Contenu du sommaire : Ficher et mesurer

The prevalence of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has frequently been linked to the development of a rising and more generalised scrutiny of staff, as ICT provides the means to observe and map out an individual's work. And yet, this scrutiny is not automatic. Indeed, the profusion of information can make it difficult to implement a control which is both systematic and widespread. However, the very fact that this type of control is possible may lead staff to feel that they are indeed being monitored ; therefore the reality of an ICT based control does not depend on its effective implementation, but on how it has been perceived by staff.

The relationship between financial advisors from the Post Office and their customers is governed by a segmentation of customers into groups according to managerial assessment systems and via the growing use of IT. The type of control which stems from customer records systems creates an impact on the organisation, the advisors and the customers. In this article we will discover when these customer records appeared, how they operate, but also how, under the guise of procedures, they have played a part in reconfiguring customer relations.

This article is based on the results of a survey carried out in a telecoms company and shows to what extent the desire to collect “customer data” is at the core of important organisational choices, which themselves decide the customer relations rules and protocol. These choices however have negative repercussions on how customer expectations are understood, on the form that customer relations take and on the working practices of sales staff in telecoms shops.

This article sets out to show how an industrial organisation deals with the health of its staff through the application of control procedures that are similar to those used in quality control. In line with a “total quality” approach, the traceability of work-related injuries and ill health contributes to continuous improvement and the delegation of responsibility. In addition, with a “total quality” approach, procedures reduce the freedom of operators to interpret their role and restrict their room for manœuvre, hence ensuring that those who design quality/health standards can guarantee these standards. And should being healthy not also mean having the ability to do something about your environment ?

In a climate where there is a need to both reduce expenditure and increase the number of public policy assessment tools, “general interest” associations have had less and less room to manœuvre in their budgets. With the help of on-the-ground data we have been able to draw attention to how the exploitation of a measure has been developed by the « Fédération des lieux de musiques actuelles » (French Federation of Modern Music Venues), otherwise known as Fédurok, to gain recognition for itself, but also, in a strategic sense, to moderate the increased control arising from new legislative requirements for the quantification of activities.

Is it possible to anticipate a risk of violence long before it can have an impact on women by using a system of vulnerability indicators that highlight conditions of fragility ? The author has taken advantage of research conducted within four European Union countries to suggest two indicators : one focusing on vulnerability at work, the other linked with accommodation type. She also asks us to reflect methodologically on constructing and applying indicators, especially those that will be used to plan and implement social policies.

We examine the past and the present to be able to provide information on the development of sociology in Quebec. We demonstrate how sociology was initially Quebecois, rooted in the ever changing fabric of Quebecois society, before gradually transforming into a specific scientific and university field of study.We are talking about a sociology which is very much involved in the future of Quebecois society, but which has clearly become an academic discipline, less focused on the immediate society and hence undoubtedly less “committed” to the social causes that still define it.