Contenu du sommaire : Histoire, mémoire et passé au coeur des organisations

This article examines the contents of the narratives provided by Volkswagen's recognised agents on the origins of the company. The German manufacturer has the peculiarity of owing both its beginnings and the basis of its industrial product to Nazism, a political regime universally viewed as abhorrent. How does the company therefore describe its origins ? When the narratives are analysed for their changing vocabulary, iconography and contents, the way in which they have been used to manage prevailing internal and external issues clearly illustrates the power play being enacted in the company at any given time.

The New School for Social Research is a private university situated in the Manhattan area of New York. It is generally described in the documents issued by the school and by those who know its reputation, as an atypical institution whose raisons d'être include the defense of democracy and of intellectual and political freedom.Based on archival sources and interviews with past and present members the school, this article examines the role of history, seen as continually reconstructed, in the creation and perpetuation of the rather idealistic institutional image.

This article addresses a fundamental question that gay and lesbian activists have to face when they are confronted to the issue of building a commemorative monument concerning the gender of the commemorated persons. The analysis developed in this article is based on a case study : the monument built in memory of the homosexual victims of Nazism in Berlin. Focusing on the factors that led to the construction of this monument and on the symbolic struggles that accompanied such a construction, the article shows that the ignorance of the identity comprised by the term “we” leads to a form of male domination within collective structures considered to be gendered-mixed. The analyzed examples, which intend to demonstrate the previous idea, refer specifically to the genesis of commemorative projects such as the Homomonument in Amsterdam. The aim of this paper is thus to show that ignoring such a question involves the denying of gender inequalities, especially in as far as we admit that monuments are built to serve the future and not only the past.

This article draws on the findings of an investigation carried out in the US and France into the retail giants, Walmart and Carrefour, with the aim of exploring the issues that permeate the construction and adoption of an organisation's collective memory. It revisits the two phases that have characterised the development of superstores since their emergence in the middle of the 20th century. The first period is characterised by a managerial appropriation of the past whereas the second period is characterised by the gradual appearance of a protest memory embraced by employees grappling with the restructuring of their workplace.

The practices that Crédit Mutuel has acquired from the time it was created reflect a two-sided learning process : goal-oriented (transmission of knowledge) and integrated. Throughout the organisation's existence, Crédit Mutuel's management teams have had to espouse cooperative values to ensure that the bank's unique foothold in its sector is preserved. From the point of view of employees, this origins-based value system operates effectively, but favours bank officers who show a willingness to “serve the little people”. Ultimately, the links to the past have provided Crédit Mutuel with the means for steering its organisational development. However, there is also an expectation, and this has caused tension, that workers will follow financial edicts while remaining true to the bank's founding principles.

This article discusses certain findings from a comparative study examining the construction of a professional ethos via memory-based practice. By focusing on the way memories are called into action within three work collectives, the authors show how identities are created when they draw upon various discursive regimes. Three types of narrative are revealed : the anecdote, the experiential narrative and the “illustrious story”. Although these narratives rely on the memories of individuals and are shared amongst groups, they each explicitly contribute to the construction of the meaning of work.