| Titre | Gérer en réseau des entreprises de réseau ? | |
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| Auteur | Anne Marchais-Roubelat | |
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Revue | Flux |
| Numéro | no 33, juillet-septembre 1998 | |
| Page | 36-44 | |
| Résumé anglais |
Network operators, or companies which run and manage technical infrastructure to provide services of general utility, are currently in a period of major transition. The question is, are these companies particularly susceptible to being managed like networks? Case studies of this type of management at EDF, the SNCF et the RATP (Électricité de France [electrical power company], Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer [nationalized train system] and Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens [Paris public transport company]) have shown that, depending on whether or not the dimensions of the enterprise were already aligned with a pre- established set of priorities, the network itself may facilitate the functioning or transformation of the organization. Whether the network would be able to expand, or would have to remain purely local, would then depend more on the strategic importance of the company's functions at any given moment than on the inherent characteristics of the company. Moreover, analysis in terms of functionality shows that a radical transformation of the organizational chart, where a network replaces a pyramid-type diagram, may be more effective in controlling the major functions of the enterprise than making incremental adaptations to local imbalances when they are interdependent. In the first case studied, the network was opposed by its shape to a centralized organization, but maintained the same major functions. In the second case, the combined consequences of imbalances produced network effects which brought the very existence of the company itself into question. A policy of dissociating technical infrastructure management from service management could, in the final analysis, bring about more strategic change over the long run than would simply restructuring the organization or its management. Source : Éditeur (via Persée) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/flux_1154-2721_1998_num_14_33_1232 |
