Eric Roussel notes that he is “ complex and protean “, With a” time (which) shrinks and accelerates “Due to the intensification of commercial pressures, itself largely resulting from progress in terms of new information and telecommunications technologies (Nic).

This evolution projected the figure of the salesperson on the spotlight, the “ Big winner of transformations in the world of production “(P.109), work by project cells, whose members are united by an ambivalent relationship, tense between cooperation and competition, itself reinforced by the invasion of short-term assessments, which cause the subjects concerned, according to Eric Roussel, a feeling of” self -dispossession ». The author thus concludes this first part by returning, in an interactionist mode, on the different “ faces That the frame must offer to the other on a daily basis. A face which is in turn that of submission or power, but which mainly refers to the simulacrum, required by the need for “ save face ». In short, the frame would first be a carrier of “ mask “, But the latter can in the long run, self-illusions stop working, when the weight of contradictions becomes too heavy to wear.

So it’s at “ self -care »Frames that the author is interested in the second part of the work. He initially examines the particular way in which the latter go through the unemployment experience. A risk of which they are no longer safe, but in front of which they however retain their difference from the rest of the employees. The procedures of “ reclassification Regarding them are indeed specific, but to read Eric Roussel, we finally have the feeling that the border finally passes within the category of executives. Thus, while following a dismissal, almost all of them are forced to become aware of their interchangeability, some experience downgrading, even a certain humiliation, however that others leave in illusion by considering their eviction a posteriori as a “ good deal – from a financial point of view, but also experiential, because it allowed them to convert into a more comfortable situation (on their own account or in a smaller company). However, all have experienced a pivotal moment in their socialization, a “ conversion “, To use the concept of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, their relationship to the company, operated through a real journey of” Deconstruction-reconstruction ».

Eric Roussel is then interested in the “ self -projection In the career. In the matter, he notes, uncertainty has become the rule, and if some still display a moral of sacrifice, many have adopted a “ morality of utilitarianism According to the expression of the author which consists schematically in acquiring economic and symbolic capital in the frequent change of business, in other words to resign before being dismissed. But this professional and spatial mobility also implies a certain “ freedom »Family ; In short, an initial choice between the construction of a family and that of a career. Then comes the question of collective action. Here too, Eric Roussel notes a relative loss of specificity of executives in relation to unionism. If most always perceive a “ taxonomic incompatibility “Between their status as a manager and union commitment, the members of the” young Generation, however, envisage an increasingly radical commitment to the increased individual difficulties that they have to face. Finally, the last chapter of the book is devoted to working time, or more exactly to the report that executives maintain vis-à-vis the latter. As difficult to measure as to define with regard to them – the author thus stops on a vague but interesting definition of work as a “ self -gift in exchange for remuneration (P.209) -, the working time, however, introduces fairly marked cleavages between executives: between supporters and opponents of their reduction on the one hand, and especially between women and men on the other. Thus, the inequality of distribution of domestic work between the sexes is a real “ dam For women, preventing them from adopting a rationalized report in their professional time, unlike most of their male colleagues ; And even more than these, they must “ release “Family constraints if they aspire to” make a career “, As a number of surveys on the issue have already shown.

Eric Roussel’s investigation ultimately highlights a “ dead angle Among the consequences of current economic changes. A precariousness as difficult to observable as it is deep: that of the identity of executives. The reinforced need to adapt to the desires of the other makes these individuals “ absent to themselves “And forces them to cultivate what the author calls a” Pathetic rationality », Made of acceptance and self -illusion. In the end, ultimately have sufficient assurance to endure these renunciations of oneself at low cost, and, if the executives undoubtedly continue to embody a certain archetype of the worker required by the current spirit of capitalism, the author finally wonders if, more than their dissemination in all employees, it is not more to a change in standards that we must finally expect, in view of the manifestly untenable nature.

This article is published in partnership with the Links-Socio site on which was published a first version:

http://www.liens-socio.org/