Solidarity and Organization: Toward New Avenues for Management

ISBN-13: 9783031275678 / Angielski

Philippe Eynaud; Genauto Carvalho de França Filho

Opis

Solidarity is an ‘unthought’ in the fields of organizational theory and management sciences. However, it is an increasingly important feature in the management of organizations. The contemporary world suffers from a double unsustainability: the abusive exploitation of natural resources endangers the balance of the climate and biodiversity, while growing inequalities condemn our ability to maintain a balanced society. These unsustainabilities are mutually reinforcing and call for the affirmation of a double solidarity, which unites humans among themselves, and links humans and nonhumans. Such an effort cannot be decreed. It must be organized.Based on numerous grassroots initiatives and citizens’ experimentations that are being invented every day around the world and on a historical and anthropological approach, this book explores different ways of combining solidarity and organization. Solidarity-based management, governance of the commons, and Buen Vivir approaches are some of the perspectives analyzed in the context of a North-South dialogue in order to formulate the conceptual framework and practical steps of a social and environmental transition. It offers both theoretical background and living examples to students, professors and researchers to better understand and better teach new avenues for management.

Spis treści

Introduction

Scientists have already given us all the facts needed to anticipate and respond to the major global

crisis that is looming. Their findings clearly demonstrate that our standard economic model is not

sustainable because of the many negative externalities it produces and its major impact on global

warming and biodiversity. It is also unsustainable for the inequalities it feeds and which weaken

3

the very foundations of our democracies. Its two unsustainabilities unfortunately combine. Global

warming reinforces economic inequalities by triggering climate migrations that are difficult to

manage. Economic inequalities make large sections of the population more precarious,

condemning them to not being able to afford the equipment and clean technologies needed to face

the climate challenges. This scissor effect is detrimental to the ecological and social transition

because it complicates important decisions based on consensus. If the transition does not involve

a violent rupture, it does indeed presuppose a shared desire for change. The question now is how

to generate and organize it. In this context, the ambition of this book is actually to open new avenues

for management.

Chapter 1 - Solidarity: an unthought in organizational theory

The history of management is not univocal. There are several competing histories that can account

for the birth of the discipline. However, among these histories, one dominates North American

history. Consequently, diversion via the North American continent is essential to understand the

current logics at work in managerial thought. Beyond the language barrier, there is of course a

cultural filter that renders invisible experiences in non-English speaking countries. The major role

now played by Anglo-Saxon academic journals through international rankings, such a prism is

highly damaging to the diversity of knowledge and pluralism. By reducing the history of thought to

a narrow cultural and geographical thread, our collective ability to understand the present and

creatively address the future is impaired. It is time to read (or to read again) important and

forgotten authors of solidarity history to rethink a more sustainable economic system. To build a

counter-history of management, we highlight crucial non-Anglo-Saxon authors such as Leroux,

Bourgeois, Tocqueville, Tönnies, Mauss, Durkheim, Walras, Gide, and Guerreiro Ramos. At the

beginning of the 21st century, the economic equation could no longer be reduced to opposition or

complementarity between the market and the state. At the institutional level, many countries have

yet to recognize the importance of another field through framework laws and specific public

policies: the social, popular, and solidarity economy. This emergence of a third actor in the field

is the result of numerous tensions and a double incompleteness. On the one hand, the States are no

longer able to play the regulatory role of the social State of the Thirty Glorious Years. On the other

hand, market logics are not able to guarantee the sustainability of their economic model.

Consequently, there is a need for new solidarities to refound public action and to reshape

management models.

Chapter 2 - (Re)organizing solidarity

The classical and orthodox vision of a market economy centered on the question of

entrepreneurship has strongly influenced the conceptual framework of organization theory. The

presuppositions of methodological individualism have actually largely thwarted the possibility of

pluralism within this field. In this second chapter, we propose to go beyond this mere observation

by analysing the required conditions for bridging together the organizational and solidarity

dimensions. Polanyi's theoretical proposition gives us the first step to rethink economy with the

concept of substantive economy. For this author, the substantive meaning comes indeed from man's

manifest dependence on nature for his subsistence, and the necessity to enlarge our vision of

economy to reciprocity and redistribution logics. Deepening Polanyi’s perspective, Guerreiro

4

Ramos provides a new theory of organizations by claiming the existence of substantive rationality.

