Publications

This study examines the relationship between family firms and carbon emissions using a large cross-country dataset of 6600 non-financial firms over the period 2010–2019. We find that family firms emit less carbon than non-family firms, especially after the Paris Agreement. Several factors contribute to this outcome, including governance structure, the degree of family control, R&D spending, and the issuance of green patents. Our study also shows that despite lower carbon emissions, family firms have lower environmental scores, primarily due to their reduced public commitment to emission reduction. Both environmental scores and carbon emissions increase when non-family CEOs are appointed and when family ownership decreases, indicating that agency conflicts may influence these outcomes.

<div><p>L'industrie agroalimentaire représente un terrain propice à l'innovation sur les produits (qualité, diversité, santé et sécurité) et les processus (flexibilité, utilisation des capacités, technologie, durabilité). La logistique et la distribution dans l'industrie alimentaire sont devenues des facteurs clés de succès majeurs pour livrer des produits et des services tout en innovant, en améliorant les services, en satisfaisant les clients. Des crises telles que le Covid-19, le canal de Suez, les taxes douanières ont remis en perspective la nécessité de livrer des produits de consommations essentiels en temps opportun. Cet article explore la dynamique d'accélération dans les centres de distribution régionaux (CDR) de la grande distribution alimentaire, en s'appuyant sur une étude de cas qualitative menée auprès de plusieurs entreprises ayant déployé des zones mécanisées. L'étude met en évidence que l'accélération des flux logistiques, souvent perçue comme un gage d'efficacité et de compétitivité, repose avant tout sur des logiques économiques favorisant l'expansion et l'accumulation, au détriment d'une réflexion approfondie sur ses impacts sociaux et environnementaux. Les résultats montrent que cette dynamique s'inscrit dans un cycle récurrent d'investissement, de désynchronisation et d'abandon, révélant la fragilité des promesses d'automatisation face aux imprévus et à la variabilité des flux. Trois logiques temporelles distinctes émergent des observations : la quête d'accélération, la modération des risques et un scepticisme critique sur la vitesse comme finalité. Ces logiques traduisent une tension constante entre la recherche de fluidité opérationnelle, la robustesse organisationnelle et la soutenabilité. L'article propose enfin d'ouvrir un agenda de recherche centré sur la relation entre temps et durabilité dans les chaînes logistiques, en soulignant que la conciliation de ces trois logiques pourrait constituer un levier essentiel pour penser des modèles d'entreposage plus responsables et plus résilients.</p></div>

Introduction: During the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting visitation restrictions, digital tools were used in many nursing homes in France to allow the older adults and their relatives to maintain social contact via videoconferencing. This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the processes that affect the use of digital technologies. Methods: Drawing on the concept of “mediation,” it seeks to shed light on how individuals embrace these tools in a relational situation. The interviews and observations undertaken among residents, their relatives, professionals, and the management head of seven nursing homes in 2021, make it possible to outline the different forms of practices and uses and to identify the factors leading to the variations observed. Results: While the key objective of these technical and technological tools is to compensate – on a functional level – for the communication problems and the isolation of individuals in order to promote residents’ “quality of life” by maintaining “social contact,” our study reveals that these tools’ uses and practices largely differ. It also shows considerable inequalities in terms of residents’ acquisition of subjective feelings of ownership of the tools. These are never attributed to isolated physical, cognitive, psychic, and social difficulties, but are influenced by specific organizational, interactional, and psychic configurations. Some of the structures analyzed revealed situations in which mediation failed, occasionally exposing the risk associated with seeking “ties at all costs,” or revealing a disturbing strangeness when residents were placed in front of screens. Some configurations, however, showed that it was possible to set up an intermediate space for the experience to unfold, which in turn opened up a space where individuals, groups, and institutions could experiment, allowing them to develop subjective feelings of ownership of this experience. Discussion: This article discusses how the configurations that failed to promote the mediation process reveal the need to assess the representations of care and assistance in the relationships between older adults, their loved ones, and nursing home professionals. Indeed, in certain situations, the use of videoconferencing, while seeking to produce a positive effect, risks displacing and increasing the effects of the “negative” associated with dependency, which may worsen individuals’ difficulties within nursing homes. The risks associated with the failure to take into account residents’ requests and consent explain why it is important to discuss how certain uses of digital tools may renew the dilemma between concerns for protection, on the one hand, and respect for autonomy on the other.

At the present time, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are increasingly engaging in the accreditation process. The complexity of the accreditation process imposes on HEIs the urgent need to maintain sustainability. The pertinent literature reveals that employee engagement is an enduring praxis that helps organizations to gain sustainability and resolve organizational challenges such as the lack of cohesion so often observed in academic communities. This paper describes how a private University in the Gulf region, through promoting job autonomy and inciting engagement among its administrative staff and faculty members, has tried to successfully maneuver beyond and rode the accreditation roller-coaster.

