Beyond the Autonomy-Control-Dilmena: Towards a Model of Self Determining Organisation (SDOs)

Defense sheduled for Tuesday November 28th 2023 at 02:30 pm, PSE 48 boulevard Jourdan 75014 PARIS, Room 201

Abstract:

Freedom-form company, workplace democracy, participatory management, employee empowerment, etc. The autonomy-control dilemma continues to obsess researchers and practitioners alike. The ambition of this dissertation is to open up a 'third way' to manage this 'old couple' in organisational theory, which would neither seek to 'simply' get rid of it (unlike initiatives focused on organisational design, such as holacracy, which can go so far as to advocate the removal of reporting lines) nor to 'demonise' it (echoing the growing critical literature which points to the risk of manipulation behind the use of identification levers to 'liberate' employees), but rather to reconcile it. 

It therefore asks: why and how can employees be empowered in organisations that retain reporting lines? The conjunction is of prime importance here, as it underpins the originality of the approach used: drawing on the epistemological framework proposed by Donaldson (2021), this dissertation integrates normative (the why) and empirical (the how) contributions to business ethics. It thus proposes an empirico-normative model of autonomy at work, articulating two levels of analysis: the moral requirements to be met in terms of relational justice (the safeguards of autonomy) and the good ends beyond relational justice (the horizon of a self-determining organisation or SDO). 

This thesis is based on three qualitative research fieldworks (an exploratory comparative study of management practices; 29 interviews with young graduates from Polytechnique Paris, Harvard, HEC Lausanne and EPFL; 30 interviews in a French 'liberated' mutual insurance company) and five articles, each adding a brick to this model (basic autonomy threshold, relational equality, liberation management practices, purposeful leadership and SDO), leading to a more collective reading of autonomy based on the following triptych: autonomy for others, through others, with others.

Keywords: business ethics, relational justice, employee empowerment, freedom-form company, meaningful work

 Composition of jury :