Based on the work of the Frankfurt school, he extends the Polanyian approach into the

organizational field. This author is essential because he warns us about the risk to have a unique

model for managing the organizations. He claims the importance to keep the diversity of

organizational forms inside a new field that he calls the para-economy.

Chapter 3 - (Re) Solidarizing organizations

In this chapter, we are looking for the means to (re)solidarize organizations. To do this, we analyze

different forms and examples of democratic governance likely to activate such processes at the

heart of organizations. We show that this (re)solidarization of organizations favors the possibility

of a reconciliation between economic and social perspectives. Solidarity cannot be introduced into

organizations by using usual management techniques or instruments. If we consider the solidarity

economy as the project to democratize the economy, solidarity management is defined analogously

as the project to democratize the organization. Consequently, the relevant perspective for

considering the strengthening of solidarity in organizations is that of inclusive management tools,

multi-stakeholder governance and a close attention to the making of social innovation and social

transformation. It induces processes of change that can contribute to the construction of a

participatory political culture within the organization in order to foster autonomy, freedom of

expression, self-management and self-organization. Studies show that social innovation is never

conceived independently of the socio-cultural, socio-economic or socio-political characteristics,

and of the local context of insertion. One of the objectives of the solidarity management is therefore

to embrace social innovation, actors and territory. This can be achieved through networked

cooperation strategies, the promotion of solidarity development, and new institutional

relationships.

Chapter 4 – In search of solidarity-based management

This chapter is an opportunity to bridge two academic literatures that are both rich for defining

solidarity-based management. The first is South American. It is the Brazilian school of thought on

social management. In line with the French solidarist authors, it is a conceptual and practical

response from a country characterized for a long time by strong inequalities. The second is North

American. It is about the management of the commons. This school of thought is in line with the

work of Ostrom, and initially starts from the problems of preserving natural spaces. We show how

these two schools of thought differ and complement each other. These two proposals help us define

the field of a solidarity-based management as a support of the ecological and social transition. For

this to happen, it seems necessary to develop research in conjunction with practitioners of the social

and solidarity economy, and to identify the new borders of a management oriented toward public

action and general interest. Thus, it is desirable to open up and deepen organizational thinking

beyond the firm. Interest can be shown in particular in non-capitalist organizations (associations,

cooperatives, mutuals). This interest needs to be translated into dedicated research that is the only

way to prevent the inappropriate reuse of corporate management concepts. The objective is

therefore to develop a plurality of organizational conceptual approaches in close relation to the

plurality of non-market organizational forms.

5

Conclusion

Bridging concepts such as solidarity and organization augurs an important change for researchers

in organization theory. It allows to consider the role of organizational phenomena in the

construction of the world, to rethink the ethics of collective activity, and to propose management

and organizational models more respectful of human beings and ecological balance. These

perspectives imply critical theory, comprehensive approaches, epistemology of the South, and new

interactions between researchers and field actors. The defense of biodiversity and socio-diversity

have to be considered as a single and crucial issue to address. Based on a rich collection of

grassroot initiatives, citizen’s experimentations, and social innovation examples, this book intends

to provide new avenues for a management congruent with a convivial society and a renewed North-

South dialogue.

FYI Chapter one is attached to this proposal as sample material.

O autorze

Philippe Eynaud is Full Professor at Sorbonne Business School, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France, and a researcher in the lab of IAE Paris-Sorbonne Business School. He has experience in the studies of civil society organizations, nonprofit management, social innovation, democratic governance, alternative digital platforms, solidarity-based economy, governance of the commons, and new forms of solidarity. He has published widely and is a board member of the international research networks EMES on social enterprise.

Genauto Carvalho de França Filho is Full Professor at School of Administration of Federal University of Bahia, UFBA, Brazil, where he is coordinator of the Post-Graduate Center of Administration (NPGA-UFBA) and coordinator of the Tecnological Incubateur of Solidatity Economy (ITES/UFBA). He has experience in organizational studies, civil society and social management and his research is on the themes of solidarity-based economy, democratic governance, social and complementary currencies, social management, solidarity finance, social innovation and new forms of solidarity. He has published widely.