When project-based management causes distress at work,

Project-based working is so widespread today that Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello (1999) go so far as to regard the project-based 'mode of justification' as a component part of the new ideology of modern capitalism. This particular set of principles is applied in the legal, educational, psychological, political and managerial spheres, which confirms Jean Pierre Boutinet's vision (Boutinet 1990) of the project as a pervasive element of social life. The injunctions to make commitments and the promises of self-realisation purveyed by certain segments of the management literature have helped to create the myth of the good fortune to be gained from project-based work. The very vocabulary of project-based management seems laden with connotations: surpassing of oneself, reaching out beyond one's normal capacities, prevails over stress, leadership or coaching replaces authority and direction or guidance does duty for control. Employees working on projects become actors, a choice of language that emphasises the autonomy they are supposed to enjoy in order to get involved and bring projects to their conclusion. This 'managerially correct' discourse raises questions. It has something of the nature of an idealisation mechanism, as Jean Pierre Boutinet emphasises in the updated preface to his book 'Anthropologie du projet'. It seems to us, from the evidence provided by the project actors we have met, that certain collateral effects on human resources are produced; in particular, various forms of distress emerge for which no responsibility is really taken. This concern has to be set alongside the emergence of a professional and academic literature on distress at work, some of which has received considerable media attention (Dejours, 1998; Hirigoyen, 1998; Neveu, 1999).