Contenu du sommaire : Les stratégies low-cost

Public organizations implement new organizational forms in order to streamline and become more efficient. Shared services centers are the concretization of this managerial perspective. Their implementation generates tensions which come from the coexistence of worlds with different logics. Our research shows that the implementation of a shared services center follows a sequential process. Each phase of development is related to new tensions that can be overcome thanks to adjustment mechanisms. Our study helps formalizing the shared services centers' evolution process which constitutes for public managers a useful framework to anticipate and manage tensions.

This research aims at exploring the boundaries between the concept of stress and bullying from a legal perspective. Our analysis relies on 59 Court of Cassation decisions. Results show that bullying is not always characterized as such based solely on the stressful characteristics of the situation; therefore, it should be correlated with other factors such as changing working conditions, stress abnormality (according to its intensity and/or duration), health degradation and/or stressful relations. For managers, this research highlights convictions embedded in these ambiguous and confused situations.

Based on a case of employees' psychological contract violations in a consulting firm, we highlight organizational cynicism's ambivalence: though generally considered as a harmful attitude, it seems yet to constitute a lesser evil response to such violations, both for employees and the organization: it offers employees an internalized and riskless response that also enables them to adjust their psychological contract, while it does not prevent them from keeping up with their external role and avoids more violent responses (of exit, voice or neglect).

The aim of this research is to identify the dimensions of employer brand equity (EBE) that influence the attractiveness of low-cost companies. EBE reflects the value of the employer brand as an intangible asset; its perceptual value is multidimensional (value interest, social, economic…). The main question is to know if the levers of Organizational Attractiveness (OA) differ according to the propensity to accept a job in a so-called low-cost company. A survey, carried out with potential job applicants, shows that the willingness to accept a job offer in a low-cost company depends on the attributes applicants are looking for with respect to a potential employer. For those who are willing to accept such a job, OA is essentially related to the interest value (creativity and innovation), whereas those who reject it are looking for a company offering good social relations (social value) and high wages (economic value).

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of price and its variations on customer choice of discount brands over both store and national brands in different macro-economic situations. Using panel data from a soft discount chain, results indicate that high sales prices reduce the choice of discount brands compared to national brands. However, sales prices increase the choice of discount brands in comparison to low-end Private Label Brands (PLBs). We show a negative effect of brand relative sales prices on customer choice of discount brands over both low-end PLBs and national brands. Prices' variation positively affects the choice of discount brands. Furthermore, when the macro-economic situation deteriorates, prices' variation is even more favorable to discount brands.

As social exclusion is increasing and unavoidable expenditure of poor house-hold are rising, low-cost strategies have been praised for their ability to alleviate poverty. This article highlights that such strategies are not fully relevant to alleviate poverty. Indeed, even if they have a positive financial impact on the poorest, they are not easily accessible and they do not strengthen the capabilities of poor people.