We analyze the role of management instruments in the development of collective activity and in the dynamics of organization, recurring to pragmatic and semiotic theories. In dualist representation-based theories (rationalism, cognitivism), instruments are seen as symbolic reflections of...

In this research we explore the issue of “competence management”, as usually defined in the corporate vocabulary, mostly in the human resource (HR) function, and more particularly of “strategic competence management” (long run management of competences which are critical to achieve...

The notion of “process”, which describes the cooperation of heterogeneous practices and competences for a given output, has gained a major position in managerial practices for the last twenty years. This paper presents three ideas about organizational dynamics and processes and tests their...

Theories about management instruments often enter dualistic debates between structure and agency: do instruments determine the forms of collective activity (CA), or do actors shape instruments to their requirements, or are instruments and concrete activity decoupled, as some trends of new...

Collective activity should be a focal subject to study organizational dynamics, particularly in relation with the implementation of management systems such as ERPs. Collective activity is analyzed here as an ongoing dialogical construction by actors. It is always mediated by signs and...

Cost analysis is more implemented in public organizations. Methods and expected uses are quite similar to those encountered in the private sector, but effective uses are more difficult to assess and compare considering the wide variety of organizational context existing in the public sector.

This paper explores the methodological implications of non-representational approaches of organizational complexity. Representational theories focus on the syntactic complexity of systems, whereas organizing processes are predominantly characterized by semantic and pragmatic forms of complexity....