L’objectif de cet article [1] est double : mieux comprendre le processus organisationnel de prise de décision mobilisé par les hôpitaux durant la première année de la pandémie afin de faire face à cette crise ; et vérifier dans quelle mesure ce processus s’apparente à celui déployé par les organisations à haute fiabilité (OHF). Les résultats de la recherche exploratoire réalisée au sein de quatre centres hospitaliers universitaires (CHU) montre que le processus de prise de décision se manifeste différemment au cours de trois périodes successives : au début de l’apparition de la Covid-19 dans notre pays, le processus est celui d’une bureaucratie weberienne ; au cours de la première vague jusqu’à sa fin il devient flexible, agile ; et enfin, à partir de la deuxième vague, il reprend son caractère bureaucratique initial. La dernière partie met en avant les apports de la théorie des OHF aux sciences de gestion et au pilotage des hôpitaux français.

[...]

Malgré sa large diffusion en France et dans le monde, en particulier depuis le début de la crise sanitaire, la pensée complexe (PC) définie par Edgar Morin demeure peu utilisée pour comprendre le fonctionnement des organisations. C’est pourquoi cet article interroge la pertinence de l’utilisation de la PC dans un contexte de forte incertitude, en particulier l’apparition de la pandémie de Covid-19, en France en 2020. Une recherche exploratoire qualitative conduite auprès de quatre hôpitaux montre une adéquation forte entre les pratiques professionnelles et les principes de la PC lors de la première vague du virus, suivie d’une inadéquation flagrante à partir de la deuxième vague. La discussion montre l’intérêt de la PC pour les sciences de gestion, mais également pour les managers à qui elle offre un cadre épistémologique propice à l’appréhension de l’incertitude. L’opérationnalisation de la PC suggère une gestion de crise non plus seulement réalisée à partir de règles préalablement définies, mais enrichie d’une vision constructiviste dans un objectif de transformation positive des organisations hospitalières, traversées de tensions multiples qui dépassent désormais le seul cadre de la crise de la Covid-19.

Purpose To illustrate how threats of institutional duality (ID) incidence subsidiaries confront are converted to opportunities, by conceptualizing how subsidiaries attain operational legitimacy at both their headquarters (HQs) and host countries. Design/methodology/approach Using a systematic literature review, the authors build on institutional theories by analyzing the ID literature along its structure, main processes and outcomes. The authors configure frameworks of both HQ control systems and host countries' institutional threats, showing how subsidiaries contingently navigate across them using configuration, differentiation and avoidance strategies. Findings The authors’ findings show that “foresighted” subsidiaries attain operational legitimacy through configuration, differentiation and avoidance of threats incidental to ID, by strategizing along certain formal and informal institutional variables including legal, sociocultural and technical factors. Originality/value The authors propose “structural configuration of ID incidence” and “subsidiary path to legitimacy” frameworks. The former configures how the interaction between HQ and host countries' variables constitute ID incidence threats. The latter highlights how “foresighted” subsidiaries use configuration, differentiation and avoidance strategies to attain operational legitimacy.

mutations were recognized recently among patients with a Marfan-like phenotype. The associated clinical and prognostic spectra remain unclear. Methods and Results—Clinical features and outcomes of 71 patients with a TGFBR2 mutation (TGFBR2 group) were compared with 50 age-and sex-matched unaffected family members (control subjects) and 243 patients harboring FBN1 mutations (FBN1 group). Aortic dilatation was present in a similar proportion of patients in both the TGFBR2 and FBN1 groups (78% versus 79%, respectively) but was highly variable. The incidence and average age for thoracic aortic surgery (31% versus 27% and 3516 versus 3913 years, respectively) and aortic dissection (14% versus 10% and 3812 versus 399 years) were also similar in the 2 groups. Mitral valve involvement (myxomatous, prolapse, mitral regurgitation) was less frequent in the TGFBR2 than in the FBN1 group (all P0.05). Aortic dilatation, dissection, or sudden death was the index event leading to genetic diagnosis in 65% of families with TGFBR2 mutations, versus 32% with FBN1 mutations (P0.002). The rate of death was greater in TGFBR2 families before diagnosis but similar once the disease had been recognized. Most pregnancies were uneventful (without death or aortic dissection) in both TGFBR2 and FBN1 families (38 of 39 versus 213 of 217; P1). Seven patients (10%) with a TGFBR2 mutation fulfilled international criteria for Marfan syndrome, 3 of whom presented with features specific for Loeys-Dietz syndrome. Conclusions—Clinical outcomes appear similar between treated patients with TGFBR2 mutations and individuals with FBN1 mutations. Prognosis depends on clinical disease expression and treatment rather than simply the presence of a TGFBR2 gene mutation. (Circulation. 2009;120:2541-2549.)

Relationship lending is well known to allow SMEs to obtain credit, however one of the most crucial obstacles for these firms is not obtaining credit but applying for credit in the first place. We explore how relationship lending impacts the demand for credit, i.e., borrower's discouragement. Using a European cross-country survey of more than 2300 firms in 2010, we show that firms that rely on relationship lending to get access to credit refrain from applying in the first place. We show that this result is due to a self-rationing mechanism: riskier firms employing relationship lending tend to be more discouraged. Instead, the use of transactional lending reduces discouragement, and this effect does not depend on firms' risk. Our results suggest that firms employing relationship lending know their own likelihood of rejection better and can decide when not to apply.