Contenu du sommaire : Urgence et décision

Time, organization and urgency. This article raises the question of time in relation to organizational life. After an historical survey of the time factor in society approach, we analyse certain characteristics of the temporal framework of post-industrial systems and particularly the hegemony of a quantitative conception of time. Next we try to demonstrate the connections between temporality and organizations, these last being considered as the most important "time creator". Thus we broach the question of the temporal differentiation of organizational life, which, in our third section, enables us to introduce some thoughts on the subject of urgency starting from the following hypothesis : urgency is situated as the point where two dimensions of time cross each other (the chronos and the kairos).

The sense of urgency. Acting in urgency is spreading everywhere in business, the economy and society. It derives from a three-fold process of instantaneity, time compression and acceleration at the global level. It is, in fact, a symptom of the loss of a collective sense in our modern societies, which no longer have the capability to represent their future in a significant and coherent manner. In the context of the anxiety thus created, the cult of acting in urgency provides an ersatz of sense, as if speed in solving problems could, of itself, give sense to action. "Disideologizing" urgency is therefore a necessary step, if not for re-discovering sense at least, for recapturing time which is fading away, contrary to the Space we have conquered.

The actor, the group and the institution. The individual and collective dynamics of urgency. This paper proposes a synthetic point of view with regard to dynamic emergency processes. With this end in view, it sets up a confrontation between institutional discourse (the emergency framing) and actor's discourses (the experience of emergency). Then it sets forth that emergency is a dialectic between phenomena of objectivation and phenomena of internalization, but also a redefined communication. There are several data sources -the induced actor's speeches -a bibliographical rereading of analyses of emergency circumstances and an exploitation of institutional documents, as well as a study on a particular sphere of activity, the management of road-traffic.

Emergency in politics. Contradictions between action and political discourse The development of emergency ideology as a management tool is also observable in the political sphere where it is used as a new method of political action, specifically with regard to the current downturn in the business cycle in Europe. It transposes into political discourses placing value on immediate action to the detriment of long term action and by an increasing gap between the discourse -full of promises-and the action which needs time to come to fruition. One can analyse the use of scientific expertise in political discourses as a less-time consuming legitimizing power in the decision process than a real democratic debate.

Telecommunications and generalization of urgency. Telecommunications do not create urgency but they do make possible its extension. It is because real time exists and therefore the possibility of taking action at the last moment, that organizations and individuals can adopt last minute scenarios. By being too focused on the most immediate solicitations both people and structures run the risk of losing all strategic power to the benefit of simple tactics of adaptation to an environment which they no longer control. In this situation, information becomes just noise, speed becomes precipitation and action becomes uncertain. From being voluntary and active, choice becomes reactive, aleatory and improvised and is very likely to be dependent rather than voluntary.

Urgency and lean production in automobile industry. In the case of automated production units in the automobile industry, emergency is generally the result of mechanical failure. Until recently, stocks along the assembly line could be used as a buffer, but with the introduction of just in time (JIT), these stocks have diminished and the organizational impact of mechanical failures can be felt more directly. Empirical studies of automated production units allow valuable insights into how emergency structures process management. Emergency is seen to be linked simultaneously to the "objective" situation (the failure that causes the chain to stop) and to the "subjective" uncertainty that it entails. Emergency is not only considered to be a constraint on action -as it is generally acknowledge -but may equally constitute a resource for some actors.

Normal functioning, critical functioning. High risk industrial situations This article is about the personnel in command in the control rooms for the highly dangerous technical systems of a big industrial group. Questions are posed concerning the relationship between regulation procedures and actual practices. It tends to show that to a certain extent the definition of a situation as urgent makes it possible to simply drop the regulation procedures and facilitates innovation, at the same time increasing the risks of dysfunction. Facing these prescribed working methods we find three actual methods : routine, dysfunction and urgency ; the routine functioning being in fact made up of a more or less skilful appropriation of considerations concerning the prescribed or regulation procedures.

Distress signal, language of control. The position of Perrache (a station and an exchange pole) highlights situations by which various actors, clients or professionals are confronted. The study of management of urgency situations on this work-site leads us to question the nature of these urgencies, and to establish a link between them and different types of crisis. Thus an urgency of exceptional amplitude can generate a so-called crisis situation, where as more everyday emergencies can reveal the critical points in the system. As a matter of fact, urgencies put to the test the weak points in a system in as much as they perturb the normal functioning.

Crises and their management. Typologies and temporalities in the resolution process Beginning with the "collapse of meaning" and "the loss of reference", which characterise a crisis situation, we demonstrate that the distinction between problems with regard to choice, of an identity, strategy and of a profitability, enable crisis situations, with which all human systems of organisation are confronted, to be characterised. By studying the temporality of decision-making linked to these types of problems, with respect to the characteristics of urgent decision-making, it is possible to explain the stakes with regard to the management of the different types of organisational crisis. It is finally possible to demonstrate how models of behaviour and the characteristics of strategic decision-making encourage the occurrence and development of the most serious crises within an organisation, particularly by prohibiting the emergence of a generative learning situation.

Learning from crises. Between status quo and transformation. The article presents the results of research on the role of organizational learning in crisis management. Based on seven case studies of companies having managed crises, we expose a few mechanisms which limit the degree of organizational learning. Our results lead us to conclude the existence of a process of normalization in times of crisis. This process covers several dimensions in the management of a crisis. It indicates that organizations have a limited propensity to learn when they face a crisis and strive to retreat and to reduce the complexity of the event in order to make it psychologically and socially acceptable.

Economy and technoscience (2). Economic dynamics and technical systems The 18th century economic explosion entailed the division of society into different spheres. Technical systems were at the centre of this dynamic movement, but then-evolution obliged society to be permanently displacing its frontiers. Thus the question we pose is that concerning die overdetermination of one sphere by the others.